Michael Wolgemut

1434 – 1519

German painter and woodcut designer, active in his native Nuremberg. In 1472 he married the widow of Hans Pleydenwurff and took over his workshop, the most prosperous in the city. It produced numerous large altarpieces in which there is little sign of a distinctive individual personality, and Wolgemut is more important for his book illustrations. Amongst many other books he illustrated was Hartman Schedel's Weltchronik (1493), the most enterprising attempt of its time at combining letterpress with woodcut illustration. Hitherto woodcuts had often been embellished by illumination, but Wolgemut tried to refine the technique of woodcut so that it could achieve its own proper effects without hand painting. His pupils included Dürer.

View all works →