writer, an important representative of naturalism in German. Gerhart Hauptmann was born in Obersalzbrun (now Poland), to a hotel owner's family. He attended a village school and a real school in Breslau, from April 1878 he began to study agriculture at the Lohnig estate, and later in Lederos (Silesia). At the age of 18 he began to attend a sculpture class at the Royal School of Arts and Crafts in Breslau.
After brief studies of sculpture in Breslau and Jena, he began his first literary attempts. He was encouraged to write by lectures by Ernst Haeckel and Rudolf Eucken, who visited Jena. Hauptmann traveled extensively, including Spain, Switzerland and Italy. His career as a sculptor in Rome collapsed in 1883-4. In 1885 After marrying the wealthy Marie Thienemann (1860–1914), one of five daughters of the Dresden merchant Berthold Thienemann, Hauptmann's financial problems disappeared. From then on, he was able to work as a freelance writer. Hauptmann moved with his wife to Berlin, where he came into contact with many modernist artists, such as Arno Holz.
Artistic career His early works in various genres made intensive use of naturalism, such as the short story Bahnwärter Thiel, and the plays Vor Sonnenaufgang ("Before Dawn") and Die Weber ("The Weavers"). His first play, Vor Sonnenaufgang (1889), is considered one of the major works of naturalism; it depicts the moral decline of a peasant family when they suddenly become rich because coal is discovered on their land. With this work, he became instantly famous, as the production of the play caused one of the biggest scandals in German theatrical history. Later, he gradually moved away from naturalism, and romantic elements appeared in his work.
After the collapse of his first marriage, in 1904 he married for the second time. His second wife was the actress Margarete Marschalk (1875–1957), the younger sister of his friend the composer Max Marschalk, who composed music for some of Hauptmann's dramas. Hauptmann had been in love with her since 1893 and from 1900, while still married to Marie Thienemann, he had a son, Benvenuto, with Margarete Marschalk. In 1900, he began building the "Haus Wiesenstein" in Agnetendorf for his second wife. In the tragicomedy Die Ratten (The Rats), the drama Rose Bernd and the comedy Der Biberpelz (The Beaver Fur), he returned to social criticism. In 1912 Hauptmann became the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, despite the fact that Nobel's will had specified that the prize should only be awarded to idealistic works.
