Adolf Schill, often also Adolph Schill (14 May 1848 – 10 November 1911), was a German architect, interior designer, artisan, illustrator and painter of the historism. As a university lecturer he worked at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf between 1880 and 1911, thus helping to shape the later phase of the Düsseldorf school of painting. Students of sculpture also studied with him.
Life
Born in Stuttgart, Schill attended the State Academy of Fine Arts Stuttgart from 1864 to 1870, where he was introduced by the eclectic Christian Friedrich von Leins was taught architecture and Adolf Gnauth in stylistics. From 1870 to 1874, he deepened his knowledge of architecture while building the Vienna Ringtheater under Emil von Förster. He then embarked on a two-year Grand Tour to Italy, which had a lasting impact on his sense of beauty. He later travelled to Italy again several times. Between 1876 and 1880, Schill – as successor to – edited the journal Gewerbehalle, the "organ for progress in all branches of the art industry" published by the Stuttgart . In 1880 Schill, succeeding , who had died suddenly in 1879 – became professor of decoration and ornamentation at the Düsseldorf Art Academy; he held this position until the end of his life in 1911. As head of a so-called "decoration" or "architecture" class, he taught many students basic knowledge of style and architecture, which was indispensable for the execution of monumental murals. He compiled a Collection of Gypsabgüsse aus kunstgewerblichen und dekorativen Mustern for teaching purposes. Schill's watercolour paintings, which he produced after travel studies, had a great influence on his students. Like many other players in Düsseldorf's art scene, Schill was a member of the Malkasten. In Düsseldorf's public life, Schill appeared as a judge in competitions for the erection of monuments, such as the .
In 1882, Schill married in the Trinitatiskirche in Elberfeld Emmy Simons (30 August 1858 in Elberfeld), a niece of the architect Walter Kyllmann, who bore him the children Lisbeth, Adolf, Addy and . In 1889, Schill lived with his family at Blumenstraße 12, at that time a street in a Gründerzeit new building district Düsseldorf. In January 1912, Schill was honoured by a memorial exhibition at the . The commemorative speech was given by Heinrich Kraeger.
Work
As a painter, Schill was known at the end of the 19th century, alongside Adolf Seel, above all for watercolours depicting "architectural pieces", particularly rendering architectural impressions from Italy. In the field of arts and crafts, he created illustrations as well as so-called ornamental pieces and vignettes as book decorations from the 1870s onwards. After a study trip to Belgium in 1870, he published the travel sketches he made there with architectural motifs. In 1891, Schill was called in to design the Peace Hall in the Osnabrück Town Hall.
As an architect, Schill accepted various private commissions. A special opportunity for him to realise his architectural ideas came at the end of the 19th century when he was commissioned by the banker and city councillor Moritz Leiffmann (1853–1921) for the construction of the upper-class Villa Leiffmann in the Düsseldorf district of Golzheim. Schill designed an eclectici building with a [double-tower façade that was reminiscent of a villa of Italian Renaissance. In Düsseldorf, the painter Georg Oeder also consulted him for the interior decoration of his Wohnhaus am Hofgarten. Until the 1890s, Schill – together with Peter Janssen – developed the decorative furnishings for the assembly hall of the New Academy of Arts in Düsseldorf, which was completed in 1879. The widely acclaimed Gesamtkunstwerk was shown to interested strangers for a fee in the late 1890s. In the course of his "academy reform" around 1930, academy director had the historical furnishings of the auditorium removed except for Janssen's paintings and had the walls decorated in gold, a measure criticised by Paul Clemen in 1944 as unjustified.