Adolf Kleemann

Adolf Kleemann (born December 2, 1904 in Waldsassen , Upper Palatinate , † September 11, 1989 in Starnberg ) was a German freelance painter and graphic artist.

Life

Adolf Kleemann's father's print shop determined his entry into the State School of Applied Arts in Munich in 1925 . In 1930 he enrolled at the Munich Academy , where his teacher Franz Klemmer took up the professorship for religious painting in the same year as the successor to Carl Johann Becker-Gundahl . Its monumental painting and Klemmer's new objectivity conveyed craftsmanship and artistic skill. In 1937, the ceiling fresco Resurrection was created in St. Peter and Paul Holzkirchen , today part of the municipality of Wechingen .

In 1934 Kleemann switched to Olaf Gulbransson , who offered him refuge as a master student with a studio. As a Nazi opponent, Kleemann was at risk among professors who had approved the exhibition “ Degenerate Art ” (1937 Haus der Kunst , Munich). His marriage to Marianne, the daughter of the Swiss painter and co-founder of the Munich Secession , Wilhelm Ludwig Lehmann , strengthened the artistic development. The Protestant vicar Walter Hildmann , a supporter of the Confessing Church, was decisive for the worldview and work design in Gauting . In 1940 the painterly work ended due to Gestapo imprisonment in the Wittelsbacher Palais (Munich), war against the Soviet Union ( anti- aircraft battalion) and imprisonment in Western Siberia ( Sverdlovsk Oblast ). Dismissed in 1947, he found new clients thanks to his studies in Munich.

The Bavarian State Office for the Preservation of Monuments and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria valued his religiousness, deepened in wartime experiences, as well as his expertise in various painting means and techniques, also in restoration projects.

He is buried in the Gauting forest cemetery with other painters from the Gauting artist colony such as August Bresgen and Hans Olde the Younger .

Works (selection)

• Glass windows: in Hauzenberg (St. Markus, 1958), Ehringen (St. Oswald, 1960), Buxach ( Dreieinigkeitskirche , 1960), Munich ( Evangeliumskirche , 1962), Lindau (St. Stephan, 1965).

• Wall paintings in fresco: wooden churches (St. Peter and Paul, 1950), Reutti (St. Margareta, 1952), Garmisch (Christ Church, 1954).

• Mosaic - sgraffito : Tann (Dreieinigkeitskirche, 1959), Gauting (Caritas-Wohnstift, 1969). Marktoberdorf (Johanneskirche, 1961), Gauting (Asklepios-Klinikum, 1967).

• Altar paintings in oil: Amberg (8 oil paintings on gold ground 1957), Schweinfurt (St. Johannis, 1959), Fessenheim (Stephanuskirche, 1959).

He created these works, similar to his fellow students, e. B. Max Spielmann , in the paradigm of the classical painting tradition. He made the radical turn to modernity when he met the Bauhaus . From 1951–1981 he developed the theory and didactics of the “Line, Surface, Color” course as a lecturer at the Starnberger See adult education center . The color wheel by Johannes Itten and the painting piano by Paul Klee offered elementary rules in the teaching of art lovers of all walks of life as in the artist's work: It was not randomness, but construction and intuition that led to over 1000 images of abstract painting. A selection of “God's Work and Man's Action” was shown in 2009 in St. Johannis, Schweinfurt , in confrontation with the altarpiece from the early works.

literature

• Adolf Kleemann. Pera-Druck, Graefelfing 1986.
• Adolf Kleemann. Footnotes on the history of art 2. Museums and Galleries of the City of Schweinfurt, 2009.

Web links

• Altarpiece, St. Johannis, Schweinfurt