Hans Burgkmair the Elder was born in Augsburg, the son of painter Thomas Burgkmair and his son, Hans the Younger, has become one too.
From 1488, he was a pupil of Martin Schongauer in Colmar, who died during his two years there, before Burgkmair completed the normal period of training.
He may have visited Italy at this time, and certainly did so in 1507, which greatly influenced his style.
From 1491, he was working in Augsburg, where he became a master and opened his own workshop in 1498.
He is an important innovator of the chiaroscuro woodcut, and seems to have been the first to use a tone block, in a print of 1508.
Burgkmair, an accomplished fresco painter, also pioneers, with Jost de Negker, the development of woodcut chiaroscuro, which creates contrasts of light and shade by using two or more blocks inked with different tones.
His Lovers Surprised by Death (1510) is the first chiaroscuro print to use three blocks, and also the first print that is designed to be printed only in color, as the line block by itself would not make a satisfactory image.
Other chiaroscuro prints from around this date by Baldung and Cranach have line blocks that could be and are printed by themselves.
Hollstein ascribes eight hundred and thirty-four woodcuts to him, mostly for book illustrations, with slightly over a hundred being "single-leaf", that is prints not for books.
The best of them show a talent for striking compositions, and a blend, not always fully successful, of Italian Renaissance forms and underlying German style.
