Alexander Olbricht

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Alexander Gustav Georg Olbricht (born June 6, 1876 in Breslau , † November 11, 1942 in Weimar ) was a Weimar painter . His work includes around 2000 graphics , etchings , paper cuttings , oil paintings , etc.

Life

Alexander Olbricht was the second of the four children of the landscape painter and restorer at the Breslau Museum Gustav Olbricht (1851-1892) and his wife Maria, née Durin, were born. In 1892, at the age of 16, he started as an apprentice in the “P. Stalk. Art Materials Magazine ”. After the death of his father in the same year, he finished his apprenticeship and began studying at the Breslau Art Academy with, among others, Carl Ernst Morgenstern .

In 1899 Olbricht came to Weimar and studied there in the landscape class of the painter Theodor Hagen at the Grand Ducal Saxon Art School in Weimar . In Weimar in 1902 he met Marcus Behmer , with whom he became a deep friend from then on. In 1904 he married Margarethe Thurow (1882–1972) from Mecklenburg , who had also studied at the Weimar art school from 1902. The couple initially lived in an apartment until they moved into their own house with a studio, printing workshop and large garden in 1907.

In 1908 he created the large-format etchings The large neighboring garden , The small neighboring garden and the landscape series Am Schweriner See , in 1909 twenty small-format etchings with landscape motifs from Weimar and the surrounding area. In the same year the son Peter (1909-2001) was born, in 1911 the daughter Charlotte (1911-1994). After the outbreak of the First World War, Olbricht was drafted in 1914 and, due to his physical frailty, only served as a boy for an officer in Weimar.

The Weimar Art School, which was officially opened in 1921, appointed Olbricht as a professor. One of his students was the later landscape painter Fritz Lattke . In 1935, Olbricht was dismissed from teaching at the age of 59 for political reasons. Depression and stagnation of creativity were the result. Nevertheless, in 1939 he completed his last major cycle, The First Snow . Alexander Olbricht was (like Marcus Behmer too) a full member of the German Association of Artists , which was dissolved and banned by the National Socialists at the end of 1936.

On November 11, 1942, Alexander Olbricht died of a stroke at the age of 66 . He was buried in the Oberweimar cemetery. In Weimar a street was named after Alexander Olbricht. His studio was reconstructed in the Weimar City Museum (Bertuchhaus) and his house on Merketalstraße was given a plaque .

plant

Alexander Olbricht's work is characterized by a mostly clear, sensitive and modest style. His motifs included paths, fences, flowers, leaves, branches, mills, boats, gardens, walkways, level crossings.

Olbricht was particularly attracted to Mecklenburg, his wife's home, where numerous trips took him and where he stayed for long periods of time. He often depicted the stretches of landscape between the Elbe and the Baltic Sea in his works.

After his wedding (1904), oil painting faded into the background in favor of graphic and graphic works. The first series of small-format water-colored landscapes shows partly Weimar landscapes, but partly also fantasy landscapes. In 1906 a series of colored landscapes from Silesia followed . Countless pictures were taken during a trip through Mecklenburg in summer. In addition, he created the large-format etchings The small neighboring garden , The large neighboring garden and the series Am Schweriner See and twenty small-format etchings with landscape motifs from Weimar and the surrounding area. Also worth mentioning are a sequence of plants silhouettes in black ink (1913), one designed during the war series of woodcuts with plant and flower motifs, some of which 1,920 fairy tale as illustrations to Andersen's Garden of Eden and others in the anthology 1922 Silent Music published and numerous folding scissors. In 1918 he depicted many Mecklenburg landscapes with pencil and watercolor.

From 1922 onwards, numerous ornamental-abstract fantasies emerged , mostly as a series with small hand-colored landscapes. The following year the Weimarer Reiher-Verlag published the issue of Thirty Etchings . This numbered edition in fifty copies was printed, colored and signed by the artist himself. Otto Dorfner made the saffiano leather bindings in Weimar.

The watercolor series Elbe Landscapes (1929) was created while traveling with his son Peter . Olbricht completed his last and most important work with the thirty-seven watercolors drawings The First Snow (1939).

The Duchess Anna Amalia Library acquired 88 books from Alexander Olbricht's estate. In the Museum of Modern Art in New York he is represented with two decorative compositions . The Los Angeles County Museum of Art holds an etching by him.

Exhibitions (selection)

  • 1905 - Alexander Olbricht, Marcus Behmer (drawings, etchings, woodcuts) , Kunstverein Jena
  • 1913 - Alexander Olbricht (watercolors, drawings, etchings, woodcuts), Erfurter Kunstverein
  • 1933 - Alexander Olbricht (watercolors, graphics, drawings), Erfurter Kunstverein
  • 1936 - Alexander Olbricht , Erfurt Art Association
  • 1942 - Alexander Olbricht , Breslau [in the Olbricht Coll.]
  • 1943 - Alexander Olbricht - Memorial exhibition (graphics and watercolors), Erfurter Kunstverein
  • 1992 - Alexander Olbricht in Mecklenburg 1908 - 1918 - 1927 , State Museum Schwerin
  • 2000 - Alexander Olbricht - An artist of silence , Weimar Castle Museum , cabinet exhibition
  • 2010 - Quiet superlatives - Alexander Olbricht and Marcus Behmer , Stadtmuseum Weimar, Bertuchhaus
  • 2010 - Quiet superlatives - Alexander Olbricht and Marcus Behmer , Schiller Museum Weimar

literature

  • Cornelius Müller Hofstede : Behind the wire fence and the railway barrier: for the exhibition by Professor Alexander Olbricht in the Silesian Museum of Fine Arts in Breslau , 1941.
  • Walter Hertzsch: Alexander Olbricht, drawings, 24 color illustrations, Insel-Verlag Leipzig, 1989, Insel-Bücherei No. 1085

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ cemetery views Alexander Olbricht. Weimar - Oberweimar Cemetery - Photo: Thomas Haas. NED.WORK Agentur + Verlag GmbH, accessed on December 6, 2015 (memorial plaques with the dates of life).
  2. ↑ kuenstlerbund.de: Full members of the German Association of Artists since it was founded in 1903 / Olbricht, Alexander ( Memento from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) (accessed on December 2, 2015)
  3. ↑ Weimar City Museum
  4. ↑ see: "In Mecklenburg", ISBN 3-88132-405-4
  5. ↑ see: "Twelve Etchings from Weimar", Leipzig, Insel-Verlag
  6. ↑ Indexing of the written and artistic estate of Alexander Olbricht and Marcus Behmer. (No longer available online.) Klassik Stiftung Weimar, May 15, 2015, archived from the original on December 20, 2015 ; Retrieved December 4, 2015 .
  7. ^ German Expressionism - Works from the collection. Alexander Olbricht. The Museum of Modern Art, accessed December 4, 2015 .
  8. ↑ LACMA 50. Alexander Olbricht. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, accessed December 4, 2015 .
  9. ^ Emese Doehler. Exhibitions. In: Klassik Stiftung Weimar. July 3, 2015, accessed December 4, 2015 .
personal data
SURNAME Olbricht, Alexander
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Olbricht, Alexander Gustav Georg (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter
DATE OF BIRTH June 6, 1876
PLACE OF BIRTH Wroclaw
DATE OF DEATH November 11, 1942
Place of death Weimar