Adolf Lins (German, 1856-1927)

Lins studied at the Academy of Arts in Kassel, spending 1874 in Willingshausen in der Schwalm to study, on the advice of his teacher. Friendship with Düsseldorf artists including Heinrich Sondermann, Hugo Mühlig and Hans Richard von Volkmann induced Lins to move to Düsseldorf in 1877 where he settled in the premises of the G. Paffrath joinery and art shipment house, initially working with F. Brütt.

Drawings and studies resulted from numerous further stays in Willingshausen and, after 1908, close by in Roillshausen as well as on the Lower Rhine. Lins exhibited his scenes of children and the many village scenes and landscapes peopled with decorative figures from 1877 onwards, primarily in Berlin, Dresden, Düsseldorf, Munich and Vienna.

From the 1880's onwards he preferred to paint streams and meadow landscapes, dotted with cows and sheep but especially with chickens, ducks and geese, leading to his sobriquet of Geese Lins. Works around 1885/90 are evidence of the artist staying with the painter's colony at Dachau. His oeuvre also included portraits of his painter colleagues from Düsseldorf. From the 1890's onwards Lins increasingly concentrated on landscapes, his painting style becoming ever more characterized by an impressive, almost hard brushstroke.

Adolf Lins first studied at the art school in his hometown of Kassel, Germany. On the recommendation of his teachers, in the summer of 1874 he visited the idyllically situated Willinghausen painters' colony in the Schwalm, which had become somewhat famous thanks to Ludwig Knaus, and returned there again and again in the years that followed. In 1877, he moved to Düsseldorf, where he worked in Ferdinand Brütt's studio and belonged to the "Malkasten" art association.

In his mature years, Lins mainly painted village views and landscapes. These were often populated with all kinds of poultry such as chickens, ducks and above all geese, which earned it the nickname "Geese-Lins".

Adolf Lins was born 1856 in Kassel, Germany. He began his education at the Kunstschule Kassel and studied from 1877 on art at the Düsseldorf Academy under Ferdinand Brütt. In 1874 Lins came in contact with Europe's oldest art colony Willinghausen for the first time, and remained there some time again and again. In 1908, he returned to his hometown, where the romantic nature became his favorite motif. Due to his frequent depiction of ducks and geese Adolf Lins is also referred to as 'Gänselins'.

Works by Lins can be found in collections of the Kunstmuseum Dusseldorf and at the Neue Galerie in Kassel.