Painter
She was born in Wroclaw into a wealthy merchant family; her father, Adolf Staats, was a merchant and a city councilor. In 1856, he built a villa with a large garden (on a plot of about 10,000 m²) on what were then the far southern outskirts of Wroclaw, at what later became Powstańców Śląskich Street (Kaiser-Wilhelm Strasse 23). She had four sisters. Gertrud Staats lived in this house for her entire life.
During her school years, she studied drawing with Hermann Bayer (1829–1893) and took private lessons with the painter Fahlbusch. She began learning painting in 1878 (?), taking private lessons with Adolf Dressler (1822–1881). From 1879 to 1881, she studied in Dressler’s Master Studio for Landscape Painting (Meisteratelier für Landschaftsmalerei), which operated at the Silesian Museum of Fine Arts (Schlesisches Museum der Bildenden Künste) in Wroclaw. She accompanied Dressler on plein air study trips to the Karkonosze Mountains, where they stayed in Przesieka. In 1881, she made her exhibition debut in Wroclaw and Berlin. After Dressler’s death in 1882, she moved to Berlin to continue her studies at the Royal Academy of Art (Königliche Kunstakademie). She also took private lessons with Hans Frederik Gude (1825–1903) and, in 1883, worked for a month under the guidance of Franz Skarbina (1849–1910). From 1883 to 1884, she studied in the Wroclaw Master Studio for Landscape Painting under Dressler’s successor, Carl Coven Schirm (1852–1928).
In 1890, Gertrud Staats’s father built a large painting studio for her in the garden of their family home. The studio became a hub for artists and intellectuals.
Until 1913, she traveled extensively, painting landscapes across Germany and Austria. Beginning in 1883, she frequently visited Bavaria (Ramsau, Garmisch, Ammersee, Chiemsee) and Tyrol. She maintained connections with the Neu-Dachau landscape school and its founders, Adolf Hölzel (1853–1934) and Ludwig Dill (1848–1940). She also undertook study trips to the Baltic Sea (Rügen, Samland, Pomerania), as well as to Altmark, Mecklenburg, Holstein, Spreewald, and Thuringia.
Her favorite and most frequent painting locations were in Silesia, particularly the Karkonosze Mountains. Between 1883 and 1889, she visited the region annually, especially Przesieka (as well as Janowice, Szklarska Poręba, and Karpacz). She returned to the Karkonosze in 1892, 1894, 1897, 1899, 1901, 1903, and 1910–1912. She also painted landscapes near Wroclaw (Szczytniki, Oborniki Śląskie, Skarszyn, Szczodre, Brzeg Dolny), Wałbrzych, the Owl Mountains (Książ, Zagórze Śląskie, Pieszyce), and around Kłodzko (Gorzanów).
From 1902, she was a member of the Association of Silesian Women Artists (Vereinigung Schlesischer Künstlerinnen), which she co-founded and chaired until 1906. This association included independent female artists born or living in Silesia who had exhibited at least three times at major exhibitions in Munich, Dresden, Berlin, or Vienna.
After World War I, her travels became limited due to financial difficulties. She increasingly focused on still lifes and flowers, rarely painting landscapes.
Initially, her style reflected Dressler’s influence, featuring atmospheric landscapes aligned with Romantic Realism. Over time, her work showed influences of Impressionism, Art Nouveau, and Expressionism, shaped by her connections with Neu-Dachau school founders Adolf Hölzel (1853-1934, with whom she met up with in 1889, 1900 and 1908 and Ludwik Dill (1848-1940), with whom she met up with in 1900.
In February 1939 in Wroclaw, after the artist’s death, the Silesian Museum of Fine Arts in Wroclaw commemorated her 80th birthday with the exhibition Silesian Landscape Art of 30 Years Ago, showcasing 47 of her paintings and 54 sketches, (mainly oils on canvas). The exhibition also showed paintings by Eugen Burkert (1866-1922) and Robert Sliwinski (1840-1902), who were also students of Adolf Dressler.
Much of what is known about her life and personality comes from the memories of her niece, Hertha Gerlinger-Brandes, who owns about 25 of her paintings. Gertrud Staats was highly talented and pursued private art studies at a time when women were excluded from most higher education institutions. Her studies and travels were financed by her father. Some trips were undertaken with her older sister, Marta, who, like Gertrud, remained unmarried throughout her life.
After World War I and their father’s death, three sisters - Gertrud, Marta, and their widowed younger sister Eliza Goerlitz (grandmother of Hertha Gerlinger-Brandeis) lived together in the family home. Inflation limited women's financial opportunities, forced the artist to stop travelling artistically. Women made a living from renting two apartments on the ground floor of a villa and two ateliers (in the annex on the side of the garden there were 3 ateliers, two large ones on the ground floor and one on the ground floor) and selling Gertrud Staats paintings. They lived in a 4-room apartment on the first floor of the family home. The sisters lived in friendship, sharing responsibilities fairly among themselves.
Staats was of medium height, slender, and dressed in the fashion of the late 19th century, often wearing a long, dark, pleated skirt and a fitted jacket with a white blouse adorned with a brooch. She remained energetic, patient, and resilient in the face of hardships, including financial struggles and illness.
She died on June 21, 1938, in Wroclaw from breast cancer.
Her paintings and drawings are preserved in collections at the National Museums in Warsaw and Wroclaw, the Karkonosze Museum in Jelenia Góra, the Household Goods Museum in Ziębice, and in private collections.