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 Auguste Macke (January 3, 1887 - September 26, 1914)
Auguste Macke was lucky enough to enjoy financial security, and was always free to study and travel. he also gained the patronage of his wife's uncle, Bernhard Koehler, in return for advising him on his art collection.
Macke first saw Impressionist paintings in Paris in 1907. Then, in Munich in 1909, he met Kandinsky and Marc, co-founders of teh Expressionist group Der Blaue Reiter (Blue Rider) and worked with them to prepare the almanac for their first exhibition. Within a few years, through frequent travel and personal contacts, Macke had encountered every major modern art movement: the French Fauves (including Matisse), the Cubism of Picasso and Braque, and the Italian Futurists. He was particularly sympathetic to the colour harmonies of the Orphic Cubist Delaunay.
Macke took an independent line with the art of his time. His interests were figurative never mystical, using bright colour in broad outlined areas, and sometimes against a multicoloured mosaic in the style of Delaunay.
On Easter Monday, 1914, Klee and Macke arrived in the Tunisian village of Sidi Bou Said. Macke sketched the outside of the cafe before they hurried on elsewhere. Six months later he was killed in action. His friend Marc - who would meet the same fate two years one - wrote this epitaph: 'We painters know... he gave a brighter and purer sound to colour than any of us; he gave it the clarity and brightness of this whole being.'
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