Ludwig Emil Grimm

This article does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (December 2009)

Ludwig Emil Grimm (March 14, 1790 – 4 April 1863) was a painter and engraver.

He was born in Hanau, the younger brother of Brothers Grimm: Jacob and Wilhelm, who took care of him after their parents died in 1798 and supported his education. He went to Munich where he met with the engraver Karl Hess, and learned how to use the etching needle. Ludwig spent most of his life in Kassel, except for a brief military service during The Wars of Liberation against Napoleon in 1814. He studied at the Munich Academy from 1809 to 1815/6 and he then travelled to Italy for two and a half months. At the beginning of 1818 he worked in Munich, where he felt at home. He was one of the founders of Willingshauser painter colony. In 1832 he procured a professorship at the local art school and married Marie Böttner after a three-year long engagement. He earned a modest income, but enough to support them for some family excursions across Germany, mostly to visit friends and family. He died in Kassel in 1863.

Ludwig Emil Grimm wanted to be a graphic artist from the beginning of his studies. His subject was things he interpreted from nature, and he was not interested in making prints after the old masters. Ad naturam or ad vivam is inscribed in almost every plate of his. He made portrait drawings and etchings of many romantic poets and their friends, which became his most widespread legacy.