August Macke was born on January 3, 1887 in Meschede in the Ruhr, some fifty miles from Cologne, Germany. He was the son of a building contractor who sketched and collected but hadn't the knack of holding on to money. Macke did poorly in school; painting possessed him, he let everything else slide. That included art-school curricula; but his training did include a period of studying with Lovis Corinth.

Between 1907 and 1912 he visited Paris several times and found himself at home with the ways of painting then in vogue there, particularly Fauvism. He learned what he needed from artists like Cézanne, Whistler, Monet and Matisse.
Macke came closer in spirit to French art than any other German painter of the time. He allied himself...