Joseph Fassbender biography

Joseph Fassbender was a German painter and draftsman. He was born in Cologne in 1903. He studied painting at the Kölner Werkschulen under the direction of Richard Seewald . During the Second World War he was forced to work as a Wehrmacht cartographer, while from 1946 he ran a graphics studio in Bornheim near Bonn.
In 1947 Joseph Fassbender founded in Schloss Alfter near Bornheim, together with Hann Trier , Hubert Berke and other artists and writers, the Donnerstagsgesellschaft to revive and promote modern painting in the Rhineland.
In 1955, 1959 and 1964 the painter took part in the Documenta I e III in Kassel.
In 1958 Joseph Fassbender obtained the chair of painting and drawing at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf.
During his career he received numerous prizes and recognitions among including the Villa Romana Prize in 1929, the Großer Kunstpreis der Stadt Köln in 1955, the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1964 and the Prize for Graphics at the Venice Biennale in 1964.
Joseph Fassbender died in Cologne in 1974.