Lotte Laserstein

Lotte Laserstein (1898-1993) was born in Prussia in 1898. After the death of her father in 1902, Laserstein moved with her family to Danzig, now Gdansk, Poland. By the age of 5, she had decided to become a painter and remain unmarried( Laserstein married in 1938 at obtain Swedish citizenship, but never lived with her husband). In 1912, her family moved to Berlin, where Laserstein received her initial art training at a school run by her aunt. 

 Lotte Laserstein, Motocycliste, 1929

From 1919 to 1925, she became one of the few female students to be accepted into the Berlin Academy of Fine Arts where she became an accomplished realist painter under the training of Erich Wolfsfeld. In her last year of schooling, Laserstein became the first woman to win the Academy’s gold medal for artwork. After graduating, Laserstein started teaching at a gallery she acquired in Berlin. To boost her income during a difficult inflation period, Laserstein began making decorative art and illustrating anatomy texts from preserved cadavers. In 1931, she had her first solo show at Fritz Gurlitt’s Gallery in Berlin.

 Lotte Laserstein, Evening in Potsdam, 1930

It was at this point in Laserstein’s career that the rise of Nazism began to affect her daily life. Her paternal grandmother was Jewish and her mother’s apartment and many valuables, including a collection of rare Toulouse-Lautrec posters, were confiscated by the state. Artistic supplies became hard to find and in 1935, Laserstein was forced to close her gallery and art school in Berlin, ending her career in Germany. Three of her paintings were shown at the 1937 World’s Fair in Paris, but her work was banned from the German pavilion. In December of 1937, Laserstein left Germany for Stockholm in search of an art market, while her sister and mother stayed behind in Berlin. Her sister managed to evade the Nazis, but her mother died in the Ravensbruck concentration camp in Germany.

 Lotte Laserstein, Morning Toilette, 1930

After the war, Laserstein continued to paint, but changed her subject matter to be less offensive. She remained in Sweden for the remainder of her life, moving in 1954 to Kalmar, where she was later joined by her sister. She also became an honorary member of the Swedish Academy of Arts for her work in portraiture. In the late 1980s, Belgrave Gallery and Agnew and Sons in London held retrospectives of her work, followed by an exhibition at the Stadtmuseum in Berlin a few years later. The artist passed away in 1993 at the age of 95 in Kalmar.

Carl Grossberg

Carl Grossberg was born in Elberfeld/Wuppertal on September 6, 1894. At the age of nineteen, the artist began to study architecture at the universities of Aachen and Darmstadt. His conscription to the military forced Carl Grossberg to interrupt his studies.

Carl Grossberg, Steam Boiler with Bat, 1928

In 1919 he continued to study under Walter Klemm at the "Hochschule für bildende Künste". From 1919 to 1921 he studied under Lyonel Feiniger at the Bauhaus in Weimar, where he trained in painting, decorative painting and spatial design. In 1921 Grossberg undertook extensive study trips to Southern Germany and settled near Würzburg. 

 Carl Grossberg, Central Station in Cologne, 1927

In 1927 Grossberg again traveled a lot to paint his typical machine pictures, industrial landscapes and cityscapes. He began to receive more and more commissions form industry, for instance in 1932 from the Norta wallpaper factory in the Harz region and in 1937 from the baking-goods firm Oetker in Bielefeld, where he moved into his own studio. From 1933/34 Grossberg's interest in technology and industry began to assume encyclopaedic dimensions. He set himself the goal of painting the most important types of industries and industial plants in Germany, calling this undertaking his "Industrial Plan". 

Carl Grossberg, Spinning Mill, circa 1936

The Nazi regime and the approaching war lead to a dramatic deterioration in his commissions, so that he tried to use various connections in America to realize his plan. As a reserve officer, Carl Grossberg was not allowed to leave the country and therefore was not given permission to travel to the US in 1939. That same year, Grossman was called up for active duty. 

Carl Grossberg, Muntplein, 1930s

Those last years left him virtually no time to paint. Carl Grossmann died in a car crash in the forest of Compiègne near Laon on October 19, 1940.

More of his works can be seen here on my Flickr page.

Otto Griebel

Otto Griebel (1895-1972) was born in Meerane, Saxony, the son of a wallpaper hanger. He began studying interior design and painting at age seventeen at a local school, and then pursued his studies in Dresden until he was drafted in 1915. In 1918, after being seriously wounded, Griebel joined the revolutionary Soldiers' Council. 

 Otto Griebel, The International, 1928

After the war his life became centered around political and artistic activity: in 1919 he joined the German Communist Party (KPD), became a member of the Novembergruppe, participated in Dresden Dada activities, and made contacts with the Berlin Dada group. In 1921 he assisted the KPD during the various workers' uprisings and worked as a draftsman for many of the party's publications. This same year he made the acquaintance of George Grosz, Otto Nagel, and Rudolf Schlichter.

 Otto Griebel, Sunday Afternoon, 1920

Griebel continued to work for political organizations, such as the Junge Rheinland (Young Rhineland), the Dresdner Sezession-Gruppe 19, Boleslav Strzelewicz's Red Troupe, the Rote Gruppe and the Internationale Arbeiterhilfe, throughout the 1920s. Despite his anti-establishment stance, however, he actively exhibited his artwork in public German institutions. In 1929 he participated in the Neue Sachlichkeit exhibition in Amsterdam; this same year he ran into difficulties with the Gemini government and was tried for insulting the military. The trial seems to have had little impact on either his artistic or political growth, for in 1930 he participated in a political puppet show and exhibited his work in both Berlin and Dresden.

 Otto Griebel, Ship Boilerman, 1920

During the Nazi years, Griebel was subjected to increasing persecution. In 1933 he was arrested by the Gestapo, but was released after protest by the Secession. Nevertheless, he was permitted to work as an exhibition planner at the Dresden Hygiene Museum. Only in 1937 was his work (together with that of many other artists) removed from German institutions; several pieces were displayed in the "Degenerate Art" exhibition in Munich. 

 Otto Griebel, The Naked Whore, 1923

Despite his liberal political views, Griebel managed to live out the war years almost entirely unscathed in Germany and German-occupied territory. In 1939, he was drafted into military service in Poland, and after obtaining a release from active duty, he served as an exhibition coordinator in Cracow. His political consciousness did not wane, and in 1943 he successfully helped twenty Jewish men escape from the Tarnow ghetto. When, the following year, he was drafted again into the militia, he deserted. During 1944, most of Griebel's work was destroyed in the allied bombing of Dresden. Subsequently, in 1946, he returned to teaching at the College of Fine Arts in Dresden. Throughout the 1950s and 60s Griebel worked at several art institutions in Dresden and exhibited his art all over the continent.

Franz Jansen

Franz Jansen (1885-1958) is one of the less well-known artists of the Weimar Era. Like his more famous contemporaries George Grosz and John Heartfield, he was principally committed to social and political subjects. His goal was to expose the injustices of the Weimar regime in the hope of fomenting reform. 

 Franz Jansen, Masken, 1925

Franz Jansen was born in Cologne. From 1906-1910, he studied architecture in Vienna, and then traveled throughout Europe, before returning to Cologne in 1911. The following year, he joined the Berlin Secession and participated in the Sonderbund exhibition in Cologne. In 1914, he had a large one-man exhibition at the Wallraf-Richartz Museum in Cologne. In 1918, Jansen wrote a manifesto entitled, “About Expressionism,” in which he expressed annoyance with the tendency of art critics and historians to hastily label new movements such as Futurism, Cubism and Expressionism. He called this approach “Five o’clock tea esthetics,” and stated that art should embrace activism and strive to document real life. It should leave its viewer with something more than the ability to name a visual category. 

 Franz Jansen, The newest Models, 1920

From 1918 to 1925, Jansen, like Christian Schad, Franz Seiwert and many other artists, produced prints for publication in the political journal Die Aktion. In 1927 and 1929, he participated in two exhibitions devoted to the Neue Sachlichkeit movement, which also included artists such as Grethe Jürgens, Schad, Seiwert, and Gerta Overbeck-Schenk. Jansen participated in various exhibits throughout the early thirties until 1937, when the Nazi government confiscated 157 of his works from museums throughout the country. He was drafted into the army in 1944, and after the war, he continued to exhibit his work until his death in May of 1958 in Büchel. 

Albert Birkle

 

Albert Birkle, Schächer, 1921

Albert Birkle was born in Berlin-Charlottenburg as the first son of a family of artists. After the end of World War I he began an apprenticeship as a decorative painter in his father's business. From 1920 to 1925 he studied at the Berlin academy and was admitted to the Berliner Sezession as its youngest member and to the "Preußische Akademie der Künste" lead by Max Liebermann. During his studies, Albert Birkle formed a religious and sociocritical realism with newly objective aspects, which shows features of caricature, particularly in his very individual faces.

Albert Birkle, Under the Red Flags, 1919

In 1924 Birkle married Elisabeth Starosta, who worked in applied arts. In 1927 he turned down an offer of becoming a professor at the academy in Königsberg, in order to be able to accept orders for mural paintings in churches, such as the ones in Gaislingen and Kattowitz.

Albert Birkle, Leipziger Straße Berlin, 1923

In 1932 Birkle moved to Salzburg. In the 1930s Birkle's work lost its sociocritical tendencies and his landscapes and industrial motifs became more atmospheric and more monumental. In 1937 the pictures with which Birkle had represented Germany at the Venice Biennale in 1936 were removed from the Haus der Deutschen Kunst in Munich before the opening of an exhibition. Other pieces were also declared as "degenerate", removed from public collections and confiscated.

 Albert Birkle, The Last Cavalier, c. 1926

When World War II broke out, Albert Birkle volunteered for "Reichsarbeitsdienst", thus temporarily avoiding military service. The convinced pacifist Birkle carried out a fresco painting in the Glasenbach barracks as war painter and was sent to France as war correspondent. In 1946 Birkle received Austrian citizenship. In his newly adopted country he mainly worked as a religious glass painter, who set off on new paths using the French "Dalles technique".

 Albert Birkle,Telegraph Operator, 1920s

In 1958 Birkle was appointed professor. The years 1950 to 1960 were marked by intensive creative work in the field of glass painting. Numerous important works and window cycles with a religious and decorative tendency were created during this time. In his late expressive paintings and drawings, Albert Birkle returns to his earlier motifs from the 1920s and 1940s and their sociocritical tendencies, regarding himself a "Chronicler of time". His biblical representations also include critical comments on the time. Albert Birkle died in Salzburg on January 29, 1986.

Albert Birkle, Night Travellers, 1923

More paintings by Birkle can be seen here on  my Flickr page.

Karl Hofer

 Karl Hofer, Grosser Karneval, 1928

Karl Hofer was born in Karlsruhe on 11 October 1878 as son of a military musician. After an apprenticeship in C.F. Müller's court bookstore, he began to study at the Großherzogliche Badische Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Karlsruhe in 1897. Here he studied under Poetzelberger, Kalckreuth and Thoma until 1901. None of these teachers, however, were able to provide him with ideas for his ambitious striving for a new art form and he soon came under the influence of Arnold Böcklin. 

 Karl Hofer, The Caller, 1935

Hofer travelled to Paris in 1900 where he was greatly impressed by Henri Rousseau's naive painting. The art historian Julius Meier-Graefe introduced Hofer not only to private collections worth while seeing in Paris, but also drew his attention to Hans von Marées. As a result Hofer decided in 1903 to spend a couple of years in Rome. His painting, which was until then influenced by Böcklin's Symbolism, changed in favour of Marées' classic Arcadian concept. In 1904 the Kunsthaus Zurich presented Hofer's first one-man show within the ‚Ausstellung moderner Kunstwerke', which was afterwards shown in an extended version at the Kunsthalle Karlsruhe and at the Folkwang-Museum in Hagen and in Weimar in 1906. 

Karl Hofer, Die Wächter (The Guardians), 1936

From 1908 Hofer lived temporarily in Paris. The stay changed his style through dealing with influences of Cézanne, French Impressionists and El Greco. In 1913 the artist moved to Berlin. He was interned in France one year later and only returned to Germany in 1917. He accepted a post as a professor at the Kunstschule in Berlin-Charlottenburg in 1921 (where he was the teacher of Hans Feibusch). On the occasion of his 50th birthday a retrospective took place at the Kunsthalle Mannheim, the ‚Berlin Secession' and Alfred Flechtheim's gallery in Berlin. His art was considered "degenerate" during the 'Third Reich' and he was dismissed from his teaching post in 1933/34. His works were exhibited in 1937 in the Munich exhibition 'Entartete Kunst'. 

 Karl Hofer, The Camp, 1944

A vehement anti-Nazi protest, the next work, Santa Denunziata  is tied to the tragic events in Karl Hofer's life. In 1941, Mathilde Hofer (neé Scheinberger), the artist's wife, was denounced as a Jew by Gestapo informants (Denunziaten) and sent to her death at Auschwitz.

Karl Hofer, Santa Denunziata, 1941

Hofer then declared; "When they are finished with the Jews, they will start with the artists, and with all of those who cannot defend themselves." The partly concealed, haloed figure, is likely a self-portrait of the artist as a future victim surrounded by accusers who may fear they will be the next victims themselves.

Karl Hofer, The Black Rooms, 1943

After the war, in July 1945, Hofer was appointed director of the Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Berlin. Together with Oskar Nerlinger he edited the art magazine "Bildende Kunst". Hofer died in Berlin in 1955.

More paintings by Karl Hofer are here on my Flickr page.

Richard Oelze

Richard Oelze was born on June 29, 1900 in Magdeburg. He first trained as a lithographer but after World War I attended Kunstgewerbeschule in Magdeburg, where he devoted himself to studying drawing. In 1921 he enrolled at the Bauhaus of Weimar and took courses with Paul Klee and Johannes Itten. He moved to Dresden in 1926, quickly becoming part of the local art scene and meeting Will Grohmann, who was to influence his work considerably. In Dresden Oelze took courses at the Academy, where he studied the work of Otto Dix, and worked as an assistant at the Art School, which had been founded in Berlin in 1926 by Itten. During that time he met Hans Richter, with whom he collaborated on photography projects and film productions, and then studied at the Bauhaus of Dessau for a few months.

 Richard Oelze, The Expectation, 1935

After moving to Ascone, Switzerland, in 1929, Oelze encountered Surrealism for the first time and moved back to Germany the following year. In 1933 he decided to go to Paris, where he met and associated with Max Ernst, Tristan Tzara, André Breton, and Salvador Dalí. Despite never officially subscribing to the movement, he participated in some of the most important Surrealist exhibitions of the day, such as the International Surrealist Exhibition and Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism, organized in 1936 by the New Burlington Galleries in London and The Museum of Modern Art in New York. 

In 1935 Oelze painted "The Expectation" which was to become his most famous painting, a gloomy  icon of things to come. It is one of my favourite paintings of the 1930s and I like to see it together with John Gutmann's 1934 photography "Omen" (John Gutmann fled Germany in 1933).

John Gutmann, Omen, 1934 

In 1936 Oelze returned to Ascone and in 1939 moved to Worpswede. During World War II he served in the German Army and was taken prisoner. At the end of the war he was freed and resumed painting  in a surealistic, dreamlike style. He had solo exhibitions at the Moderne Galerie of Cologne in 1950 and the Graphische Kabinett of Bremen in 1952, and in 1959 he took part in the Documenta, Kassel.

 Richard Oelze, Invention of a Dream, 1960s

In 1962 Oelze moved to Posteholz, where he continued his artistic activity away from the public eye. During the 1960s and 1970s he had many exhibitions, including one major retrospective at the Kestner-Gesellschaft of Hannover in 1964. In 1965 he was nominated a member of the Art Academy of Berlin and died in Posteholz on March 27, 1980.