Cernay-la-Ville

Cernay-la-Ville is situated at about 45 km south-west of Paris and about 20 km south of Versailles in the Chevreuse Valley area.

The village of about 1600 inhabitants lies between the Rambouillet forest on the north and farmland on the south.

This unique and very picturesque setting has attracted many artists as early as the beginning of the 19^thcentury.

Grötzingen

The history of the Grötzingen artists’ colony began in 1889 with the purchase of a summer house by Friedrich Kallmorgen. A short time later animal painter Otto Fikentscher bought the Augustenburg, a castle formerly belonging to the margraves of Baden, and took up residence there with his wife Jenny. Other Karlsruhe painters – Gustav Kampmann, Franz Hein and Karl Biese – soon joined them with their families. The Grötzingen painters maintained artistic ties to nearby Karlsruhe, at that time the residence of the rulers of Baden, and were among the founding members of the Karlsruher Künstlerbund (Association of Karlsruhe Artists), a secessionist group founded in 1896.