(b Tilsit, 5 April 1845; d Berlin, 24 July 1914). German painter. He studied at the Berlin Akademie der Künste from 1862 to 1864, and he continued his training under Karl Müller (1818–93), Carl Ferdinand Sohn and Oswald Achenbach at the Düsseldorf Kunstakademie until 1869. During the 1870–71 Franco-Prussian War, he was with the occupying army in Paris, where he discovered the miniature battle-pieces of Ernest Meissonier and also modern French plein-air painting. In 1872 he returned to Düsseldorf and began to make a reputation with his portraits and scenes from the recent war. The atmospheric mood and emphatic use of colour in works such as Transportation of Prisoners after the Capture of Metz in 1870 (1872; Kassel, Neue Gal., on loan from Berlin, Neue N.G.) gave a new impetus to the Düsseldorf school of battle painting. Kolitz’s military scenes were among the earliest German images to portray war in a realistic manner and therefore in a critical light. In March 1879 he was appointed Director of the Kassel Akademie. In the 1870s and 1880s he travelled widely in Germany, the Netherlands and Italy, as well as paying regular visits to Paris. Alongside his official career as a portrait and history painter, he also produced a range of landscapes and cityscapes that show an intensive study of French plein-air painting. Courtyard of Les Invalides in Paris (1877; Berlin, Neue N.G.) reveals Kolitz as one of the first German artists to absorb Impressionism. This important unofficial aspect of his work was only recognized after his death. Following his retirement in October 1911, Kolitz lived and worked in Berlin.