Hans Memling

Hans Memling

Hans Memling was a German painter who lived from 1430 to 1494.  As an aspiring artist, Memling moved to Cologne for his first workshop before moving to to Flanders (modern day Belgium) and training in Rogier van der Weyden’s workshop.

By 1465, Memling was living and working in Bruges and had become a master of the Early Netherlandish painting style.  Memling adapted his own style to the traditional Early Netherlandish painting genre.  His work had an overall softer appearance, and his figures were slender and graceful. Memling’s portraits, though stylistic, are thought to be more realistic in their likeness to the patrons that bought them.

Memling was one of the leading artists of his day, completing many commissioned portraits as well as religious art. His work was very popular where he lived in the lowlands of Europe but was also appreciated as far south as Italy (the famous and quite prosperous Medici family from Florence bought some of his art), and out west in London, England.  Art historians had once thought that Memling was killed in battle during the hostilities between Austria and France in 1480.  However, recent evidence has proved this untrue.  Hans Memling died in Bruges in 1494 after accumulating a large amount of property and building a large family.

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