Arno Fehringer

Arno Wilhelm Richard Fehringer (born September 9, 1907 in Einödhausen , Meiningen district , † December 10, 1974 in Weimar ) was a German painter , graphic artist , printer , poet and philosopher .

Live and act

Arno Fehringer was born in 1907 as the son of the decorative painter and tüncher Ernst Fehringer and his wife Klara. After attending elementary school in Sülzfeld from 1914 to 1922 , he attended the commercial school in Meiningen until 1925 and graduated with the lawyer Dr. Meng an apprenticeship as a paralegal. Politically he was closely connected to the labor movement , the free thinker movement and the friends of nature . He wrote his first poems when he was fifteen. In 1922 he became a member of the Socialist Workers' Youth (SAJ), was a co-founder and first chairman of the SAJ Sülzfeld in 1924 and was involved in the workers' stenographers' union. In 1923 he was a co-founder of the workers' stage in Sülzfeld. In 1925 he went on a hike , attended a painting and drawing school in Berlin and became a member of the SPD .

From 1926 to 1927 he worked as a trainee in Meiningen's graphic studio Hein. He then worked as a freelance graphic designer and continued his education by taking courses with Walther Klemm in Weimar and with Hans Hattop the Elder. Ä. visited. In 1929 he founded his own printing company with an advertising studio. In 1933 he became a member of the Meiningen Association of Fine Artists and Art Friends . Since then he has been under the supervision of the Gestapo because of his convictions and has been subjected to harassment. He passed his master's examination and ran a book and art print shop with Anton Wehry as well as a studio for individual advertising and commercial graphics until the end of 1939.

In 1940 Arno Fehringer was drafted into the Wehrmacht . As a medical sergeant, he served a. a. in the hospitals in Weimar, Jena and Rudolstadt . In 1941 he met the painter Martin Pohle in Weimar and, like him, took part in the secret resistance against the Nazi regime . He was also close friends with the young sculptor Leonore Lose-Höpfner (later Wiel-, Machner-Höpfner), who dedicated the sculpture of Mr. F. to him. In 1944 he was transferred to the Eastern Front , where he voluntarily went into Soviet captivity in January 1945. He passed through camps in Przemyśl , Lemberg , Kiev and Stalino . In the latter he attended the Antifa regional school , gave courses himself and was a member of the Antifa board. In 1948 he was released from captivity, returned to Sülzfeld and became a member of the SED .

Too old to study, in 1949 Arno Fehringer accepted the position of master printmaker at the University of Architecture and Fine Arts in Weimar and moved his center of life to Weimar. He became a member of the Association of Visual Artists of Germany (VBKD), was a co-founder and long-time secretary of its local party organization and member of the revision committee of the association's sales cooperative. In the same year he married Helene Wagner. In the years up to 1952 he and Horst Arloth printed lithographs a . a. for Albert Schäfer-Ast , Otto Herbig and Gerhard Altenbourg .

After the printing workshop was closed, he returned to working as a freelance graphic artist and lithographer from 1952. He experimented and printed with the Jena psychiatrist and neurologist Rudolf Lemke and for Thuringian artists such as Tina Bauer-Pezellen , Christa Diez and Wolfgang Taubert. He was a lecturer at the vocational school and at the adult education center, circle leader for folk art and from 1957 to 1961 librarian and cabinet manager at the central school of the FDGB in Holzdorf near Weimar. He wrote poetry again and again and in the 1960s he joined the circle of writing workers of the Weimar factory , with which he was awarded the title Excellent Folk Art Collective of the GDR in 1969 and the Weimar City Literature and Art Prize in 1974.

Arno Fehringer was close friends with the Weimar painters Alfred Ahner , Engelbert Schoner and Martin Pohle, with the later Leipzig graphic designer Kurt Römhild , with the actor and anti-fascist Kurt Nagel and the singer and Resistance fighter Arthur Eberhardt. When Martin Pohle left the GDR as a result of the formalism dispute in 1958, Arno Fehringer preserved a large part of his work. With the so-called Bauhaus philosopher Harry Scheibe , a number of joint works were created in the context of a regular exchange of philosophical ideas that lasted over twenty years, in which they dealt with the role of knowledge and action in shaping society. In 1954, Arno Fehringer met the former Bauhaus member and Hagen artist Heinrich Brocksieper in Weimar . Up to his death in 1968 an intensive correspondence developed, which documented profound and sometimes very humorous insights into life, but also the needs of artists in the post-war years and in divided Germany .

plant

The painterly and graphic works of Arno Fehringer include pictures in oil, lithographs, etchings, linocuts as well as drawings in charcoal and pastel. Motifs are portraits , landscapes , still lifes and calligraphic works. In lithography he tried again and again to achieve more perfect results through experiments. He wrote a variety of lyrical, but also combative poems. He staged early works calligraphically in an artist's book. Most of his work is in private hands.

literature

• Willy Pagenkopf: The flute in legend and history (hand cuts by Arno Fehringer and Willy Pagenkopf) . W. Pagenkopf, Meiningen 1937.
• Albert Kapr : Font for Architects (printed by Arno Fehringer and Horst Arloth) . University of Architecture, Weimar 1951.
• Council of the City of Weimar, Natural History Collections (ed.): The educational trail in the Belvedere Park (graphic: Arno Fehringer) . Weimar 1953.
• Christina Ada Anders (Ed.): For the time being I have to stay alive. Alfred Ahner - from the letters and diaries of the Weimar artist (1890–1973) . Georg Olms Verlag, Hildesheim / Zurich / New York 2014, ISBN 978-3-487-08551-7 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ August Kuhn-Foelix: Walk in perfection . Reflection on the work of a sculptor . Südharzer Kurier Nordhausen, 1st year No. 203 from 27./28. November 1943.
2. ^ Leonore Wiel-Höpfner: Two head sculptures. SLUB / Deutsche Fotothek , 30124425/26, accessed on March 14, 2020 . 
3. ^ Johann Leopold Bogg: Robbed. Ten years and a month . "REWDA" camp group, Vienna 1994, p. 82-86 .
4. ^ Dieter Brusberg (Ed.): Gerhard Altenbourg. Catalog of works 1947–1969 . Verlag der Galerie Brusberg, Hannover 1969, p. 34 .
5. ↑ Always overtaking ourselves. Poems and songs . Circle of writing workers, program for the 12th Workers Festival in Rostock. In: Standing commission for culture at the Weimar city council and at the Weimar-Land district council (ed.): WEIMAR. Tradition and present. Issue 18 . Weimar 1970, p. 7, 16, 25, 34, 38 and 53 .
6. ↑ The word opens the curtain. A circle portrait . In: Standing commission for culture at the Weimar city council and at the Weimar-Land district council (ed.): WEIMAR. Tradition and present. Issue 27 . Weimar 1974, p. 12, 13, 37 and 79 .
7. ^ Sächsische Landesbibliothek - Dresden State and University Library: Estate of the painter and draftsman Alfred Ahner (1890–1973) . Mscr.Dresd.r 2826q, 3257–3268 (correspondence).
8. ↑ Arno Fehringer, Harry Scheibe: The brilliant solution of our overall knowledge (Goethe - Leibniz) . 1967 (Unpublished - Arno Fehringer estate).
9. ↑ Arno Fehringer, Harry Scheibe: Quintessence and Quintessence II . 1969 (unpublished - Arno Fehringer estate).
10. ↑ Michael Siebenbrodt : Heinrich Brocksieper. Near vision . Ed .: Weimar Art Collections. Weimar 1998, ISBN 3-929323-15-X , p. 11, 15, 20 and 22 .
11. ↑ Hanna Brocksieper (Ed.): A similar to A. Part 1. Heinrich Brocksieper letters 1954–1968 to Arno Fehringer . Brocksieper archive, Hagen 1980.
12. ↑ Hanna Brocksieper (Ed.): A similar to A. Part 2. Arno Fehringer letters 1954–1968 to Heinrich Brocksieper . Brocksieper archive, Hagen 1980.