Anna Peters

Anna Peters - Born with a talent for painting

Anna Peters was born in Mannheim on 28th February 1843. As the daughter of Pieter Francis Peters, a landscape painter and art dealer from the Netherlands, she came into contact with the visual arts at a very early age, and together with her two younger sisters, Pietronella and Ida, received her first basic painting lessons from her father. Another important teacher was her uncle Christian Mali, an animal painter of the Munich School, who had also previously been apprenticed to Anna's father and became an important mentor for his niece throughout her life, with whom she remained in close artistic contact. Christian Mali and his close artist friend, the animal and landscape painter Anton Braith, also accompanied the Peters family several times during their summer holidays at Köngen Castle. Between 1894 and 1904, the country castle, located south-east of Stuttgart, served the family of painters as a place of refuge and inspiration, and was where Anna Peters found inspiration for many landscape and flower paintings.

Early Realism was followed by an impressionist style

In addition to her summer stays at Schloss Köngen, Anna Peters also travelled extensively, including to the Thuringian Forest, the Black Forest and Lake Constance, as well as to Switzerland, Italy and the Netherlands. She also accompanied her uncle Christian Mali and Anton Braith on their excursions to South Tyrol, and created oil paintings, watercolours and drawings. Her artistic focus on flowers and plants was in the tradition of Dutch flower painting, although she also often painted landscapes and still lifes. She only occasionally tried her hand at portraits of children because she did not want to compete with her sister Pietronella Peters, who had specialised in this genre. The artist was limited in her choice of subjects, however, as contemporary opinion held that religious, mythological and historical scenes should be reserved exclusively for male painters. While Peters had cultivated a strictly realistic painting style in her early work, she later developed more and more in the direction of Impressionism.

Extremely enterprising and politically committed

Anna Peters was also well versed in economic matters, managing the painter's family business by the age of 26 and cultivating good trade relations in several cities. The successful marketing of her paintings enabled her to earn a living from her art: During her lifetime, she received an average of between 300 and 400 marks for a painting - a considerable sum at that time, which even rose to 800 marks for the painting Autumn Flowers. Peters was an advocate for her female guild members and showed great commitment to professional politics; she was a co-founder of the Württemberg Women Painters' Association and organised a support fund for women who wished to pursue the painting profession. Anna Peters received awards for her art, such as the Golden Medal for Art and Science of the Kingdom of Württemberg in 1918. The artist spent her last years from 1912 onwards together with her sisters in her house in Stuttgart-Sonnenberg.

Anna Peters died in Stuttgart on 26th June 1926. The Anna-Peters-Straße in Stuttgart stands in remembrance of the artist.