Friedrich Ludwig (1895-1970) was a German expressionist* painter. He was born the ninth of seventeen children of a farming family in Wieslet, in the Black Forest region of Southern Germany. After attending elementary school and taking artistic instruction, he worked from 1913 to 1917 as a decorator in Zurich, Switzerland. Although he identified politically as a pacifist, he presented himself unwillingly in 1917 to the German military service.

In 1920 Ludwig affiliated himself with the "Badenweiler Circle", a group of people including Thomas Mann, Emil Bizer, Annette Kolg, Alfred Krupp among others. He traveled to Italy in 1922 and came into contact with the work of Piero della Francesca, whose work impressed him lastingly. Motivated ...