Herma Körding’s Kulmbach in Winter (1958) captures the peaceful silence of a snow-blanketed town. The bare trees and shuttered windows are rendered with a naive clarity, yet the composition resists austerity, inviting the viewer for a serene, contemplative moment. Free from nostalgia or decorative charm of the season, the scene instead captures the charm of winter’s stillness; a time for reflection, gathering indoors and pause.

Herma Körding
Herma Körding (1927–2010) was a German painter and draftsman known for her expressive portraits and structured still lifes, rooted in traditional techniques yet marked by personal vision. Trained in Karlsruhe, Paris, and Düsseldorf, she studied under artists such as Wilhelm Schnarrenberger and Jean Dupas, developing a figurative style that resisted the abstraction dominating postwar art. Körding worked primarily in oil and drawing media, focusing on quiet domestic subjects—often everyday people and natural objects—rendered with clarity, pattern, and emotional depth. In 1963, she became the first woman to win the Pfalz Prize for Painting, and in 1972 was awarded the Croix de Chevalier pour l’Art et Humanisme in Lyon. An advocate for women artists, she was the only woman on the board of Düsseldorf’s Künstlerverein Malkasten for many years and led efforts to expand exhibition opportunities for female creators. Her legacy as a dedicated figurative artist and cultural contributor in Düsseldorf continues to be celebrated through exhibitions and public honors.