Wilhelm von Debschitz

• Name — Wilhelm von Debschitz • Birth Name — Wilhelm Siegfried Kurt von Debschitz • Born — 21 February 1871 • Birthplace — Görlitz, German Empire • Died — 10 March 1948 • Place of death — Lüneburg, Allied-occupied Germany • Field — Painting, interior design, crafts, teaching • Spouse — Wanda von Kunowski (1898–1924) Hedwig Naumann (1924–1948)

He was born on 21 February 1871 in Görlitz, Germany to a family from the nobility of Upper Lusatia; his parents were the Prussian lieutenant general Kolmar von Debschitz (1809–1878) and Pauline von der Borne (1830–1912). He initially sought to follow in his father's footsteps by pursuing a military career as a Prussian officer cadet, but abandoned this and went to live in Munich from 1891. He elected instead to follow an artistic career, inspired by the drawings of Heinrich Knirr and an unknown painter, probably Heinrich Nauen. In 1898 he married Wanda von Kunowski, who was to become a prominent portrait photographer. They had three children between 1899–1903. He exhibited his works in 1899 at the Bayerischer Kunstgewerbe-Verein and in 1901 at Munich's inaugural Ausstellung für Kunst im Handwerk.

Poor health forced Debschitz to step away from managing the school in 1910–11 and 1913. He joined the Deutscher Werkbund, a German association of artists, architects, designers, and industrialists, in 1912. He handed over management of the school permanently in July 1914, leaving it in the hands of a consortium comprising Emil Preetorius (artist), Paul Renner (a former pupil at the school) and Hans Cornelius. From 1914 to 1921 he worked as the director of Hanover's Kunstgewerbeschule- und Handwerkerschule. He was a co-founder of the Kestnergesellschaft there. In 1922 he moved to the Black Forest town of Bernau im Schwarzwald, where he focused on textile design and the chipboard industry. Two years later his marriage with von Kunowski broke up and they were divorced in July 1924; later that year he married Hedwig Naumann in Lüneburg, Lower Saxony. Illness in the last few years of his life led him to live at Lüne Abbey in Lüneburg, where he died in 1948.