Alexe Altenkirch

Portrait of Alexe Altenkirch

Gronauerwald garden settlement , painting by Alexe Altenkirch around 1900

Alexe (Alexandra) Altenkirch (* July 5, 1871 in Kreuznach ; † September 25, 1943 in Bad Kreuznach) was a German painter , graphic artist , designer and art teacher .

Live and act

education

Alexandra Altenkirch was born as the third child of the winery owner Carl August Altenkirch and his wife Marie Gabriele Eccardt in Kreuznach. Carl August Altenkirch made it possible for his artistically gifted daughter Alexandra to pursue further training at the private "Luiseninstitut for higher daughters", which was run by the sister of Alexandra's mother, Elise Eccardt in Kreuznach. The related vintner and winery families Altenkirch, Eccardt and Thormählen were ambitious supporters of the fine arts . After finishing school, Alexandra first completed a one-year training as a housekeeper .

Alexe would have liked to study architecture , but until 1908 it was not possible for women to study at technical universities in Prussia . Instead, she studied with Paul Andorff and her uncle Emil Thormählen at the Hanau drawing academy from 1888 and later, on mediation, at the Munich School of Applied Arts .

In Hanau she was initially trained in the use of various arts and crafts techniques, including art embroidery , needle painting and knotting techniques . From 1892 to 1895 she attended drawing courses with Friedrich Fehr , Ludwig von Herterich and Ludwig Schmid-Reutte at the women's academy at the Munich School of Applied Arts . In addition, she deepened her studies in architecture and landscape painting as well as portraits.

Study trips to France ( Paris and Nice ), Italy ( Venice and Florence ), the Balkans and Turkey followed . During a six-month stay in the Caucasus, she learned batik techniques and deepened her skills in weaving fabrics. On the advice of her uncle Emil Thormählen 1900 she went to Karlsruhe to get in the studio of Franz Hein with advertising graphics and lithographs to deal with. In order to gain practical experience with the production of advertising graphics, she worked at the Klimsch printing company in Frankfurt and opened her own atelier in Karlsruhe.

In the winter of 1902, she accepted an invitation from Marie of Edinburgh to the royal court in Bucharest to do some commissioned work. After her return she gave art lessons to women and girls, including members of the Russian tsarist family, in her hometown of Kreuznach.

Teaching and professional activity in Cologne and Bergisch Gladbach

On the advice of her brother Karl Altenkirch, who worked in the Zanders paper factory in Bergisch Gladbach , she moved her painting studio to Cologne in 1904 . In Cologne she met numerous representatives of the nobility and the privileged Cologne and Bergisch bourgeoisie, including Mathilde von Mevissen , Elisabeth zu Mumm zu Schwarzenstein, Maria von Leyden, Maria and Olga Zanders and Adele Luise Meurer, and became involved in the Cologne women's movement for a professional qualification for girls and women as well as for the development of women's culture in the city.

From 1903 to 1909 she taught drawing to the girls at the girls 'high school in Cologne, founded by Mathilde von Mevissen, and at the initiative of Maria Zanders from 1904 at a girls' training school in Bergisch Gladbach. For the association of female commercial employees based in the Klapperhof , she gave arts and crafts and technical drawing courses and trained the women to become draughtsmen and lithographers. In 1905, together with privileged women from Cologne society, she founded the Cologne Women's Club , which, thanks to generous donations, had a representative building (Am Hof ​​36) in which the women could meet for various events. In addition to a salon and a dining room, the house also had guest rooms and a library , for which Alexe Altenkirch designed the catalog. In 1906 she began working as a commercial artist and "advertising manager" at the JW Zanders paper mill, which she would continue until 1932.

In 1907, a women's department for textile design and free painting was set up at the Cologne School of Applied Arts (the later Kölner Werkschulen ) and Alexe Altenkirch was appointed as a lecturer by Gustav Halmhuber . Until the appointment of the ceramicist Dorkas Reinacher-Härlin, she was the only woman among the lecturers for over 15 years. She set up her own studio for fine and applied arts on the top floor of the Hohenzollernring 48 building. Together with Emil Thormählen, she set up a day class for schoolgirls in 1910 and taught the predominantly senior daughters, among other things, nude painting . In 1912 she became a member of the German Werkbund and in 1914 designed the interior of the library in the "House of the Woman" at the Cologne Werkbund exhibition . After women were admitted as professors across the empire in 1923, Alexe Altenkirch was appointed professor for textile design and free painting. In the 1920s, she taught not only privileged female students but also increasingly female students who were dependent on financial support. At the end of the 1920s, Alexe Altenkirch was one of the active members of the Cologne branch of GEDOK, alongside Nina Andrae, Elsbeth Gropp , Luise Straus-Ernst , Ida Dehmel and Martha Hegemann .

Works and participation in exhibitions

Alexe Altenkirch worked in the fields of interior architecture , furniture design , advertising graphics, textile design , fashion , free and applied painting and taught at the Cologne factory schools until 1932. a. the Arabic room in the Villa Andres in Bad Kreuznach, also booths and rooms at international trade fairs and exhibitions. Her early artistic phase was stylistically shaped by Impressionism , Art Nouveau and the Vienna Secession . Her works were later influenced by the Constructivists and the Dutch group De Stijl . One of the most extensive collections of Alexe Altenkirch's works is now owned by the Zanders Foundation.

The artist's most important exhibitions and works include:

• Brussels World's Fair (1910)
• Turin World's Fair (1911)
• Cologne Werkbund Exhibition, Design of a Library for the Woman's House (1914)
• Cologne Zoo , Blue Room of the Zoo Restaurant (1928)
• Pressa , design of exhibition stands for the Zanders company and the German paper industry (1928)
• Festschrift of the Zanders paper factory (1929)
• Exhibition of the Cologne Werkschulen in the State House (1929)
• Cologne Nativity Scene Exhibition (1929)

Private life

Alexe Altenkirch remained unmarried and was closely associated with her family in Kreuznach throughout her life. In her private life she was on friendly terms with Maria Zanders and Olga Zanders, the wife of Hans Wilhelm Zanders . After the death of Hans Wilhelm Zanders, she intensified her friendship with Olga Zanders: Alexe Altenkirch lived temporarily in Bergisch Gladbach and was included in the management of the paper mill. The two women made numerous trips to Italy together. The artist had a large circle of friends of artists, politicians and entrepreneurs and regularly organized popular studio parties, for which she sometimes also designed the costumes .

Alexe Altenkirch had been suffering from Parkinson's disease since the late 1920s , which increasingly affected her. Due to illness, she had to give up teaching and working in 1932. From 1935 she lived again in Cologne, in the Lindenthal district (Theresienstrasse 65). At the end of 1938 she returned to her family in Kreuznach, where she spent the last years of her life until her death in 1943.

Club memberships

• Girls' High School Association (from 1902)
• Association of female commercial employees (1902)
• General German women's association
• Founding member of the Cologne women's club (1905), board member / head of the art commission (from 1906)
• Member of the Deutscher Werkbund (1912)
• Founding member (1929) and deputy chairwoman of GEDOK Cologne (1930), department head of the visual arts division (1930)

Honors

• Gold medal at the World Exhibition in Brussels for the Zanders exhibition stand designed by her (1910)
• Silver medal at the Turin World Exhibition (1911)
• Retrospective of the Zanders Foundation ( Villa Zanders , 1976).
• On March 19, 1998, the city ​​of Cologne named a street in the Bilderstöckchen district after Alexe Altenkirch.
• Linocut by Eduard Prüssen : Her portrait was included in the Cologne Heads series (2010)

Publications by Alexe Altenkirch

• The importance of drawing courses , in: Neue Deutsche Frauenzeitung, issue 1 to 3, (1905)
• One hundred years of JW Zanders paper factory 1829–1929 , Festschrift, Bergisch Gladbach (1929)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Alexe Altenkirch: Life | Johannes Theodor Thormaehlen Foundation. Retrieved on April 25, 2018 (German). 
2. ^ ^{A b} Irene Franken: Women in Cologne . In: The historical city guide . 1st edition. Bachem, Cologne 2008, ISBN 978-3-7616-2029-8 , pp. 70 ff .
3. ↑ Heijo Klein: Alexe Altenkirch . Ed .: Art Museum Villa Zanders Bergisch Gladbach. Bergisch Gladbach 1976, p. 28 .
4. ↑ Werner Schäfke: Cologne Heads: fifty linocuts . University and City Library, Cologne 2010, ISBN 978-3-931596-53-8 , pp. 68 .
5. ↑ ^{a b} Alexe Altenkirch. Women's History Association Cologne, accessed on April 25, 2018 . 
6. ^ ^{A b c} Eduard Prüssen (linocuts), Werner Schäfke and Günter Henne (texts): Cologne heads . 1st edition. University and City Library, Cologne 2010, ISBN 978-3-931596-53-8 , pp. 68 .
7. ↑ ^{a b} Ulrich S. Soénius: Kölner Personen-Lexikon . Greven, Cologne 2008, ISBN 978-3-7743-0400-0 , pp. 26 .
8. ↑ Irene Franken: Women in Cologne . In: The historical city guide . 1st edition. Bachem, Cologne 2008, ISBN 978-3-7616-2029-8 , pp. 186 ff .
9. ↑ One hundred years of JW Zanders paper factory 1829–1929. Bergisch Gladbach 1929.
10. ↑ Magdalene Christ, Albert Eßer: The garden settlement Gronauerwald in Bergisch Gladbach. (Catalog for the exhibition as part of the Regionale 2010 from June 20 to July 17, 2011 in the Kulturhaus Zanders) Bergisch Gladbach 2011, p. 9.
11. ↑ ^{a b} Double anniversary in Bergisch Gladbach: 40 years of the Zanders Foundation and 25 years of the Villa Zanders art museum - information for the Rhenish museums. Retrieved April 25, 2018 . 
12. ^ Greven's address book for the Hanseatic city of Cologne, the district of Cologne, the district town of Bergisch Gladbach and the communities of Bensberg and Porz . tape 1 . Greven, Cologne 1935.
13. ^ Rüdiger Schünemann-Steffen: Cologne street names lexicon . 3. Edition. Jörg-Rüshü-Verlag, Cologne 2017, p. 15 .

Web links

• Alexe Altenkirch's life and work on the website of the Johannes-Theodor-Thormaehlen Foundation
• Frauengeschichtsverein.de: Alexe Altenkirch