Heinrich Aldegrever

Little more is known about Heinrich Aldegrever’s biography than where he was born and where he worked. Born in Paderborn in 1502, he probably went to neighbouring Soest for his education. On his journeyman’s journey he must have come into contact with Dutch art – for example with Joos van Cleve and Jan Gossart -; he was influenced by Albrecht Dürer just as much as by Dutch art, as is shown not least by his Dürer-oriented monogram. Whether he was apprenticed to the Nuremberg artist, however, is still disputed today.
Around 1526/27 Aldegrever was back in Soest – at this time he painted his main work, the altar of the Virgin Mary in the Wiesenkirche. Aldegrever’s artistic development was strongly influenced by the events of the Reformation, as whose supporters he identified himself in his work. He increasingly turned to the art of copper engraving, which he enriched with the invention of detailed, vivid pictorial narratives. His mostly small-format works deal with religious as well as ancient and profane themes; he also captures important personalities of his homeland in portrait. They bear witness to the social upheavals at the transition from Renaissance to Mannerism; dated copperplate engravings by Aldegrever are known up to the year 1555, after which he must have died.