Willy Gustav Erich Jaeckel (10 February 1888, Breslau – 30 January 1944, Berlin) was a German Expressionist painter and lithographer.
Jaeckel's father worked as a public lands manager, and originally, he aspired to become a forest ranger. However, due to poor health, he had to alter his plans. From 1906 to 1908, he studied at the art school in Breslau, then joined the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts under the guidance of Otto Gussmann, an ornamental painter. In 1913, he relocated to Berlin to pursue a career as a freelance artist and joined the Berlin Secession in 1915. Four years later, he was elected as a member of the Prussian Academy of Arts and assumed a teaching role at the University of the Arts in 1925.
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Jaeckel's inaugural success was "Kampf" (Battle or Struggle), a sizable canvas featuring a bellowing, muscular, naked man. In 1928, he received the "Georg-Schlicht-Preis" for the "most beautiful portrait of a German woman". His artworks were featured in the art competitions at the 1928 Summer Olympics and the 1932 Summer Olympics.
In 1933, he attained the title of Associate Professor but faced dismissal with the rise of the Nazis to power. Despite protests from his students, he was eventually reinstated, yet this triumph was short-lived. In 1937, some of his works were officially labeled as "degenerate". In response, he painted "Plowman in the Evening" (1939), intending to depict the Nazi concept of Blood and Soil. Many of his works survived the war only because the Nazi government removed them from Berlin.
Jaeckel lost his studio in a bombing raid in 1943, and he perished during another raid early the following year. One of his significant works, a four-part fresco mural at the Bahlsen bakery in Hanover dating from 1917, was later destroyed in 1944.
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