Antonie Biel

Antonie Biel

Sophie Antonie Biel (born January 31, 1830 in Stralsund , † April 2, 1880 in Berlin ) was a German painter .

Within about 30 years, of which the last 15 to 20 years of her life can be regarded as the most productive and creative, Antonie Biel created a multitude of coastal landscapes and navies , the motifs of which were borrowed from the Baltic and North Seas. They were characterized by depth and truth of sensation and a characteristic rendering of what was observed despite the simplicity and simplicity of the painterly treatment.

Life

childhood

Page from the church book with date of birth and baptism, parents and godparents

View of Stralsund

Painting “Auf Hiddensee” 45.5 × 90 cm, oil on canvas, signed, undated

Oil study “Anlandende Fischer” 20 × 32 cm, oil on cardboard, signed, undated. At first glance, a picture “Sea coast on Rügen with stone dams” is in the holdings of the Kupferstichkabinett Berlin. The boat and fisherman are missing, the stone dam is identical

Depiction of the “Camminer Ferry” (on Rügen, originally operating between Cammin and Vieregge) on a postcard based on a pencil drawing by Antonie Biel. The signed, undated original is in the possession of the Cultural History Museum of the Hanseatic City of Stralsund.

"Fischerdorf auf (Rügen ???)", 1866, oil on canvas, dimensions: H 34.5 cm x W 60.0 cm The stretcher frame has large numbers: "82" and "387" The painting was made in the 1950s Found on a heap of rubble in Gager on Mönchgut and handed over to the Mönchgut museums in 1974 for a finder's fee of M 100.00. In 1976 the restoration took place in the Kulturhistorisches Museum Stralsund. Today it is owned by the Mönchgut museums

Antonie Biel was born in Stralsund in 1830 as the last of four children of the lawyer and councilor Johann Carl Biel (1783–1837) and Hermine Friederica, née Schneider. Antonie Biel was a delicate figure and very vulnerable to health. Her first teacher in drawing was her talented mother, who recognized her daughter's talent and taught her first instructions on how to use the pen at an early age. She quickly recognized which profession she wanted to pursue one day and nothing could deter her. Her mother quickly realized that with her limited abilities and possibilities, she could no longer do justice to the further development of the daughter's talent. Henceforth, Antonie received thorough, professional instruction from a drawing teacher, probably Johann Wilhelm Brüggemann . After the early death of her father - Antonie Biel was just seven years old - the numerous relatives increasingly interfered in the upbringing of the children and tried to counteract the stubborn wishes of the youngest daughter. In the forties and fifties of the 19th century it was almost impossible for a woman in all of Germany to learn a profession and then practice it. Antonie could only continue her drawing studies in Stralsund in secret and had to constantly assure her closest relatives that she was not serious about drawing.

Probably the oldest still preserved drawing by Antonie Biel is in the collection of family records of the Cultural History Museum of the Hanseatic City of Stralsund. Below is the studbook of an Auguste from the years 1842/43, in which Antonie Biel entered the following lines at the age of twelve:

“Do not hang your heart on the goods that
adorn life transiently.
Whoever owns learns to lose,
whoever is in happiness learns pain "

The side described with the saying is adorned with a lock of blonde hair by Antonie Biel. The second sheet in this register is a flower watercolor from Antonie Biel's hand, which depicts a pink rose.

In order to allay the general suspicion, Antonie Biel constantly took part in coffee parties with relatives and friends, which she viewed as a waste of valuable time on studies; the time of secrecy lasted for years. Pictures from the time before she left Stralsund, such as B. the representation of the Bergen market square, are rather a rarity.

Biel was only 21 years old when she also lost her mother, but her eldest sister Johanna had long since noticed the youngest's talent. From then on she was not only a surrogate mother, but also the greatest supporter, admirer and friend. Johanna accompanied her younger sister on her study trips, finally she had managed to break out of the confines of the city of Stralsund in order to bring her own talent to perfection in a strange environment. Up until now the pencil was her only painting tool, but in the next few years she was to devote more and more to oil painting.

Education 1857–1858

In 1857 Antonie Biel left the city of Stralsund for the first time, albeit briefly, for training purposes. She began her studies as a studio student with Wilhelm Schirmer . He had been a member since 1835, from 1839 teacher at the landscape class of the Royal Academy of Arts and from 1852 a member of the academic senate. Since Antonie Biel was not allowed to join the academy as a student, but Schirmer immediately recognized her talent, he offered her to teach her in his studio. Antonie Biel stayed with Wilhelm Schirmer for several months and learned from him how to work with canvas and oil paint, familiarizing herself with the inherent laws of this technique, which was so completely different from drawing with which she was familiar. When, shortly after her return to Stralsund, she submitted a picture to an exhibition in Berlin and it was accepted, to her and her sister's delight, it was clear to both of them what her sister was expressing:

“Antonie, we are not allowed to tell anyone here in Stralsund. Nobody should know. How uncles and aunts and friends would look at you if it became known that a picture was being exhibited or even sold in front of you. The others would not survive the shame. We have to decide now. You have to get out of here, out of Stralsund. To Berlin. I go with you."

In order not to completely break the bridges to the Pomeranian homeland, the sisters kept a small accommodation in Stralsund. After Antonie Biel had worked again for a few months in Wilhelm Schirmer's studio in Berlin, ten years of learning and traveling began for her, which took her mainly to western and southern Germany. The next stop in her life was Düsseldorf . She moved there with her sister because she was attracted by the personality and art of Carl Friedrich Lessing . He was a history painter from the Düsseldorf School and a graduate of the Düsseldorf Art Academy . If one compares Antonie Biel's pictures with those of Lessing it is undoubtedly recognizable that he had the strongest and most lasting influence on her later work. So it is not surprising that when Lessing was appointed gallery director in Karlsruhe in 1858 , she followed him there, as did her unselfish sister.

Stay in Karlsruhe and study trips

1862, Antonie Biel was still in Karlsruhe at that time, she was again represented at an exhibition in Berlin after 1860 with two pictures (the pictures are named in the exhibition catalog with a reference to Karlsruhe). The influence that Lessing's school may have had on Antonie Biel can be seen in a picture which was offered at an auction in 2004 and which corresponded to the style of her teacher, although the representation of clouds and light was not yet as pronounced as by their example. During all the years of her apprenticeship and hiking time, Antonie Biel was accompanied by her sister. In the summer months, her travels took her to landscape studies in the Harz Mountains , the Black Forest , the Chiemsee and Switzerland, or to Scandinavia and her homeland, on the Pomeranian coasts. Some of her works shown at the memorial exhibition in Berlin in 1881 can be assigned to this period due to the title, even without a precise date. Antonie Biel familiarized herself with the landscape everywhere and made countless sketches. She tried to grasp the differences between the individual landscapes, and the motifs of the coast came best to her. Drawings and oil paintings were the result of these study trips, which she also regularly submitted to art exhibitions in Berlin from 1860 on. The winter months were characterized by tireless, strenuous work in the studio. In Karlsruhe, where she still had her permanent domicile at that time, she met again the Norwegian Hans Gude , whom she already knew from Düsseldorf and who came to the Karlsruhe Academy in 1864. He also influenced Antonie Biel's art and technique. The influence of Gude on the way of looking at things and how he paints can be clearly seen if you compare the two pictures that were taken around the same time. Examples of this can be found in numerous picture galleries. It may even have accompanied Gude on his travels, as he too chose the Chiemsee as a motif during this time. At the Berlin art exhibition in 1864 Antonie Biel was represented with two beach pictures from the Baltic Sea coast. This probably also included the work entitled “Beach of the Sea”, which was raffled on January 12, 1867 on the occasion of the 2nd lottery of the Zentral-Dombau-Verein zu Cologne .

The extended study trips ended in 1866 with a stay of several months in Paris . According to her own statements, Antonie Biel only understood what painting was during her time in Paris. She only received her actual baptism of art in Paris, after which a persistent struggle with the painting technique began for her. Then Antonie Biel and her sister finally moved to Berlin.

Relocation to Berlin

Antonie Biel had acquired a considerable reputation over the years; she not only found sincere recognition among artists and critics, but also won many admirers of her art, who found it difficult to understand that A. Biel did not mean Anton , but Antonie . The time was not yet ripe for women to have an equal position in society. So it was not surprising that Antonie Biel was one of its first members when the Association of Artists and Friends of Art in Berlin was founded in the spring of 1867. The successor association still exists today under the name Verein der Berliner Künstlerinnen 1867 eV

Berlin art scene

Antonie Biel: Illustration to the novella Eva by Marie Giese

In 1870 Antonie Biel dared a detour into a hitherto unknown profession, book illustration. In the Börsenblatt for the German book trade and its related branches No. 245 of October 24, 1870, the announcement of the publication of a novella by Marie Giese appeared with a reference to an illustration by Antonie Biel.

The proven presence of works by Antonie Biel at exhibitions in and outside of Berlin shows that she slowly but steadily managed to make a name for herself in a world dominated by men. Initially referred to as a “talented” artist, whose pictures are rated as “quite dignified”, she is later highly praised after exhibitions. A picture already shown at Sachses permanent art exhibition in Berlin was analyzed and described as follows after an exhibition by the Berliner Kunstverein in 1862:

“We have little significant to emphasize about landscapes. Antonie Biel's “Heide auf Rügen” shows anew the endeavors of the extremely talented artist to bring the poetic element of nature to undemanding but effective value. Her landscapes, especially those mentioned, usually bear the stamp of a certain beneficial reconciliation of melancholy simplicity of form with a lively lighting effect. She is therefore never a mere copyist of nature, still less a realist in the material sense of the word, but least of all a painter of “beautiful surroundings”; but her pictures speak to the soul and, the longer they look at, the deeper they sink into the heart. We cannot help saying that - as one could find fault with their technology here and there - their view of nature is the true one, because it is artistically most effective. "

Exhibition calendar 1860–1881

• 1860 42nd art exhibition of the Royal Academy of the Arts Berlin (in the addendum to the already printed catalog she is erroneously called Anna Biel from Stralsund)
• 1861 Saxony's permanent painting exhibition in Berlin
• 1861 academic art exhibition
• 1862 Saxony's permanent painting exhibition in Berlin
• 1862 43rd art exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts in Berlin
• 1864 44th art exhibition of the Royal Academy of the Arts Berlin
• 1865 14th exhibition of the Art Association in Gotha
• 1866 45th art exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts in Berlin
• 1867 Berlin art show, exhibition by the art association and Lepke's salon
• 1867 Exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts in Berlin
• 1867 First exhibition by the Association of Artists and Art Friends Berlin
• 1868 46th exhibition of the Royal Academy of Arts Berlin
• 1869 International Art Exhibition in Munich
• 1869 Second exhibition by the Association of Artists and Art Friends Berlin
• 1870 Permanent exhibition of the Berlin Artists' Association
• 1870 47th exhibition of the Royal Academy of Arts Berlin
• 1871 Third exhibition by the Association of Artists and Art Friends Berlin
• 1871 Exhibition of the Munich artists' cooperative in the royal glass palace in Munich
• 1872 48th art exhibition of the Royal Academy of the Arts Berlin
• 1873 Fourth exhibition of the Association of Artists and Art Friends Berlin
• 1874 49th art exhibition of the Royal Academy of the Arts Berlin
• 1876 ​​50th art exhibition of the Royal Academy of Arts Berlin
• 1877 51st art exhibition of the Royal Academy of the Arts Berlin
• 1878 Sixth exhibition of the Association of Artists and Art Friends Berlin
• 1878 52nd art exhibition of the Royal Academy of the Arts Berlin
• 1879 53rd art exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts in Berlin
• 1880 Seventh exhibition of the Association of Artists and Art Friends Berlin
• 1881 12th exhibition at the National Gallery in Berlin

Works

Biel's works can be seen in the Nationalgalerie Berlin , in the Muzeum Narodowe w Szczecinie, in the Mönchguter Museum as well as in the Kulturhistorisches Museum Stralsund and the Kunstmuseum Ahrenshoop . Numerous works ended up in private ownership at auctions.

literature

General literature:

• Johann Jacob Grümbke : New and precise geographical-statistical-historical representation of the island of Rügen and the Principality of Rügen. Part 2. Berlin 1819.

Lexicons and reference works:

• Directory of the works of living artists, which in the halls of the Königl. Academy building in Berlin 1866. XLV. Art exhibition of the Royal Academy of Arts. Royal Geheime Ober-Hofbuchdruckerei (R. v. Decker), Berlin 1866.
• Friedrich von Boetticher : Painters Works of the Nineteenth Century. Contribution to art history. Volume 1 (1891), pp. 91-92.
• Hans Vollmer : Biel, Antonie . In: Ulrich Thieme , Felix Becker (Hrsg.): General Lexicon of Fine Artists from Antiquity to the Present . Founded by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker. tape 4 : Bida – Brevoort . Wilhelm Engelmann, Leipzig 1910, p. 8 ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).
• Hans Wolfgang Singer (Ed.): General artist lexicon. Life and works of the most famous visual artists. Prepared by Hermann Alexander Müller. Volume 1. Literary Institute Rütten & Loening, Frankfurt / Main 1921.
• Gustav Keckeis (ed.): The lexicon of women in two volumes. Volume 1: A - H. Encyclios Verlag, Zurich 1953.
• Emanuel Bénézit (ed.): Dictionnaire Critique et Documentaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs et Graveurs de tous les temps et de tous les pays- Volume 2, 1976.
• Chris Petteys: Dictionary of Women Artists. GK Hall, Boston 1985.
• Ch. Kruse: Biel, Antonie . In: General Artist Lexicon . The visual artists of all times and peoples (AKL). Volume 10, Saur, Munich a. a. 1994, ISBN 3-598-22750-7 , pp. 536-537.
• Helmut Börsch-Supan : The German painting from Anton Graff to Hans von Marees 1760-1870. German Kunstverlag, Munich 1988.
• Carola Muysers. In: Hans Paffrath (Ed.): Lexicon of the Düsseldorfer Malerschule 1819–1918. Volume 1: Abbema – Gurlitt. Published by the Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf in the Ehrenhof and by the Paffrath Gallery. Bruckmann, Munich 1997. ISBN 3-7654-3009-9 . Pp. 133–134 (Fig .: "Am Meeresstrand", 1864; Stralsund, Kulturhistorisches Museum).
• Hans F. Schweers: Paintings in German museums. Catalog of the exhibited and depot works. 4th, updated and expanded edition. Part 1: Artists and their works. KG Saur, Munich 2005, p. 94.

Collection catalogs:

• Catalog of original works by German artists. A gift of honor from the German art comrades to the German armies. Publishing house of the Munich Artists' Cooperative 1871.
• Nationalgalerie Berlin: Catalog for the 12th exhibition. Works by Christian Morgenstern, Franz Krüger, Antonie Biel and Ernst Willers . Ernst Siegfried Mittler & Son, Königliche Hofbuchhandlung Kochstrasse, Berlin 1881.
• Lionel von Donop : Catalog of the hand drawings, watercolors and oil studies in the Royal National Gallery. National Gallery, Berlin 1902.
• Association of Berlin Women Artists 1867 e. V .: Archives of the association's history. [Signature: BG-VdBK 1201-8.1; BG-VdBK 1201-8.2; BG-VdBK 1201-9; BG-VdBK 1201-10; BG-VdBK 1203-2.1; BG-VdBK 1203-2.2; BG-VdBK; BG-VdBK 1204-1; BG-VdBK 1205-2; BG-VdBK 1205-6; BG-VdBK 1207-1; BG-VdBK 1207-4; BG-VdBK 1209-1; BG-VdBK 1209-5; BG-VdBK 1212-1; BG-VdBK 1213-1; BG-VdBK 1214-2; BG-VdBK 1214-4.1; BG-VdBK 1214-4.2; BG-VdBK 1214-5; Library department: without signature: Biographical article in: " Käthe, Paula and the whole rest , Ein Nachlagewerk", Berlin 1992; Dossiers Department Women Artists, signature DK Biel A. 2].

Exhibition catalogs:

• Directory of the paintings of the thirteenth large exhibition of the Kunstverein in Bremen, 1.3.-31.3.1862, in: Directory of the exhibition catalogs of the Kunsthalle Bremen, 1829–2001, ed. from the art association in Bremen.
• Directory of the paintings of the fifteenth major exhibition of the Kunstverein in Bremen, 1.3.-31.3.1864, in: Directory of the exhibition catalogs of the Kunsthalle Bremen, 1829–2001, ed. from the art association in Bremen.
• Wroclaw Art Exhibition 1871. Organized by the Silesian Art Association in the halls of the Silesian Patriotic Society (Blücherplatz in the stock exchange building) opened on May 28th. Breslau [1871]. Antonie Biel in Berlin: No. 39: Abend am See (130 Thlr.), No. 40: Am See (35 Frd'or).
• Wroclaw Art Exhibition 1873. Organized by the Silesian Art Association in the halls of the Silesian Patriotic Society (Blücherplatz in the stock exchange building), opened on May 29th. Breslau [1873]. Miss Antonie Biel in Berlin: No. 39. Meeresstrand (80 Frd'or).

Individual presentations and mentions:

• Art Chronicle. Weekly for arts and crafts; Supplement to the magazine for visual arts. Volume 3 (1868), pp. 13 and 29; Volume 5 (1870), p. 100; Volume 9 (1874), pp. 180 and 499; Volume 15 (1880), pp. 450 and 549; Volume 16 (1881), pp. 355-356.
• NN: Permanent art exhibition Bismeyer & Kraus. In: Düsseldorfer Zeitung, No. 56, February 25, 1866: Antonie Biel, Düsseldorf: Meeresstrand . - Düsseldorfer Zeitung, No. 70, March 7, 1866: Miss Biel, Düsseldorf: Marines and beach pictures. - Düsseldorfer Zeitung, No. 77, March 18, 1866, p. 2: Marines by Antonie Biel and Fabarius.
• Max Schasler (Ed.): The Dioskuren. German Art Newspaper; Main organ of the German Art Associations. Berlin 7 (1862), p. 385; 8 (1863), pp. 237 and 368; 9 (1864), pp. 31, 430, 454; 15 (1870), pp. 4, 39, 87, 204; 1873, p. 322; 20 (1875), p. 129.
• List of works of art sent in for the fourteenth exhibition of the Art Association in Gotha. Stollbergsche Buchdruckerei, Gotha 1865.
• Lina Morgenstern: The women of the 19th century. Biographical and cultural historical time and character paintings. Third episode. Verlag der Deutschen Hausfrauen-Zeitung, Berlin 1891, pp. 223–228.
• Gustava Bley : Notes of an eighty-year-old from her life as an artist and from her homeland. Vienna 1924.
• Georg Bock: The importance of the island of Rügen for German landscape painting. Inaugural dissertation to obtain a doctorate from the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Greifswald. Buchdruckerei Hans Adler, owner: E. Panzig & Co, Greifswald 1927.
• Hellmuth Heyden: The evangelical clergy of the former administrative district Stralsund - island of Rügen -. Greifswald 1956.
• Barb and Karl Zerning: Mountains on Rügen in old views. European Library, Zaltbommel / Netherlands 1991, ISBN 90-288-5197-6 .
• Gerd-Helge Vogel; Bernfried Lichtnau: Rügen as an artist island from romanticism to the present. Atelier in the farmhouse, Fischerhude 1993, ISBN 3-88132-249-3 .
• Ruth Negendanck : Hiddensee - the special island for artists. edition fischerhuder art book, Fischerhude 2005, ISBN 3-88132-288-4 .
• Norbert Gschweng: Landscapes Seascapes and Marines. The Stralsund painter Sophie Antonie Biel. Self-published, Greifswald 2012.
• "Around us is a day of creation" From the artist colony to today. Published by Kunstmuseum Ahrenshoop , Ahrenshoop 2013, ISBN 978-3-9816136-0-5 , p. 18.

Essays:

• Theodor Fontane : Essays on the fine arts. In: Complete Works XXIII / 1., Ed. by Edgar Groß, Nymphenburger Verlagsanstalt, Munich 1970.
• Ludwig Pietsch: German female painters of the present. In: Illustrirte Frauenzeitung. 1879, p. 398.
• Georgiana Archer : In Memoriam Antonie Biel. In: German women's lawyer. Volume 1880, No. 7 and 8, pp. 199-207.
• Marie Giese : Antonie Biel. Biographical sketch. In: Illustrierte Frauen-Zeitung. August 15, 1881.
• NN, in: Sunday supplement No. 36 to No. 411 of the Vossische Zeitung, Berlin, 3.9.1882: Ingenious painter of city landscapes and beach scenes; talented student of Schirmer in Berlin and Lessing in Düsseldorf.
• Peter Pooth: Members of the Stralsund Council 1800-1933. In: Pomeranian Yearbooks. Volume 33, 1939, pp. 79-120.
• Fritz Adler : The painter Antonie Biel. In: Pomeranian Yearbooks. Volume 33, 1939, pp. 121-127.
• Christa Pieske: The family records in the Kulturhistorisches Museum Stralsund. In: Greifswald-Stralsund yearbook. Volume 7 (1967).
• People and the landscape of the Baltic Sea coast. Paintings and graphics. Ed .: Kulturhistorisches Museum Stralsund 1968, p. 21 and Figure 20.
• Achim D. Möller: Pomeranian women figures. Antonie Biel. In: Pomeranian magazine, art, history, folklore. Volume 1968, 3.
• Michael Lissok: Sophie Antonie Biel . In: Dirk Alvermann , Nils Jörn (Hrsg.): Biographisches Lexikon für Pommern, Volume 2 (Publications of the Historical Commission for Pomerania. Series V: Research on Pomeranian History, Volume 48.2). Böhlau, Cologne et al. 2015, ISBN 978-3-412-22541-4 , pp. 31–34.

Web links

Commons : Antonie Biel  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature about Antonie Biel in the state bibliography MV

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Picture presentation in the Mönchgut Museum  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
2. ^ The writer Anna Maria Jordan , née Biel, was her niece.
3. ^ Catalog of the 42nd art exhibition of the Royal Academy of the Arts Berlin 1860
4. ^ Catalog of the 43rd art exhibition of the Royal Academy of the Arts Berlin 1862
5. ^ Catalog of the 44th art exhibition of the Royal Academy of Arts Berlin 1864
6. ^ Catalog of the 45th art exhibition of the Royal Academy of the Arts Berlin 1866
7. ^ Catalog of the 46th art exhibition of the Royal Academy of the Arts Berlin 1868
8. ^ Catalog of the 47th art exhibition of the Royal Academy of the Arts Berlin 1870
9. ^ Catalog of the 48th art exhibition of the Royal Academy of Arts Berlin 1872
10. ^ Catalog of the 49th art exhibition of the Royal Academy of the Arts Berlin 1874
11. ^ Catalog of the 50th art exhibition of the Royal Academy of the Arts Berlin 1876
12. ↑ Catalog of the 51st art exhibition of the Royal Academy of the Arts Berlin 1877
13. ^ Catalog of the 52nd art exhibition of the Royal Academy of the Arts Berlin 1878
14. ^ Catalog of the 53rd art exhibition of the Royal Academy of the Arts Berlin 1879
15. ^ Catalog of the 12th special exhibition at the Berlin National Gallery in 1881
16. ↑ ^{a b} kunsthalle-bremen.de