Wilhelm Wandschneider

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Wilhelm Wandschneider

Wilhelm Georg Johannes Wandschneider (born June 6, 1866 in Plau am See , † September 23, 1942 there ) was a German sculptor and medalist . The artist's life and work have been documented in the Plau Sculpture Museum Prof. Wandschneider since 1994 .

biography

Childhood and youth in Plau

Wilhelm Wandschneider was born as the son of the painter Ludwig Wandschneider (1827–1890) and his wife Christine, b. Koch (1840-1905). His siblings were Marie (married Niemann, 1869–1934) and Karl Wandschneider (1869–1938).

Wandschneider first attended the lower classes of the Plauer city school. Following the family tradition, after finishing school he learned the painting trade in his father's workshop; the "brushwork and tassel painting". He used the few free hours for drawing and painting, and later also for modeling. As a painter's assistant, Wilhelm Wandschneider went on a journey to Güstrow and Rostock in the summer of 1884. In March 1885 his father then gave him permission to go to Berlin and look for work.

Artistic career

The mayor of Plau, Gustav Holldorff (1850–1898), had some sculptural works by Wandschneider shown and then sat down with Grand Duke Friedrich Franz III. for the award of a scholarship. First of all, an expert opinion from a well-known sculptor had to be obtained. Wandschneider presented himself to Ludwig Brunow and Martin Wolff in Berlin , who both judged benevolently about the artistic talent. In response to a letter from the mayor of Plau, the Grand Duke granted a one-time, personal gift of money of 150 marks for further training as a wall tailor at the Royal Art School. In the fall of 1886 he passed the entrance exam for the Academic University of Fine Arts. The matriculation took place on November 12, 1886. Among his teachers were u. a. Julius Ehrentraut , Albert Wolff and Gerhard Janensch . For further practical training he worked in the studios of Karl Hilgers , Ernst Herter , Martin Wolff and Ludwig Brunow. They all followed the tradition of the Berlin School of Sculpture . Albert Wolff became a special sponsor of Wandschneider during his studies. Among his classmates, he maintained a friendly relationship, especially with Constantin Starck and Hermann Hidding .

In May 1895, Wandschneider moved to Reinhold Begas' studio as a master student on the recommendation of the academy . In 1895 he won the price of 4,500 marks advertised by the Rohr Foundation for a year-long art and study trip to Italy. After staying in Paris for several weeks, Wandschneider arrived in Rome on December 24, 1895. The Academy had rented a studio in the Villa Strohl-Fern there for its scholarship holders . At the costume party of the German Artists' Association in Rome, Wandschneider met Anna Kreß in January 1896, whom he married two years later. In May 1896, Wandschneider started his journey home.

Create

Pike fountain in Teterow

Wandschneider took part in numerous, mostly anonymous, competitions for monuments and fountains across the country. He won a total of 27 prizes, including the designs for the Kaiser Wilhelm I monument in Neustettin and for the Kaiser Friedrich III monument in Dortmund. The two statues were unveiled in September and October 1898, respectively. This was followed, among other things: Werner von Siemens memorial in Charlottenburg (1899), Bismarck memorial Schwerin (1901), the Rostock Friedrich Franz III memorial (1901) and the Dreyse memorial in Sömmerda . Furthermore, the figure of Bishop Adalbert in the courtyard of the Hamburg City Hall comes from him.

Through his friend Constantin Starck, Wandschneider came into contact with Mecklenburg's Duke-Regent Johann Albrecht in 1899 . This gave him several orders in the following years. In the years from 1897 to 1916, wall tailors experienced his most successful years as a sculptor. From 1893 to 1919, he exhibited almost continuously at the Great Berlin Art Exhibition . The name Wandschneider was also represented at exhibitions in Dresden, Munich, Schwerin, Düsseldorf and abroad in St. Louis, Venice, Vienna, London, Glasgow and Liverpool. In Mecklenburg, Güstrow got “Voss un Swinegel” (1908) with the Brinckman fountain , Stavenhagen with the Fritz Reuter monument (1911), Teterow with the “ Hechtbrunnen ” (1914) and Karow with the Schlutius mausoleum (1911–1916 ) Works from Wandschneider's workshop.

International exhibitions and competitions

When the name Wilhelm Wandschneider was already well known in Germany, the artist thought about offering himself abroad. The first opportunity was the delegation of some of his works to the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis / USA. The Coriolan got a gold medal. In 1906 he received a small gold medal at the Great Berlin Art Exhibition for the bronze figure Der Sieger , which Kaiser Wilhelm II bought and had it displayed in the Tiergarten Berlin.

He also applied for international monument competitions, including the José Rizal monument for Manila, the equestrian monument Peter the Great for Riga, the equestrian monument Alexander II for St. Petersburg, the monument Pjotr ​​Arkadjewitsch Stolypin for Moscow, the equestrian monument Louis Botha for Cape Town, the equestrian monument Simón Bolívar for Quito. With the exception of a 3rd prize at the monument to Tsar Peter the Great in Riga, the competitions mentioned were all unsuccessful, but the competition for the Barclay de Tolly monument in Riga was an unexpectedly great success. Wandschneider received all three prizes and the order. A little later he was invited to an international competition for a memorial for St. Louis / USA. It should be dedicated to three German-Americans, the publicists and politicians Carl Schurz , Emil Preetorius and Carl Daenzer . Wandschneider was also commissioned here with the character “The Naked Truth”.

As a personal commission from Kaiser Wilhelm II , the third major monument to Wandschneider was erected on foreign soil in 1915. In mutual coordination with the authorities of the occupied French territories, the German military authorities decided to erect a joint memorial for the fallen from both sides. The St. Martin military cemetery near St. Quentin in northern France was selected as the location .

Years in Berlin - return to Plau

After the collapse of the German Empire as a result of the First World War, a large number of visual artists - including wall tailors - found themselves in dire straits. The old clients of public monuments no longer existed due to the political and economic upheavals, and the number of private clients also fell. At times, Wandschneider had to feed his 6 children with food from the people's kitchen .

The only clients in the early 1920s were the military and warrior associations , which had increasingly revanchist memorials erected for their fallen comrades. During this time he created the Malchow swastika memorial .

In 1925, Wandschneider was forced to sell the studio house in Berlin. Now almost 60 years old, he retired in his hometown Plau. The Plau city administration welcomed the news of the return of her famous son with joy. On his 60th birthday, Wandschneider was made an honorary citizen of the city. The city fathers made a room available in the city school in which 70 plaster models of his works were initially exhibited. A first "wall cutter museum" was founded and existed until 1947.

time of the nationalsocialism

When National Socialism gained increasing public importance from 1930 , Wandschneider also joined the NSDAP . Professionally, he benefited from his early NSDAP membership, which brought him a considerable number of small jobs. During the years of Nazi rule even larger works were: the sower and mowing in 1935 as a gift to the 700th anniversary of Plau, the penny Young in 1936 for the Sparkasse Plau, the Skagerrak monument with the figure of a gun sailors in 1936 for the city of Rostock and the mourners Soldier 1937 at the Schwerin military cemetery. With these well-modeled, but artistically unconvincing works, the aging artist could no longer build on previous successes. His Aphrodite , created in 1907, and the Thor modeled on the basis of Coriolan (1903) were shown in 1940 and 1942 at the Great German Art Exhibition organized by the Reich Chamber of Fine Arts . Aphrodite , modeled in 1907, was bought by Adolf Hitler in the course of the 1940 exhibition . She then got a place in the New Reich Chancellery . The second cast made in 1941 was donated to the city by Hitler in 1942 as part of a special order from Linz . The statue was then placed in the Bauernbergpark in Linz. In 2008 the city of Linz had the statue donated by Hitler removed from this location. Since then, the controversial cast has been stored in the basement of the Nordico City Museum in Linz . At the initiative of the municipal culture committee, the wall cutter Aphrodite will be exhibited in the Nordico City Museum Linz from the end of March 2018.

Awards and honors

literature

  • Bernd Ruchhöft, Fred Ruchhöft: Wilhelm Wandschneider. Life and work of a sculptor from Mecklenburg. Self-published, Plau am See 1992.
  • Heidrun Lorenzen, Volker Probst (Ed.): Fine arts in Mecklenburg 1900 to 1945. Between regionality and internationality. Hinstorff, Rostock 2010, ISBN 978-3-356-01406-8 (book accompanying the exhibition "Pure beauty. Mecklenburg - a country for artists 1900 to 1945", Güstrow and Rostock 2010).
  • Hans Land: Wilhelm Wandschneider and his work. With eleven illustrations based on original photographs. In: Reclams Universum 24.1 (1908), pp. 442-447.

Web links

Commons : Wilhelm Wandschneider  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Artist: Wilhelm Wandschneider. German Society for Medal Art, accessed on November 15, 2014 .
  2. ↑ Brigitte Hartel, Bernfried Lichtnau: Art in the Baltic Sea Region: Architecture and fine arts from 1933 to 1945. Volume 2. Peter Lang Verlag der Wissenschaften, Bern a. a., p. 112.
  3. ^ The Great German Art Exhibition 1937–1944 / 45. gdk-research.de, accessed on November 9, 2016 .
  4. ↑ Otto Thomae: The Propaganda Machine: Fine Arts and Public Relations in the Third Reich. Gebrüder Mann Verlag, Berlin 1979, ISBN 978-37-8611-159-7 , pp. 332, 333.
  5. ^ Gift of Adolf Hitler: City of Linz removes Aphrodite statue . presse.com, accessed February 10, 2020.
  6. ↑ Historian sees Hitler-Aphrodite in Linz as a “statue with potential”. standard.at, accessed on March 20, 2017.
  7. ^ Exhibition Aphrodite March 23, 2018 to January 2019 . accessed on January 29, 2018
personal data
SURNAME Wandschneider, Wilhelm
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wandschneider, Wilhelm Georg Johannes (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German sculptor and medalist
DATE OF BIRTH June 6, 1866
PLACE OF BIRTH Plau am See
DATE OF DEATH September 23, 1942
Place of death Plau am See