WOLGEMUT, MICHAEL. - Painter and sculptor of Nuremberg, b. 1434, d. 1519, also known for having been the master of Albrecht Dürer, who entered his workshop at the age of fifteen.
He was a collaborator of Hans Pleydenwurff, whose widow, Barbara, he married in 1472, and with whose son, Wilhelm, he inherited the workshop in 1491. In 1491 he took on the task of illustrating Hartman Schiedel’s *Weltchronik* (Latin ed. 1493), whose *Schatzbehalter*, published in 1491, also contains illustrations attributable to W.; drawings and sketches for woodcuts were also provided for the illustration of the *Archetypus triumphantis Romanorum*, which was never printed. In his engravings, which brought him wide fame throughout Germany, W. displays the same qualities as a painter; in the altarpieces of S. Maria in Zwickau (1476–79) and of Straubing (formerly on the high altar of the Augustinian church in Nuremberg), his characteristic use of Netherlandish motifs (Rogier van der Weyden, Memling) is evident, motifs already introduced into Nuremberg painting by Pleydenwurff and rendered with a forceful characterization of the figures. Not all parts of the Zwickau altarpiece and the Straubing altarpiece (datable to the eighth decade of the 15th century) are by his hand, just as the presence of two assistants can be recognized in the altarpiece of the Kreuzkirche in Nuremberg (1486), identified as the so-called *Peringsdörfer Altar*: a work of particular importance for the Nuremberg school and for the early years of Dürer, who in that year entered W.’s workshop. The altarpiece of the parish church of Schwabach dates to 1506–1508; among the works attributed to him are also the *Memminger Altar* in S. Lorenzo in Nuremberg and the two wings of the *Martin Altar* in S. Jacopo in the same city.
W. was also a strong portraitist, and in this field his masterpiece can be considered the portrait of Hans Perchmeister.