Adolf Hildenbrand

Adolf Emil Hildenbrand , signature abbreviation AHi , (born September 14, 1881 in Löffingen ; † December 12, 1944 in Pforzheim ), was a German painter , graphic artist , enameller , lecturer at the Pforzheim School of Applied Arts and a freemason .

origin

Adolf Hildenbrand: Self-Portrait (1926)

Adolf Hildenbrand's father was Emil Jakob Hildenbrand (1856–1926). His grandfather was the gilder and painter Jakob Hildenbrand (1825–1888). He came from a Waldshut family who had lived there since the 16th century . Adolf Hildenbrand attended the higher middle school in Waldshut . His drawing teacher Bernhard Sindlinger supported him. He soon broke off an apprenticeship as a photographer in Säckingen. His parents then made it possible for him to attend the Karlsruhe School of Applied Arts , where he passed the drawing teacher exam with “very good”. He also received the Grand Ducal Peace Coin for special achievements . In 1902 he was appointed to the Pforzheim School of Applied Arts, initially as head of the enamel class. He received a bronze medal for a train lamp at the St. Louis World Exhibition in 1904 . In 1906 he became a drawing teacher. He mastered the techniques of lithography , copper engraving and etching . In 1908 he was appointed professor.

Stations and works

In 1908 he married Gertrud Maierhofer from Pforzheim. The couple had three children. Study trips took him to Italy (1908), Paris (1910), Colmar and Basel (1912), and he got in touch with Ferdinand Hodler . From 1911 he stayed in the Bernauer Hochtal in the Black Forest with Albert Haueisen , and in 1913 several days in the Krunkelbachtal . From 1915 he was a member of the Freemason Lodge Reuchlin in Pforzheim.

In 1919 he bought a studio house in Bernau, the Red House . From 1915 to 1918 he did military service in the First World War, was wounded in Russia in 1917 and was then sent to the hospital. In 1920 he had an exhibition in the Wolfsberg art salon near Zurich. In 1923 he made first contacts with the Grand Lodge in Bayreuth. From 1924 to 1931 exhibitions followed in Pforzheim, Lindau, Mannheim, Karlsruhe, Baden-Baden and Freiburg. In 1928 he painted at Schluchsee and at Aha . A painting stay in Gaienhofen followed in 1931. There was also contact with Hermann Hesse . Another stop was the beaver mill and the painter Hans Sturzenegger , an exhibition at the Kunstverein Wuppertal and experiments with pastel chalk from the Stabilo brand .

From 1926 Adolf Hildenbrand was a member of the artist group Der Kreis . In the same year he went on a 14-day hike with Sepp Vees and Karl Caspar to Munich for the Lovis Corinth exhibition.

In 1933 he was suspended from teaching , and at the end of the year some pictures from public spaces were confiscated. Nevertheless, exhibitions followed at the Badischer Kunstverein Karlsruhe in Mannheim and Baden-Baden and at the Wolfsberg art salon in Zurich. He dealt with encaustic technology. At the end of 1933, the wall paintings for the sanatorium in St. Blasien were finished, they received a lot of attention and were printed in a magazine of the Velhagen & Klasing publishing house . In 1934 he made wall paintings for the town hall in Mühlacker , after which he wrote Picture of my Life . In 1935 Adolf Beyer tried to promote him at the Darmstadt Art Show in 1935 . In 1936 he made the triptych The Three Ages for the Sparkasse Biberach . The painter Willi Münch-Khe then stood up for him, and some pictures appeared in the National Socialist monthly issues . After 1940 he was only rarely active due to illness. In 1938 he made a triptych for District Administrator Röger in Maulbronn. Further painting stays in Liechtenstein on the Gaflei followed. Then he traveled to the Hardangerfjord at the invitation of Admiral Günther Lütjens , several pictures were taken, followed by a stay in Gdansk to paint. In 1939 he was given early retirement . He took up residence in Bernau, and in Waldshut he made some silver pencil drawings. During his stay in Kaiserberg in Bernau (1941) he only painted a few study drawings on the subject of herds . In 1943, at the invitation of Mayor Birkenmeyer, he stayed at the Waldshut hospital and managed to transfer most of the pictures stored in Pforzheim to Waldshut. The house in Pforzheim had not been completely destroyed (February 1945), the roof only partially collapsed, a small remainder of the pictures could still be saved to Mühlacker (1946), later they also came to Bernau.

Reception and appreciation

His pictures, drawings and graphics show the relationship and the connection to home in the southern Black Forest and the Upper Rhine. Adolf Hildenbrand exhibited his work in exhibitions in Germany and Switzerland, for the last time in 1935. He turned down an invitation to an exhibition in Monza . An Adolf Hildenbrand Museum planned in Waldshut in 1944 did not materialize. Most of his pictures, drawings and works are now in storage and privately owned.

The sculptor Alfred Sachs (1907–1990) made a bronze bust . Sporadically, exhibitions of his works have always been held. Several streets have been named in his honor, for example in Bonndorf in the Black Forest . The local researcher Emil Baader (his nephew) built a "Heimatstube" with images of his works in Waldshut in 1957 and an "AHi memorial room" in Löffingen in 1958/59 .

Fonts

• (with Hermann Erpf ): Proposals for promoting the arts and creative artists in Baden. (Memorandum) 1919.

literature

• Eugen Rombach, Walter Lochmüller : Adolf Hildenbrand. Waldshut 1966.
• Elmar Zimmermann : The painter Adolf Hildenbrand. Aspects of his pictorial work. 1977.
• Ulla Heise: Hildenbrand, Adolf. In: General Artist Lexicon .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Eugen Rombach: Adolf Hildenbrand. Life and Work , p. 12
2. ^ Elmar Zimmermann: The painter Adolf Hildenbrand. Aspects of his pictorial work. 1977, p. 12
3. ↑ Eugen Rombach: Adolf Hildenbrand. Life and Work , p. 15
4. ↑ sepp-vees.com: Une expédition de 14 jours a pied pour Munich (French; accessed on August 25, 2015)