Uhde, Fritz von

Uhde, Fritz von (b Wolkenburg, Saxony, 22 May 1848; d Munich, 25 Feb. 1911).
German painter, active mainly in Munich, where he was a founder member of the Sezession in 1892. He did not settle on art as a career until 1877, after spending ten years as an army officer. His work included landscapes, portraits, and genre scenes, but he is best known for his novel treatment of biblical subjects in modern settings. The first of these was Suffer the Little Children to Come unto Me (1884, Mus. der Bildenden Künste, Leipzig), showing Jesus as an itinerant preacher at a village school. Such paintings aroused great controversy, as they were regarded by conservative critics as sacrilegious, but their sincerity and sentiment also won them many admirers. Often Uhde used outdoor settings, in line with his interest in plein-air painting, in which he was encouraged by Liebermann.