Kasia from Szadurska

Kasia von Szadurska in a photograph by Julius Staudt , around 1913

Kasia von Szadurska (born February 23, 1886 in Moscow , † April 3, 1942 in Berlin ) was a German painter and graphic artist . She lived and worked on Lake Constance (Konstanz and Meersburg) for around 25 years. Her works can be classified between Expressionism and New Objectivity . In her early days she created numerous expressive graphics, later she increasingly turned to portraits , but landscapes and still lifes are also part of her work. Kasia von Szadurska had her artistic peak immediately after the First World War and the 1920s with her graphics, book illustrations and paintings, which dealt with the second wave of Expressionism or the New Objectivity.

Stations of life

Kasia von Szadurska was born on February 23, 1886 as Margarethe Casimirowna Schadursky in Moscow.

Years of traveling in Germany

Kasia von Szardurska with her adoptive mother (1890)

Kasia von Szardurska (self-portrait)

She came to Germany at the age of four. Presumably she lived in or near Dresden as the adopted child of the Sternberg family . Kasia, however, went to Düsseldorf for a year and a half in 1903 and received drawing lessons from Willy Spatz (1861–1931), who also taught at the Düsseldorf Art Academy . In May 1905 the family moved to Hamburg . There Kasia received lessons from Carl Rotte (1862-1910). Here she turned increasingly to the portrait, but the animals in Hagenbeck's zoo also fascinated the budding artist. She left Hamburg on September 23, 1907 and registered at Theresienstraße 66 in Munich . A Margarethe von Szadurska-Sternberg is recorded on the list of female students of the women's academy of the Munich Artists' Association for the years 1907/1908 and 1908/1909. She took lessons from the illustrator and Art Nouveau painter Robert Engels (1866–1926), who taught head and figure drawing during this time. At that time, too, she was interested in portrait painting . Her stay in Munich was followed by several years in Dresden and Berlin, during which she dealt with graphics and poster art .

Munich, Meersburg, Constance

Shortly after her arrival in Munich, she met the prospective lawyer Otto Ehinger from Meersburg , and on April 26, 1910 both married in Niedergrund, Bohemia . Dr. Otto Ehinger, son of a brewery owner in Meersburg, studied law in Freiburg and Munich from 1902 to 1908; however, he earned his living as a publicist and travel journalist. In 1914 he returned to the local brewery and restaurants on his own in order to avoid compulsory military service. While he was already staying at Lake Constance , Kasia must have traveled from Szadurska to Dresden, because her colleague Conrad Felixmüller made a charcoal drawing of her there in 1915 .

During the First World War, Kasia von Szadurska followed her husband, who continued to live in Meersburg, to the lake in Constance . In December 1915, the Konstanzer Zeitung reported on artist postcards and first works by the "young, talented, recently settled on Lake Constance" artist Kasia von Szadurska. With the death of his mother-in-law in 1916, Ehinger took over the business of the family company. The silence of his wife led to a political scandal for Ehinger: As a supposedly single, young man from the Meersburg upper class, he interfered in local politics. His numerous opponents did not hide the fact that he regularly drove to Konstanz on the weekends - so that he prematurely gave up his candidacy for a member of the Baden state elections on January 12, 1919. In 1922, Szadurska moved to her husband in Meersburg.

The marriage ended in divorce in 1935. Whether she failed to return to Munich, the egocentric demeanor of the man or the emancipation of the woman, cannot be traced due to the lack of documents. In any case, the blame was assigned to the artist because she admitted a relationship with the Konstanz painter Johannes Kutscher . The custody of the two sons Till (* 1920) and Thorgrim (* 1923) was awarded to Ehinger.

Ostracism

A year before the divorce, she returned to Konstanz and increasingly turned to portraits, but she also created some large-format bouquets of flowers and landscapes. With the rule of the National Socialists, taste in art changed and as a single woman she was dependent on commissions. As a sensitive portraitist, she was still convincing, even if the down-to-earth or lovely occasionally took over. Her late works also show her strengths in composition, detailed elaboration and coloring.

In the course of the “ Degenerate Art ” campaign, Kasia von Szadurska's oil painting Fährehafen von Meersburg and the four portrait studies by Tatjana Barbakoff , both purchased in 1929, were confiscated from the holdings of the Städtische Wessenberg-Galerie Konstanz . Of all things, the drawings of this dancer, who died in the concentration camp, were returned to the gallery a year later. The comparatively "harmless" ferry oil painting was not included when it was returned.

Retreat to Berlin

From the end of 1937, contacts shifted from Lake Constance to Berlin. She made longer and longer trips to the capital, so that in 1940 she joined the Association of Berlin Women Artists and participated in at least two exhibitions. In Berlin she was already a broken woman: the separation from the children and her poor health - a certificate from the estate notes a breast amputation - led the artist to a Berlin hospital at the beginning of 1942, where she was on April 3 died the same year.

Painting style and work

The artist of Russian origin is known on Lake Constance as the lady of the big city who ended up in the provinces by marrying a citizen of Meersburg. The small town on Lake Constance had hardly more than 2000 inhabitants in the 1920s and did not seem a suitable place for a painter who previously worked in Berlin and Munich. In 1925, the writer John Jöhnson described the situation as follows: "It is easier to imagine a bohemian attic in a big city than in a Meersburg villa as the spouse of society." There are hardly any known works by her from the time before the First World War. although the Konstanzer Zeitung reported on some works at the end of 1915.

expressionism

In Konstanz she was one of the founding members of the expressionist association “ Breidablik ” from 1919, the first painters' association on Lake Constance. What is striking - especially in contrast to the “Kreis” - is that only six artists were involved: in addition to Hans Breinlinger , Karl Einhart, Fritz Gaum and the two artisans Albert Schatz and Fritz Schmidt Kasia von Szadurska. The sales exhibition took place in the later Szadurskas apartment, the former garden shed on the arbor in Constance. The group of artists was supported by Fritz Leib, a merchant who charged 30% commission from the works of art sold. If one believes the coded concluding remark in the annual report of 1919 in the Bodenseebuch of 1921, then the behavior of this businessman is supposed to be the reason for the short cohesion of the group, which lasted only a few months.

Graphics

Portrait of Fritz Mauthner (1916)

Portrait of Helga Schlegel (1933)

Kasia von Szadurska was above all an excellent graphic artist who captured her impressions with a sure, quick line. Her preference for gloomy scenes and erotic depictions of women are stylistically linked to the fading Expressionism, but independent in terms of content. The book on Lake Constance , published by Norbert Jacques from 1914 , provided a platform for illustrations on which Kasia von Szadurska was able to repeatedly demonstrate her drawing skills. She also illustrated numerous publications for local publishers such as Reuss & Itta or Otto Wöhrle in Konstanz, for books by Wilhelm von Scholz, and took part in many exhibitions, not least organized by the artists' association “Der Kreis” (Lake Constance region) .

In 1916 she made a portrait drawing of the philosopher Fritz Mauthner , who lived in the Glaserhäusle in Meersburg . The artist did not worry about bourgeois conventions and barriers to propriety - her portfolio Ten Nudes , published in 1921 as a limited edition, is a tender homage to lesbian love. In her early works she also used similar themes as oil paintings , in which mostly expressive colors dominate. In addition, she took part in major exhibitions such as B. 1925 and 1927 in Berlin and 1930 in Freiburg. There is also an interesting article about women artists, in which von Szadurska is presented in the illustrious circle of Käthe Kollwitz , Marie Laurencin and Emy Roeder .

Kasia von Szadurska flirted with her mysterious, foreign origin all her life. In subjects such as night scenes, barnacles, murderers, prison depictions, masks or cats, she dealt with strange and gloomy subjects, which, however, are also characteristic of the works of many artists after the First World War. Two early oil paintings in private ownership, showing a circus and a tightrope walker, document the close motif connection between graphics and oil painting. Fine in the presentation and layout, the motifs convince in the expressive color implementation and play with the mysterious.

Ferry pictures

Another side of Szadurska can be seen in the ferry pictures. So far eleven works - drawings, watercolors, graphics and oil paintings - have been handed down for the construction of the ferry connection from Konstanz to Meersburg, which show the artist's interest in technology. However, only two of the three known oil paintings have survived. The version that the Wessenberg-Haus bought in 1929 has not survived because it was removed in 1937 as a “degenerate” work. The large number of these pictures in particular allows a glimpse into the artist's working method: Occasionally she took the liberty of repeating a drawing or a fleeting watercolor in careful execution or even converted into an oil painting. The ten ferry port construction pictures document only five stages of construction, with a ferry already docking in the last watercolor. Where it is necessary for a balanced image motif, details are changed in favor of the image structure. So z. For example, the large construction boat in the oil paintings is shown in exactly the opposite direction than in the drawings and watercolors. She was happy to add the motif of a small sailing boat or steamer to loosen up the large lake area.

But the depiction of a factory or the drawing of a car trip also testify to her interest in technology, as well as some of the Meersburg views are also shown in a very simplified way. Powerful, colorful, voluminous still lifes complement this facet of the artist. “... the experience of color is the deepest and most primal in her art. All form is created from the color. One visualises her magnificent portrait of a Chinese woman, or her most mature work, the Meersburg ferry, and one can feel how these works were born from the essence of color and its interrelationships ... "

• 

  Construction of the Meersburg - Konstanz ferry. 1929, oil on canvas. Meersburg Municipal Collection

• 

  Meersburg as seen from the port of Constance. 1940, oil on canvas. Meersburg Municipal Collection

New Objectivity

Like many contemporaries, Kasia von Szadurska turned away from expressive influences from the mid-1920s and turned to New Objectivity . In contrast to her fellow artists from Breidablik, she never approached complete abstraction ; she contented herself with simplifying the objects. A late work with the distant view of Meersburg from Staad can be completely assigned to the New Objectivity.

Various documents reveal that she not only occupied herself with graphics and painting, but was also keen to experiment. She created furniture with the Meersburg carver Joseph Ehinger and designed an advertising sign for her own brewery. She also experimented with sculpture in Munich in 1927 , created a mural, was a member of the artistic advisory board of the Städtebundtheater Konstanz-Winterthur-Schaffhausen and designed the stage set for the Konstanz City Theater for Calcutta May 4th. 3 files of the colonial history of Lion Feuchtwanger .

Subjects

mask

One likes to associate her preferred subjects with the mysterious: One theme is the mask, behind which one can hide the true feeling, like her famous self-portrait , which shows a thoughtful, almost melancholy woman behind the laughing larva . The location of her most famous work on masks, which the Wessenberg Gallery wanted to buy in 1927, is not known. Only in a description of the journalist Elga core survived the mysterious and socially critical picture continues: " Masks are called one thing: a tangle crowded masks in the foreground, the gruesome and grotesque ecstasy as the glaring spotlight of a suburban dope underground defectiveness, the arrogant void that senseless Fissures next to unheard-of misery unexplained bared. In the background a desolate funeral procession, heavy as lead, creeps up to the gloom. And somewhere far away, a god lets the sun shine. ”Kasia von Szadurska also lets her older son play with masks.

Cats

The cat can be found in the painter's work even more frequently. This is a being that has been ascribed mysterious properties for centuries. The early cat portraits are expressive. The earliest work seems to be a lithograph which, with the dominating black, fits well into the series of gloomy graphics around 1920. A black cat in oil with exaggerated limbs in front of a red-orange background shows an expressive depiction from the Breidablik period; a gray Persian cat is more realistic in shape, but the background shows expressive echoes. The portraits in which female figures hold velvet paws in their hands must have been made around the same time. There is also a kitten study and a greeting card - again a self-portrait with a cat - as well as numerous photographs showing the artist with a cat, including a Christmas card from 1914 to Otto Ehinger and a photo with a Persian cat on the terrace of Haus Ödenstein.

But her later works, which according to the art doctrine of the Nazi regime are exclusively committed to reality, still show the artist's abilities in the depiction of the cat. The children's portraits may sometimes be a little too lovely or too clearly committed to the “ blood and soil style ” - the depictions of the cat are only insignificantly inferior to the earlier works. Basically, she is taking up a popular Impressionist theme , which shows the cat as a symbol of familiar closeness and tender touch. Only the lightness of the brushstroke and the extremely naturalistic representation deviated from the style of the Impressionists, especially from 1933 onwards.

file

Numerous nudes and self-portraits were created by the end of the 1920s - another popular motif of the artist. The representation of the human body enabled her to express the inner world of the individual: emotions, feelings, fears and hopes. The most expressive nude paintings in bold colors are her self-portraits. One picture has already been treated with the masks, other paintings are the self-portrait with bare chest, which Ehinger described in his article on the Breidablik exhibition: “And one side of it traces the longings on the bottom of souls. From there the image of the sinful woman with the bare breast. ”Other works are a nude from the back, a nude in front of a mirror (also a self-portrait) and various boudoir motifs, some of which exist as drawings, some as watercolors and pastels and are occasionally based on graphics e.g. . B. fall back from the folder 10 files .

Up until the mid-1920s, Kasia von Szadurska decorated numerous “circle” exhibitions with such motifs. She sent three such motifs for the exhibition in Lindau from July 28 to August 24, 1926 alone. In addition, some black and white photos of this motif have been preserved in the estate. A melancholy artist has already been presented in a self-portrait with a mask. The self-portrait with bare chest shows a curious, perhaps even cheeky, female painter, while the other two paintings mentioned show the naturalness in dealing with the naked body, as does a photo of the artist, which is presumably in the studio in the Laube in Constance was created during or shortly after the “Breidablik” period. In the background are pictures of her fellow artists. These pictures give an impression of the joie de vivre of the so-called Golden Twenties , which the numerous artist personalities also carried to Lake Constance.

Portraits

Despite the independence that Kasia von Szadurska promoted towards her husband - she hired a nanny to look after her sons - portraits and genre scenes of the children Till and Thorgrim take up a large space. Playing children, sleeping children and portraits mainly by Till suggest how difficult it was for the artist to separate from her children that went along with the divorce from Ehinger. A few letters and postcards to the sons also confirm this. Although the Ehinger couple did not separate until 1934 and were divorced in 1935, the couple went their separate ways as early as 1929/1930. Kasia von Szadurska left the family for longer and longer times, as confirmed by her son Thorgrim. A dilemma that is perhaps also expressed by the unusual self-portrait with her two sons from 1930, in which Kasia, wearing a voluminous fur coat , portrays herself almost like a protective coat Madonna under which her naked sons seek protection. The strange subject and the quality of the picture were already described in the summer exhibition of the same year in Freiburg: “And strange Kasia von Szadurska - Meersburg. She paints herself with her children, but there is a dichotomy in this virtuously painted picture, in this majestic mother in fur and in ice cream gloves and the two naked children. "

This and the fact that she now had to live exclusively from her art in a dictatorship explain the numerous portraits that were created in the 1930s. As a rule, it was commissioned art that was created according to the client's specifications. In the letter of October 8, 1929 to Heinrich Beuttenmüller, it becomes clear how much she was dependent on portrait painting and how this made it difficult to carry out other art projects: “So far the exhibition [in the Wessenberghaus Konstanz] has brought me 6 orders for children's portraits. [...] For a long time I haven't had the opportunity to work illustratively, because I almost always do portraits and the like. similar painting, but such a task would appeal to me all the more. "

A few large-format bouquets of flowers complete the late work. With one of these flower arrangements - gladioli - the artist wanted to participate in the 1937 tender for the newly inaugurated “ House of German Art ” in Munich, as a label on the frame of this privately owned painting attests. However, it does not seem to have been accepted, as the catalogs of the Kunsthaus from 1937–1941 attest. Shortly before her death, she took part in at least two exhibitions of the “ Association of Women Artists in Berlin ”; in the first with the oil painting child playing, in the second with the works of Portrait of an Old Gentleman and Mother and Child .

Exhibitions

Before the ostracism

• January - March 1919: Mannheim, art gallery "The Baden region in pictures"
• March 19 - April 13, 1922: Konstanz, Kunstverein, solo exhibition
• May 16 - end of August 1925: Berlin, state exhibition building at Lehrter Bahnhof, " Great Berlin Art Exhibition "
• July 28th - August 24th 1926: Lindau, Toskana Park
• October 3 - 24, 1926: Winterthur, Kunstverein, exhibition of the art association "Der Kreis"
• August 1927: Konstanz, Wessenberghaus, exhibition of the art association "Der Kreis"
• May 7 - September 30, 1927: Berlin, state exhibition building at Lehrter Bahnhof, "Great Berlin Art Exhibition"
• May to November 1927: Munich, craft exhibition
• Summer 1928: Friedrichshafen, exhibition of the art association "Der Kreis"
• November 1928: Schwäbisch Gmünd Museum of Applied Arts,
• 1929: Ulm, Schwörhaus
• May / June 1929: Konstanz, Wessenberghaus (Kunstverein)
• September 15 to early October 1929: Konstanz, Wessenberghaus with around 70 works
• 1929: Stuttgart, Kunsthaus Schaller, exhibition of the art association "Der Kreis"
• Spring / Summer 1930: Karlsruhe
• Summer 1930: Freiburg, Kunstverein, summer exhibition
• May 1931: Kassel, Kunstverein
• 1931: Constance, Wessenberghaus "Bodensee Art Exhibition"
• July - September 1932: Lindau, Old Town Hall, exhibition of the art association "Der Kreis"
• July - mid-August 1933: Munich, Neue Pinakothek and Deutsches Museum (library building), State Art Exhibition Munich
• July 16 - September 10, 1933: Bregenz, Vorarlberg State Museum, exhibition by the art association "Der Kreis"
• October 15 - November 19, 1933: Winterthur, Kunstverein, exhibition of the art association "Der Kreis"
• April - July 1936: Baden-Baden, permanent art exhibition, art exhibition Baden-Baden

After the ostracism

• December 10, 1939 - January 9, 1940: Berlin, Galerie vd Heyde, organized by the German Lyzeum Club and the Association of Women Artists in Berlin
• June 4 - July 2, 1940: Berlin, guest exhibition of the Association of Women Artists in Berlin

Posthumously

• From September 12, 1942: Wessenberghaus Konstanz (Kunstverein Konstanz) summer exhibition of the Lake Constance painters
• December 5, 2009 - March 7, 2010: Municipal Wessenberg Gallery in Konstanz
• March 14, 2010 - May 24, 2010: Meersburg, Municipal Gallery, Meersburg New Castle. Kasia from Szadurska. 1886–1942 - passion and suffering

literature

Overall representations

• Brigitte Rieger-Benkel: Kasia von Szadurska. Between sensuality and the abyss. In: Leben am See 2009, pp. 51–62.
• Susanne Satzer-Spree: Kasia von Szadurska - portrait of an artistic woman in the “rock nest” on Lake Constance. In: Life at the lake. No. 10, 1992/1993, pp. 172-175.
• Barbara Stark: Kasia von Szadurska. An artist beyond convention. In: Allmende 2008.

Stages of life of Kasia von Szadurska

• Berlinische Galerie (ed.): Profession without tradition. 125 years of the Association of Berlin Women Artists. Berlin 1992, pp. 448-452.
• Manfred Bosch : Boheme on Lake Constance. š. Edition, Libelle, Lengwil 2007, ISBN 978-3-909081-75-2 , pp. 227–232 (Chapter: On the right to deny one's convictions. Otto Ehinger and Kasia von Szadurska. )
• Yvette Deseyve: The Munich Artists' Association V. and its ladies' academy. A study of the educational situation of women artists in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Utz, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-8316-0479-7 , p. 189 (= Kunstwissenschaften . Vol. 12, at the same time: Munich, Univ., Master's thesis, 2002/2003, with a list of all full members, schoolchildren and teaching subjects in the years 1882–1920).
• Brigitte Grande: Picture gallery for Meersburg. In: Bodenseehefte , No. 7, 1990, pp. 48-51.
• Andrea Hofmann: Outlawed - respected. Art under National Socialism using the example in Constance. Booklet accompanying the exhibition at the Kunstverein Konstanz, July 26–23. August 1987, Konstanz, p. 22 f.
• Andrea Hofmann: "Degenerate" art on Lake Constance. In: Bodenseehefte , No. 8, 1987, pp. 20-25.
• Carlo Karrenbauer: The artist group Breidablik. In: Ceramic Center Konstanz. Art Nouveau until the 50s. Stuttgart 1997, pp. 35-41.
• Anne Langenkamp: Art from the turn of the century to 1945. In: Städtische Wessenberg-Galerie Konstanz (Hrsg.): See-Blick. German artists on Lake Constance. Konstanz 1998, pp. 9-34.
• Anne Langenkamp: German Expressionist Artists on Lake Constance. In: Städtische Wessenberg-Galerie Konstanz (ed.): Expressionism at Lake Constance. Literature and fine arts. Eggingen 2001, p. 114.
• Anne Langenkamp: I am tender - I am strong! German artists on Lake Constance 1900–1950. In: Städtische Wessenberg-Galerie Konstanz (Ed.): Eigenwillig. Artists at Lake Constance 1900–1950. Konstanz 2005, pp. 19-40.
• Association of Berlin Women Artists (ed.): Käthe, Paula and the rest . Berlin 1992, ISBN 3-891814-11-9 . P. 168.

Exhibition catalog

• Brigitte Rieger-Benkel, Barbara Stark: Kasia von Szadurska (1986–1942) - passion and suffering. Catalog for the exhibition in the Städtische Wessenberg-Galerie Konstanz and Städtische Galerie Neues Schloss Meersburg. Konstanz 2009, ISBN 978-3-929768-24-4 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Birgit Kölgen: The idyll is the enemy of freedom. In: Schwäbische Zeitung from December 9, 2009.
2. ↑ ^{a b} Ulrike Niederhöfer: Meersburg pays tribute to Kasia von Szadurska in an exhibition. In: Südkurier of April 3, 2010
3. ^ Portrait of Barbakoff by Kasia von Szadurska
4. ↑ Bodenseebuch 1923 , with cover picture Obertor Meersburg by Kasia Szadurska
5. ↑ Kurt Münzer: Between two worlds. Strange stories. With pictures by Kasia von Szadurska (two sheets of ink drawings). Reuss & Itta publishing house, Konstanz 1916.
6. ^ Siegfried Jacobsohn: The first days. Illustrated by Kasia von Szadurska. Reuss & Itta publishing house, Konstanz 1916.
7. ↑ Fritz Mauthner: The golden fiddle bow. Two novels from Bohemia. Cover design by Kasia von Szadurska. Publishing house Reuss & Itta, Konstanz 1917.
8. ^ Edeltraud Fürst: 40 artists in words in pictures. In: Edeltraud Fürst: The artists' association “Der Kreis”. Painter and sculptor on Lake Constance 1925-1938. Friedrichshafen 1992, pp. 116/117
9. ^ Burkhard Bittrich: Mauthner, Fritz . In: Ostdeutsche Biografie (Kulturportal West-Ost) - with a portrait drawing of Mauthner by Kasia von Szadurska from 1916
10. ↑ Kulturamt Meersburg: Last special tour of the exhibition “Kasia von Szadurska. 1886–1942 - Passion and Suffering ”. In: Mitteilungsblatt Meersburg-Hagnau-Stetten-Daisendorf of May 12, 2010, p. 5.

Web links

Commons : Kasia von Szadurska  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Kasia von Szadurska in the catalog of the German National Library
• Short biography of Kasia von Szadurska