Rudolf Höckner was born at the manor Hilmersdorf near Wolkenstein on the Erz Mountains in 1864. After the father's death the mother moved with her five children to Freiberg in 1872 and only a few years later to Leipzig. Höckner was artistically inspired by his mother and a teacher who let him copy French engravings. After finishing school in 1883, Höckner went to Munich at first, where he met the painter Charles Palmié. He began to study theology in Tübingen in 1885 and also studied in Leipzig for a year. One year later Rudolf Höckner was accepted as Theodor Hagen's pupil at the Großherzogliche Sächsische Kunstschule zu Weimar, where Christian Rohlfs studied, too. After finishing his studies with distinction in landscape painting he left the school in 1890. Oldenburg, Italy, Weimar, Munich and Flensburg were his stages over the following years. In 1891 he married Brigitte Ebsen. Due to financial reasons, he was forced to work for the Nor-Ostsee-Zeitung in Kiel in 1895 beside his artistic work. In 1905 Höckner relocated to Hamburg to accept a position as an editor for the Hamburger Nachrichten. Since 1907 he lived in Hamburg as a freelance artist and moved to Wedel in 1915, where he was appointed honorary citizen on the occasion of his 75th birthday. After his wife's death in 1941 he left Wedel and died one year later in Bad Mergentheim a.d. Tauber. Rudolf Höckner mainly painted small format, dark landscapes with motifs from Niendorf and the surrounding area of Hamburg. ‚ It was always about subtle shades of colour and adjustments of light, about tracing nuances, about realising forms as colour and light values without fixed contours.