Annemarie Gottfried-Frost

Annemarie Gottfried-Frost (also: Annemarie Gottfried ; born March  10, 1924 in Bad Schwalbach im Taunus as Annemarie Frost) is a visual artist, creator and founder of the Schartenhof cultural center in Biedenkopf - Eckelshausen , where the international chamber music festival Eckelshausener Musiktage and the puppet theater Schartenhof were initiated by her and are still at home today.

Life

Annemarie Gottfried grew up in Biedenkopf between 1925 and 1935 and in Pforzheim from 1935 to 1938 . After training as an infant sister in Düsseldorf, she worked as a sister in Mainz until 1942. From 1942 she worked at Elmau Castle , where she met artists such as Eugen Roth , Tibor Varga and Paul Alverdes . After fleeing Lithuania, where she worked as a child nurse, she experienced the loss of the two brothers in June 1944 and October 1944 and the end of the war in Munich in 1945 and the liberation of the Dachau concentration camp.

In May 1945 she started building a small doll workshop in Biedenkopf. In 1948 she married the musician Heinz Gottfried. After the hand-made dolls had no chance against the industrially manufactured mass-produced goods, Annemarie Gottfried began her artistic training in 1951 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Düsseldorf and in 1952 founded a studio for advertising dolls based in Biedenkopf and Düsseldorf. From 1956 advertising and costume dolls were produced here for national and international customers, international exhibitions of artist dolls followed.

Part of the building of the Schartenhof in Eckelshausen

In 1970 Annemarie Gottfried began the renovation of the 300-year-old Schartenhof, a Hessian half-timbered farmstead in Biedenkopf-Eckelshausen and, from 1981, the gradual expansion into a cultural center.

In 1978 her husband Heinz Gottfried died, with whom she had a daughter.

The Eckelshausen Music Festival was launched on September 27, 1986 with a first concert in the Schartenhof; in 1987 it lasted for a week for the first time and has since taken place annually in Eckelshausen and other venues in the area. In 1997 Annemarie Gottfried founded the Schartenhof Marionette Theater with young people between the ages of 16 and 23, which rehearses and performs operas in cooperation with the director Max Wichtl from Vienna.

Exhibitions, concerts and other events take place regularly in the Schartenhof. Every year in December, 24 illuminated small rooms in an Advent calendar house are furnished with thematically changing puppet scenes. Annemarie Gottfried does voluntary work for numerous organizations in town and country.

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“Troubadour” in front of the Biedenkopf town hall

As an artist, Annemarie Gottfried makes dolls, figures and sculptures. After handcrafted rag dolls were initially the focus of their work in the post-war period, the material of the dolls changed from 1952 to rubber and felt, some of which were made by hand in large editions. She uses textiles and metal as material for her figurative works, and from 1988 onwards she created paper sculptures in all sizes. Her “troubadour” was the model for a large copper sculpture that was set up first in front of the Erlenmühle, then in front of the Biedenkopf town hall. Gottfried has devoted himself intensively to bronze sculpture since she was 80. Her works have been shown in numerous exhibitions at home and abroad.

Honors

Annemarie Gottfried-Frost's cultural work was recognized in 1990 with the Otto Ubbelohde Prize for outstanding cultural achievements in the Marburg-Biedenkopf district . In 2003 she was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit (1st class) of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Literature and Sources

• Alexandra Hess: Every cloth flap offers a possibility. Annemarie Gottfried celebrates her 85th birthday today . In: Oberhessische Presse , March 10, 2009, p. 25
• Marion Forek-Schmahl: Border area - puppets and figures . Arachne Publishing House. Gelsenkirchen 1996, ISBN 3-932005-01-5

Web links

• Annemarie Gottfried-Frost's website
• Literature by and about Annemarie Gottfried-Frost in the catalog of the German National Library
• Your CV on schartenhof.de