Artur Graf
Artur Graf (born July 23, 1911 in Karlsruhe ; † March 25, 1989 there ) was a German painter and an important representative of representational art in southwest Germany.
After an apprenticeship as a painter and varnisher , Artur Graf became acquainted with the Karlsruhe sculptor Christoph Voll in the late 1920s , for whose class he was the model . Voll, who was then a professor at the Baden State Art School in Karlsruhe , accepted Graf into his class. After the seizure of power of the Nazis Artur Graf was active in the Communist resistance. As early as 1933 he was arrested for political activity against National Socialism and sentenced to two and a half years in prison. At the same time, he was expelled from the Reich Chamber of Fine Arts . Graf was classified as “unworthy of war” and was not drafted into military service. In 1941 he was banned from painting by the President of the Reich Chamber of Fine Arts, following a ruling by the Karlsruhe Higher Regional Court. In January 1945 he was arrested again by the Gestapo . Graf was sent to the Sulz aN subcamp of the Schirmeck concentration camp , from where he managed to escape when he was transported to Constance immediately before the liberation by the French army in 1945.
After the war, Graf was one of the most important representatives of a representational position in painting in southwest Germany, which opposed the abstract expressionism that was predominant at the time and was based on the French painting of the early 1950s. His main subjects were landscapes , especially the Bavarian Forest, Parisian vedute and still life . Although he was a communist and member of the DKP until his death , he refused to use painting as a political instrument.
Graf was a member of the Karlsruhe Artists' Cooperative and the Federal Association of Visual Artists (BBK). In 1951 he received the Art Prize of the Friends of Fine Art in Munich and in 1958 the first prize for painting from the City of Karlsruhe's Culture Prize , which is no longer awarded today. In 2011, the BBK Karlsruhe honored Artur Graf with an exhibition in the Karlsruhe Künstlerhaus .
literature
- Karlsruhe picture and text book , catalog for the exhibition in the Künstlerhaus Karlsruhe and in the Hahnentorburg Cologne 1982
- Karlsruher Künstlergenossenschaft 1968 , catalog for the exhibition in the pavilion in the old botanical garden, Munich 1968
- Artur Graf and Wilhelm Martin , catalog for the exhibition in the Künstlerhaus Karlsruhe, BBK Karlsruhe, 2011
Individual evidence
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Count, Artur |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German artist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 23, 1911 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Karlsruhe |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 25, 1989 |
| Place of death | Karlsruhe |