Albin gray

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Gustav Albin Grau (born June 13, 1884 in Schönefeld (Leipzig) ; † March 27, 1971 in Hausham , Germany ) was a German film architect , graphic artist and author .

Life

Albin Grau studied at the Dresden Art Academy and served on the Eastern Front during the First World War . Back in Berlin, he was introduced into the esoteric circles of Berlin society and Grand Master of the Lodge of the Brothers Seeking Light . Grau worked as a commercial artist and designer of film posters, for example for Grete Ly film production and North German Lloyd.

With the help of the businessman Enrico Dieckmann, he founded Prana-Film in 1921 , for which he chose the yin and yang symbol as the logo. A year earlier, when Grau was designing the film posters for the film Der Gang in die Nacht , he had met Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau . He managed to win Murnau for his project of a vampire film as a director. Grau himself took over the artistic direction of Nosferatu - A Symphony of Horror and designed decorations, costumes and numerous advertising graphics.

When the widow Bram Stoker sued Prana-Film in 1922 for improperly acquiring the rights to Stoker's novel Dracula , which served as the basis for Nosferatu, the company ran into serious financial difficulties and eventually filed for bankruptcy . In 1924 the court ordered the destruction of all negatives and copies of Nosferatu.

Already in 1923 Albin Grau founded Pan-Film GmbH again together with Dieckmann ; based on an idea Graus, she produced the film Schatten . Grau himself designed the decorations and costumes again and entrusted Arthur Robison with the direction after he was unable to engage Murnau due to his exclusive contract with producer Erich Pommer . Grau also worked as an outfitter for UFA , for example on Robisons Pietro, the Corsair and Lupu Picks Das Haus der Lie . Another film, titled Bluebeard , for which Grau had already designed the sets, was not completed.

At the Weida Conference in 1925, Grau met the British occultist Aleister Crowley . After Grau had made a documentary about Crowley's stay in Germany in 1925, he withdrew from the film business and from then on devoted himself to occult studies. Around 1925 he was as "Frater Pacitius" head of the Berlin Lodge of Pansophia and employee of the Fraternitas Saturni magazine Saturn Gnosis , which was published by the bookseller Gregor A. Gregorius , and for which he wrote articles until the early 1930s.

Grau worked as a draftsman during World War II and played an important role in the Wehrmacht's motor vehicle industry.

Until his death, Grau lived in Bayrischzell in Upper Bavaria (Pension Grau). The artist's pictures are now hanging in the mayor's room there and in the Hotel Wendelstein .

Fonts

  • The way to eternal silence. Published in Oriflamme magazine . No. 133 ff., 1973, ZDB -ID 347645-5 .

Filmography

Others

In the 2000 film Shadow of the Vampire , which tells a fictional story about the making of Nosferatu , Udo Kier plays the character of Albin Grau .

literature

  • Stefan Strauss: Albin Grau: Biography and Œuvre , Belleville, Munich 2014, ISBN 978-3943157024 .
  • Kay Less : "In life, more is taken from you than given ...". Lexicon of filmmakers who emigrated from Germany and Austria between 1933 and 1945. A general overview. Acabus-Verlag, Hamburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-86282-049-8 , p. 213.
  • Loy Arnold, Michael Farin , Hans Schmid: Nosferatu. A symphony of horror. Belleville, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-933510-42-2 .
  • Alexander Popiol, Raimund Schrader: Gregor A. Gregorius. Dark Light Mystic. Esoterischer Verlag Paul Hartmann et al., Bürstadt et al. 2007, ISBN 3-932928-40-7 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Horst E. Miers : Lexicon of secret knowledge (= Goldmann. Experience reading. 12179). Goldmann, Munich 1993, ISBN 3-442-12179-5 , p. 265.
  2. ↑ In Filmdienst 16/2014, p. 31, Rolf Giesen denies that Grau was persecuted by the National Socialists or that he emigrated to Switzerland. As evidence, he also cites the dissertation by Stefan Strauss, already mentioned in the Merkur article, "Albin Grau - Biography and Bochuvre" (Ruhr-Uni Bochum, 2010), which was published as a book by Belleville Verlag.
  3. ↑ In the footsteps of the Nosferatu producer. In: Münchner Merkur , from August 19, 2011.
personal data
SURNAME Gray, albin
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Grau, Gustav Albin (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German film architect, graphic artist and author
DATE OF BIRTH June 13, 1884
PLACE OF BIRTH Schoenefeld (Leipzig)
DATE OF DEATH March 27, 1971
Place of death Hausham , Germany