Eduard Bargheer (German, 1901–1979) was a painter and printmaker associated with Expressionism and, later, abstract art. Born in Finkenkrug near Hamburg, Bargheer received his artistic training at the College of Arts and Crafts in Hamburg-Lerchenfeld and the Gerda Koppel Art School, where he studied under painter Friedrich Ahlers-Hestermann, and traveled to Italy on a scholarship in 1925.

Bargheer’s early style was characterized by a bleak color palate, displaying influences of Edvard Munch, Vincent van Gogh, and the Flemish Expressionists.

In 1929, Bargheer became a member of the Hamburger Sezession, a group of artists whose style had developed out of Expression toward rounded contours and sketchy depictions of landscapes and people. He spent the next few years in different European cities, visiting the Italian island of Ischia in 1935, and moving there four years later. During this time, Bargheer’s paintings became more abstract, developing a warmer palette, due, in part to his new surroundings.

In 1950, he returned to Germany. The Kestner Society in Hamburg produced the first extensive retrospective on Bargheer’s works in 1953. In addition, the artist worked as a guest lecturer at the Academy for Visual Arts in Hamburg in 1957, and as a professor at the Academy of Arts Berlin in 1963. In 1955 and 1959, Bargheer participated in the documenta exhibition in Kassel. On his 75th birthday, the Eduard Bargheer Foundation for the Support of Young Artists was set up.

Bargheer died in 1979, in his home in Hamburg.