Otto Frölicher

Who was Otto Frölicher?

Otto Vikto Fröhlicher, also Fröhlicher or Froehlicher, was a Swiss landscape painter and important German-Swiss figure in the Düsseldorf school of painting. Biography

A Portrait of Otto Fröhlicher by Hans Thoma.

Fröhlicher grew up in a bourgeois background in the towns Soluthurn and Olten. His Father Josef Fröhlicher was a high ranking civil servant in local government from 1849-1856. Otto showed his talent for painting at an early age. He went to The Academy of Fine Arts, Munich in October 1859 to study landscape painting under Johann Gottfried Steffan. He transferred to Düsseldorf in 1863 and stayed until 1865 and became acquainted with atmospheric perspective paintings of Oswald Achenbach. He returned to Munich again in 1868 after his attempt to earn a living in his home town of Solothurn failed.

It was there that he discovered Adolf Heinrich Liers’ landscape school. He followed Liers’ advice and left for Paris in the Autum of 1876 but, being unable to adjust to life in the city, returned to Munich in 1877 where he finally took up residence.It was also here that he took up teaching – particularly Swiss artists like Hermann Hunziker and Otto Gampert.