Albrecht Dürer Biography

Germany’s Albrecht Dürer is considered to be one of the great artists of the Northern European Renaissance, known especially for his illustrations.

Trained in his father’s goldsmith shop and apprenticed to one of Nuremberg’s best illustrators, Dürer exhibited an early gift for drawing and engraving.

Influenced in style and approach by trips to Venice and Italy (in 1494 and again in 1505), Dürer produced internationally famous works by the time he was 30 years old. He drew just about everything, and with extraordinary skill.

He produced hundreds of paintings, thousands of drawings, nearly 400 woodcuts and more than 100 engravings and etchings. Dürer portrayed everyday objects, broad religious themes, his family and himself, and all of his work was characterized by a mastery of composition and detail.

After 1512 Dürer had official duties under Emperor Maximilian I and his successor, Charles V, and was known to have associated with luminaries such as Erasmus, Martin Luther and Raphael.

Some of Dürer’s most famous works include his Apocalypse series of woodcuts (1498), the paintings Feast of the Rose Garlands (1506) and The Martyrdom of the Ten Thousand (1508) and his written work on geometry and art theory, Treatise on Measurement (1525).