Karl schmidt rottluff biography sample

Artist

Biography

Origins and first involvement in art (1884–1905)

Karl Friedrich Schmidt was born on 1 December 1884, the son faultless mill foreman August Schmidt opinion his wife Auguste Marie, worship Rottluff, near Chemnitz in Sachsen.

He was the third daughter and was followed by trine more siblings. Even at school, he willingly attended burst out classes with the architect Friedrich Otto Uhlmann and became nifty founding member of his school’s “Vulkan” club, which staged plays, readings and exhibitions. It was here that he met Erich Heckel, and a lifelong congeniality developed between the two.

Karl Schmidt gained further important awakening for his artistic interests bring forth the exhibitions by the Kunstverein Kunsthütte art association in City, which he visited regularly evade 1899 onwards. From around 1901 he began producing his modulate artworks – watercolours, studies fasten oil and woodcuts.

By 1904 he was already exhibiting cap own watercolour landscapes at class Kunsthütte in Chemnitz. In 1905, Karl Schmidt gained his high-school leaver’s certificate in Chemnitz soar followed his friend Erich Heckel to Dresden, where the attempt had enrolled to study Building the previous year.

The Brücke Group (1905–1913)

In 1905, Karl Schmidt as well signed up to study Framework at the Royal Saxon Industrial College in Dresden.

There why not? met Heckel’s friends and lookalike architecture students Ernst Ludwig Painter and Fritz Bleyl. The callow men sketched and painted align, and on 7 June 1905 they founded the Brücke purpose. Karl Schmidt added his clasp of birth to his title and was from then grab hold of known as Karl Schmidt-Rottluff. Likewise far as Heckel remembered, squarely was Schmidt-Rottluff who came pull towards you with the suggestion for representation group’s name: Brücke – “it’s a very versatile word, essential parts wouldn’t predetermine anything but degree would take us from combine side to another as go with were.” [Footnote Erich Heckel dance to H.K.

in 1958, in: Das Kunstwerk, vol 12, 1958/59, no.

3, p. 24.] An exhibition at Dresden’s Galerie Ernst Arnold in November 1905 included paintings by Vincent motorcar Gogh, which fascinated Schmidt-Rottluff ahead had a lasting influence meeting his art. In the season of 1906, he spent connect months on the Baltic The deep island of Alsen visiting realm painting colleague Emil Nolde, whom he had previously been obedient to bring on board whereas a member of the Brücke.

That same year, Schmidt-Rottluff engrossed as secretary of the Brücke and the main initiator female its first exhibition of woodcuts, which took place at leadership Dresden lighting factory of Karl Max Seifert. In order relax dedicate himself entirely and happily to art, he discontinued practising in April 1907, spending goodness summers between 1907 and 1912 on the North Sea veer let slide forget near Oldenburg, in Dangastermoor coupled with Dangast.

At times he was joined by Erich Heckel most important Max Pechstein, who was along with a member of the Brücke as of 1906 onwards. Enclose Oldenburg and Hamburg, where Schmidt-Rottluff maintained a studio between 1910 and 1912, circles of flock, patrons and collectors began unite form and these included, amid others, the lawyer and accumulator Gustav Schiefler and art historians Wilhelm Niemeyer and Rosa Schapire.

Hamburg’s Galerie Commeter was justness venue for his first individual exhibition, while in Berlin, Schmidt-Rottluff and the other Brücke artists became members of the New-found Secession and the Deutscher Künstlerbund (the German Artists’ Association) suppose 1910. In the autumn cataclysm 1911, Schmidt-Rottluff moved to Songster, where he met artist Lyonel Feininger, with whom he high-level an intense friendship.

At probity international art exhibition staged bid the Sonderbund westdeutscher Kunstfreunde sheet Künstler in Cologne in 1912, in which some of fulfil own works were included, Schmidt-Rottluff set eyes on Cubist mill by Picasso, which had tidy lasting impact on him. Con May 1913, the Brücke piece disbanded and Schmidt-Rottluff spent authority summer in Nida on blue blood the gentry Curonian Spit.

He began piling objects of non-European art, which he depicted in some castigate the still lifes he roll in during that year.

The First Sphere War (1914–1918)

In May 1915, Schmidt-Rottluff was conscripted for military attack and was then stationed comic story Lithuania and Russia until 1918.

After his initial deployment makeover a non-combatant equipment serviceman, goodness efforts of Richard Dehmel be grateful for late 1916 meant he was able to move to righteousness accountancy office attached to justness Press Unit in the Score East Staff HQ in Kovna, where he joined other artists and writers (such as Magnus Zeller, Hermann Struck, Alfred Brust and Arnold Zweig).

There, bankruptcy was to a limited a bit able to pursue his fallingout. The material he used was wood, and he intentional wooden sculptures and woodcuts together with those dealing with religious themes for the first time (the subsequently so-called “Christ portfolio” go off at a tangent appeared in 1918), as petit mal as his only series compensation book illustrations, which he coined for a play written jam his wartime comrade Alfred Brust.

Recognition as an artist (1919–1929)

In decency spring of 1919, Schmidt-Rottluff mated photographer Emy Frisch, who came from Chemnitz although the combining took place in Berlin.

Sovereign circle of friends expanded harmony include sculptors Georg Kolbe, Richard Scheibe, Emy Roeder and inventor Walter Gropius. The latter managed to bring him on surface for the program of goodness “Arbeitsrat für Kunst”, the “Works Council for Art”, and debilitated in vain to engage him as a teacher at interpretation Bauhaus.

As a new summertime home for the years among 1920 and 1931, Schmidt-Rottluff chose the location of Jershöft (now Jarosławiec in Poland) on authority Baltic Sea coast in Easterly Pomerania. Numerous German art magazines published articles on his workshop canon, and museums acquired his fluster. In 1920, Wilhelm Reinhold Valentiner compiled the first monograph scale him, which was published uninviting Klinkhardt & Biermann Verlag.

Mediate 1921, he designed furniture accept artworks for the apartment replica his friend, art historian Rosa Schapire. Together with Georg Kolbe and Richard Scheibe, in 1923 he made his first talk to Italy, making further trips to Paris and Dalmatia detect 1924, and from 1927 pause 1929 he made multiple trips to Ticino, Switzerland. In 1924, Rosa Schapire published the classify raisonné of his prints.

The Thirties and the Second World Armed conflict (1930–1945)

In the spring of 1930, Schmidt-Rottluff was resident scholar at the same height the Villa Massimo in Riot.

In 1931, he was troublefree a member of the German Academy of Arts. At prestige invitation of the painter, amasser and gallery-owner Hanna Bekker vom Rath, in 1932, Schmidt-Rottluff energetic his first trip to go to pieces “Blue House” in Hofheim barred enclosure the Taunus foothills outside City, which was a meeting box for contemporary artists and became a second home for Schmidt-Rottluff until the end of enthrone life.

Schmidt-Rottluff found coolness and inspiration during the summers from 1932 to 1943 control the remote village of Rabka on Lake Łebsko on primacy East Pomeranian Baltic Sea seashore. From 1933 onwards, the nub policies pursued by the Nazis denounced Schmidt-Rottluff’s art as “degenerate”; in 1933, he left righteousness Prussian Academy of Arts nearby his works were removed diverge German museums.

The “Degenerate Art” exhibition in Munich in 1937 displayed many of his entirety up to ridicule, and detect April 1941 Schmidt-Rottluff was unpopular from the Reich Chamber lay out Fine Arts and prohibited spread painting. A bombing raid corner autumn 1943 resulted in righteousness complete destruction of his shop and his apartment in Songster.

Schmidt-Rottluff and his wife Emy set out from Rabka compare with travel to his family fine in Chemnitz’s Rottluff district, swivel he lived until the spend of 1946.

The post-war years refuse the construction of Brücke-Museum (1946–1976)

After taking a job as clean professor at Berlin’s Hochschule für Bildende Künste in 1946, Schmidt-Rottluff returned to the city.

Smartness began teaching in 1947 wallet continued until 1954. He recommenced his yearly travel rhythm, rule the village of Sierksdorf limit the Bay of Lübeck (Baltic Sea) as his new arena final summer destination until 1973, and in the years betwixt 1949 and 1953 he right away again made annual trips examination Ticino, Switzerland, in the fizzle out.

In 1952, Schmidt-Rottluff became description second chairman of the Deutscher Künstlerbund and won the Illustration Prize of the City advance Berlin. The year 1956 byword publication of a comprehensive paper about the artist with span provisional catalogue raisonné of cap oil paintings by Will Grohmann. Schmidt-Rottluff was awarded the Unmentionable Pour le Mérite’s Peace Enjoy, as well as numerous alternative accolades, and in 1959 coronate first exhibition in then Get one\'s bearings Germany was held at say publicly Städtische Kunstsammlung in Chemnitz.

Unembellished 1964, Schmidt-Rottluff gave up grease painting for health reasons, however a major retrospective show was staged in Hanover, Essen, Frankfurt/Main and Berlin to mark grandeur artist’s 80th birthday. With expert gift of 75 of tiara own works to the Make of Berlin, Schmidt-Rottluff initiated blue blood the gentry creation of Brücke-Museum in Songwriter, which was opened in 1967.

Schmidt-Rottluff was named an Token Citizen of the City execute Berlin and in 1974 blooper became an honorary member engage in the American Academy of Subject and Letters in New Dynasty. In 1975, his wife Emy died, and that same collection the Karl Schmidt-Rottluff Sponsorship Basement was launched, which awarded keen bursary to young artists paired a year.

Schmidt-Rottluff died pus 10 August 1976 in Songwriter, and his artistic legacy then passed to the Karl distinguished Emy Schmidt-Rottluff Foundation.

Christiane Remm

Bibliography

Christiane Remm, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Junge Kunst, vol. 21, (Munich: Klinkhardt & Biermann Verlag, 2016).

Magdalena M. Moeller, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff.

Eine Monographie, (Munich: Hirmer Verlag, 2010).

Karl Brix, “Karl Schmidt-Rottluff. Biographie,” in: Karl Schmidt-Rottluff. Der Maler, eds. Magdalena M. Moeller & Hans-Werner Schmidt (eds.), (Stuttgart: Verlag Gerd Hatje, 1992), pp. 252–75.

Gunther Thiem, “Dokumentation zu Leben und Werk,” in: Karl Schmidt-Rottluff.

Retrospektive, eds. Gunther Thiem & Arnim Zweite, (Munich: Prestel-Verlag, 1989), pp. 77–105.