The artistic discovery of Lake Chiemsee began at the end of the 18th century, when Johann Georg von Dillis (1759-1841) created the first views of Lake Chiemsee in 1792. The Frauenchiemsee artists’ colony, founded in 1828, is one of the oldest artists’ colonies in Europe alongside Barbizon. The artists’ colony experienced a further heyday in the years between 1880 and 1914 with the “island kings” Karl Raupp (1837-1918) and Josef Wopfner (1843-1927). Their pictures of the lake and the Chiemsee fishermen made the “Bavarian Sea”, as the Chiemsee is also known, famous throughout Europe. Not to be forgotten are the artists Emma Haushofer-Merk (1854-1925) and Carry Brachvogel (1864-1942), who together founded Bavaria’s first association of women writers, which the author Eva Gräfin von Baudissin (1869-1943) also joined. Marie Haushofer (1871- 1940) created an artistic monument to the Fraueninsel as a painter and poet.
From 1872, the “Bären und Löwen” (Bears and Lions) summer holiday group met in Prien, whose leading member was the genre painter Hugo Kauffmann (1844-1915). He discovered the picturesque village on Lake Chiemsee as an ideal place for artists to live and work. He praised the beauty of the landscape and the easy accessibility of the city of Munich and settled on a spacious country estate there. Many artists followed him, and so Prien am Chiemsee became an important subsidiary colony of Frauenchiemsee.
While the painters of the 19th century were still summer holidaymakers from the cities, artists began to settle by the lake around 1900. Artists’ villas were built, farmhouses and fishermen’s estates were converted into studios and developed into new centres for artists. The Frauenwörther group (1920-1960) gathered on the Fraueninsel. Almost at the same time, the Welle group (1921-1934) was formed in Prien. Exhibitions were now held on the island and in Prien for the first time. The art landscape of Lake Chiemsee can build on this rich history right up to the present day. Above all, it stands in the obligatory tradition of the first free art exhibition in Bavaria after the Second World War, which was shown in Prien in August 1945. Numerous artists, who no longer had any exhibition opportunities during the National Socialist era, came together there and initiated a highly acclaimed exhibition under the simplest of conditions. The municipality of Prien and the Kulturförderverein Prien am Chiemsee, both members of euroart, are committed to this tradition and promote contemporary art, which still characterises the lively and high-quality artistic landscape of Lake Chiemsee today.