Max Bernuth

Friedrich Albin Max Bernuth (born July 26, 1872 in Leipzig , † April 1, 1960 in Bayerisch Gmain , Berchtesgadener Land district , Upper Bavaria ) was a German painter , book illustrator and professor at the applied arts school in Wuppertal-Elberfeld .

Life

His talent for painting was recognized at a young age, so that he was able to start an apprenticeship as a lithographer after graduating from the public school in Leipzig . He then received a scholarship from the Leipzig Academy . Through the mediation of Max Klinger (1859–1920) a patron was found who enabled him to study at the prestigious Munich Academy under Professor Alexander von Liezen-Mayer (1839–1898). Bernuth's time in Munich and Innsbruck from 1894 to 1902 is considered to be the most important epoch of his artistic work. As an employee of the art magazine " Die Jugend " he gained general fame.

The "Jugend - Münchner Illustrierte Wochenschrift für Kunst und Leben" was an art magazine founded in 1896 by the publisher Georg Hirth , which reported on and promoted new trends and developments in art. That is why almost all of Munich's top art nouveau artists have created works for the “youth”. The magazine thus gave its name to the German "Art Nuoveau", the Art Nouveau, which was only one of the art movements it propagated. Among other things, Max Bernuth went on study trips to the Bavarian Forest , where he created lithographs and drawings among glassmakers and woodcutters, which were published in the “Jugend”.

He later went to Innsbruck, where he married Emilie Beate Elise Pötter (born August 25, 1876 in Hannoversch Münden , † February 25, 1963 in Bayerisch Gmain) on November 5, 1901 , the daughter of the carpenter Christoph Pötter and Albertine Hulda Zwade . The couple had two sons, Walter (1902–1987) and Fritz (1904–1979) and daughter Rosel (1910– ??). Walter also became known as a painter and, like his father, was a teacher at the Elberfelder Kunstgewerbeschule; Fritz became an important sculptor .

From 1902 Max Bernuth worked as a professor of the figurative class at the Elberfeld School of Applied Arts. Among his students were Otto Friedrich Weber , Carl Moritz Schreiner , Arno Breker and Karl Schrage . Bernuth was also involved in numerous exhibitions in Wuppertal, which were rated equally positively by experts and the press. In the first third of the 20th century it occupied an important place in the lively Wuppertal art scene. Max Bernuth was enthusiastic about the Alps and the Bavarian Forest. Therefore he moved to Bad Reichenhall in October 1932 . In 1939 he moved into the "Kochhäusl" in Bayerisch Gmain.

Max Bernuth was a member of the German Association of Artists . As an artist, he was influenced by Max Klinger , the lithographer Otto Greiner (1869–1916) and Adolph Menzel (1815–1905). He was a sought-after portraitist (e.g. Friedrich Bayer , founder of today's Bayer AG ) and known for his genre and animal pictures. But he became famous for his book decorations. In his early phase in particular, he was one of the well-known book illustrators in Germany.

His ideal of philosophy was Schopenhauer ; apart from the classics, he was particularly interested in literature in Shakespeare , Homer , Dante , Cervantes and Grimmelshausen . By heart he declaimed “ Faust I ” by Goethe or parts of Dante and Shakespeare. There were house concerts every week.

Bernuth was a good athlete and excellent skater throughout his life. At the age of 80 he ventured onto the ice as a skater, which is why he was nicknamed "Ice Professor" .

literature

• Bernuth, Max in: Hans Vollmer (Ed.): General Lexicon of Fine Artists of the XX. Century. First volume (AD) , EA Seemann, Leipzig 1999 (study edition). ISBN 3-363-00730-2 (p. 191)
• Wolf Dietloff von Bernuth: The Bernuth book . In: Library of Family History Works, Volume 47, Verlag Degener & Co., Neustadt (Aisch) 1986, ISBN 3-7686-5077-4 .
• Udo Garweg / Sabine Fehlemann: Wuppertal artist directory , Von der Heydt-Museum Wuppertal 2000. ISBN 3-89202-042-6 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ kuenstlerbund.de: Full members of the Deutscher Künstlerbund since it was founded in 1903 / Bernuth, Max ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (accessed on February 6, 2016) 

Web links

• Literature list in the online catalog of the Berlin State Library
• The Bernuth book. Genealogy of the von Bernuth family