John Elsas
John Elsas , also John Elsaß , actually Jonas Mayer (born July 6, 1851 in Frankfurt am Main , † June 5, 1935 ibid) was a German painter . He spent his professional life as a businessman and stockbroker and did not begin his intensive work as a visual artist until 1927, at the age of 76. Elsas' extensive oeuvre was critically acclaimed around 1930; after that it was forgotten for around 70 years.
Life
Only a few documents prove the CV of John Elsas. He came on July 6, 1851 as the second youngest of four children to his parents Baruch and Johanette (Jenny) Elsas, née Hanau, in the house Lit. 15 on Wollgraben 11 in Frankfurt's old town . From 1857 to 1867 he attended the Philanthropin , the community and secondary school of the Israelite community. At that time the school was headed by Sigismund Stern .
After school, he completed a commercial apprenticeship in his father's company. On June 29, 1881, he married Pauline Manes (1857–1911), with whom he had three children: Karl (1882–1922), Fanny (1884–1966) and Irma (1887–1944). Karl died of the late effects of the wounds from the First World War . Fanny married in Switzerland . In 1916 she was married to Friedrich Raff in her second marriage . Elsas lived in a household with his younger daughter Irma until his death.
The autodidact John Elsas discovered talent and inclination for artistic activity when, at the age of almost 70, he began to write illustrated letters, stories and verses with general wisdom and educational advice for his two grandchildren. When a serious illness tied him to the house, he developed his special style: the combination of different techniques - watercolor, ink drawing, collage - on one sheet, plus mostly two or four-line texts at the bottom of the picture, which he himself referred to as Knittelverse . Towards the end of the 1920s, his work aroused benevolent interest in the galleries of various German cities as well as in Paris and Zurich , which further increased his already unusual productivity. His last leaves, packed by Irma Elsas in 1935, were numbered 25,000 - 25,025.
John Elsas, who had worked as a stockbroker for more than 40 years, died on June 5, 1935. In 1930, he provided one of his watercolors with the text: “My whole life was a mistake / I became a painter and storyteller”. He was buried in the old Jewish cemetery in Rat-Beil-Strasse in Frankfurt am Main.
Daughter Irma arranged and packed the extensive artistic estate. Their property was expropriated by the National Socialists and the property was Aryanized . She lived in Frankfurt last in a so-called Jewish House before the August 18, 1942 along with about 1,000 other Frankfurt citizens in a mass transportation from the wholesale market in the transit and concentration camp Theresienstadt deported was; there she died on May 1, 1944.
Obituaries
The Jüdischer Kulturbund called after him: “Love, wisdom and beauty hide their leaves. This triad ensures their lasting effect in all future and their place in art history. ”In 1937 he organized a commemorative exhibition on Elsas and other artists.
In its obituary, the Frankfurter Israelitische Fremdblatt wrote: “Was John Elsas, who worked as a bourgeois banker for over a generation, more a painter, more poet, more philosopher or more educator ? [...] His sheets open up a world that continues to have an impact and helps us to distance ourselves from everyday life. "
reception
Feedback during his lifetime
- The art scholar Max Osborn wrote in the Vossische Zeitung on January 16, 1930: “Im Sturm ”, a prominent Berlin gallery at the time, “at Herwarth Walden , you can see something extremely amusing: little stickers of a cheerful old man in southern Germany, called John Elsas. [...] In this way of joining colored paper, shimmering remains of any cardboard cover and the like, and also brushing in watercolors, there is such a rich imagination that one looks at sheet after sheet with pleasure ... ".
- Herrmann Nasse, lecturer in art history, in the Munich-Augsburger Abendzeitung from 13./14. December 1930: “From all possible, accidental material ... this smiling sage creates his grotesquely funny, always colorful, tasteful, even attractively attractive creations composed of one or more figures . [...] A sense of humor mixed with skepticism and sarcasm , childishness and probably also tragic resignation permeates these fantastic dream figures seen from a higher point of view. "
- Julius Meier-Graefe, also an art historian, reported on January 7, 1933 in the Frankfurter Zeitung about new acquisitions by the Städel Museum : “One of the gifts is a collection by the Frankfurt eccentric John Elsas; purring and often very tasteful fantasies of a grown child. The child, formerly a banker, is 83 years old ... ”.
"First the picture is painted / and then it is glued on / because this lifts the plastic"
"All races / and all nations / can live together / in peace"
"In life / but annoyance / that one also has to / die"
"Remember: a wild man / put on nice clothes"
Late rediscovery
Two wooden boxes with the work of John Elsas, labeled with the Swiss address of his daughter Fanny, survived the “ Third Reich ” in an unknown location in Frankfurt and did not reach Switzerland until 1954, although they remained unopened there. In 1999, shortly before his death, Elsas' grandson Herbert Raff (1917–2000) donated the still unseen, extensive estate with the work of his grandfather to the Museum im Lagerhaus - Foundation for Swiss naive art and art brut St. Gallen . In the same year, the first exhibition in around 70 years took place here.
Also in 1999, the Swiss Museum sent a letter to the Struwwelpeter Museum in Frankfurt am Main, referring to the intellectual relationship between Elsas' works and the children's books by the Frankfurt neurologist Heinrich Hoffmann and asked if there was any interest in a joint exhibition. On March 23, 2001, the exhibition Heinrich Hoffmann meets John Elsas opened in the rooms of the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt .
literature
- Dorothee Hoppe: The Frankfurt artist John Elsas 1851-1935 . Commission for the History of the Jews in Hessen, Wiesbaden 2014 (Writings of the Commission for the History of the Jews in Hessen ; 29), ISBN 978-3-921434-34-5 .
- Dorothee Hoppe: John Elsas: from stockbroker to artist . Hentrich & Hentrich, Leipzig [2020] (Jewish miniatures; 255), ISBN 978-3-95565-383-5 .
- Marion Herzog-Hoinkis (Ed.): John Elsas. My pictures are getting wilder and wilder. 33 sheets with verses and drawings . (= Insel-Bücherei 1228). Insel Verlag, Frankfurt am Main / Leipzig 2002, ISBN 3-458-19228-X .
- Max Kunze (Ed.): My whole life was a mistake, then I became a painter and storyteller. John Elsas (1851–1935), his collages, watercolors and Knittelverse . Verlag Franz Rutzen, Wiesbaden u. a. 2014, ISBN 978-3-447-10226-1 .
- Heinz Vogel (Ed.): Heinrich Hoffmann meets John Elsas. An exhibition by the Heinrich Hoffmann Society on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Struwwelpeter Museum in Frankfurt am Main. Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt am Main 2001, ISBN 3-921606-38-1 .
Web links
Individual evidence
Quotes from: Marion Herzog-Hoinkis (Ed.): John Elsas. My pictures are getting wilder and wilder. Insel Verlag, Frankfurt am Main / Leipzig 2002, ISBN 3-458-19228-X .
- ^ Monthly papers of the Jewish Cultural Association of the Rhein Main district, 3 (1937), no. 7, p. 6.
- ↑ Monthly pages of the Jewish Cultural Association District Rhein Main, 3 (1937), no. 7, p. 7.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Elsas, John |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Alsace, John; Mayer, Jonas (real name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German painter |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 6, 1851 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Frankfurt am Main |
| DATE OF DEATH | June 5, 1935 |
| Place of death | Frankfurt am Main |