Asmus Jessen

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The emergency money designed by Asmus Jessen in 1921 for the Hanseatic City of Lübeck (series with 5 notes - the uniform front side on the top left)

Asmus Jessen (born May 15, 1890 in Havetoft ; † February 6, 1977 in Lübeck ) was a German art teacher, painter and graphic artist who worked in the Hanseatic city of Lübeck.

Life

Jessen studied in Hamburg and Berlin . From 1914 he worked in Lübeck, initially as an art teacher and later as a freelance artist. After the First World War, as a teacher, he was a member of the well-known Reform College of the Lübeck High School for the Cathedral under Sebald Schwarz . He had a lifelong friendship with Paul Brockhaus , editor of the yearbook Der Wagen . The appearance of the yearbook was shaped for decades by its graphic design.

Jessen represented a "at best mildly late expressionist" style. In 1923 he created the school's memorial for the soldiers who fell in the First World War on the lawn by the model track between the Oberschule zum Dom and the Dom. The monument, designed as a blue three-sided pyramid made of glazed tiles with a tape running around the bottom and surrounded by a grid of swords, daggers and crosses, was the subject of controversial public debate. On All Souls' Day 1924 in the Cathedral during a festival worship by Pastor Balcke the after draft -made by the artist memorial for the fallen soldiers of World War I, in the form of red clay tablets which in black carried the names of the fallen of the Cathedral parish and in the ambulatory were the Church opened . In the competition with the expressionist Ervin Bossanyi in the tender for the painting of the reading room of the newly built city ​​library, Jessen lost in 1926. In 1935 Bossanyi's works were painted over in brown.

Jessen was enthusiastic about National Socialism , which is why he joined the NSDAP early on . In “species-appropriate art” he saw the realization of his artistic and educational efforts to create “folk art” and a connection between “handicrafts and folk culture”.

In 1936 he was appointed as the commissioner for art education of the city of Lübeck and as a specialist advisor ("Amtswalter") for artistic questions at the district leadership of the NSDAP. He was the district commissioner of the Reich Chamber of Fine Arts , "the largest and most important body of the Propaganda Ministry". In 1937, at his suggestion, the “School Workshops of the Hanseatic City of Lübeck” were founded. They operated to a large extent NS commissioned art such as offering bowls for NS celebrations, memorial plaques and also arts and crafts such as the production of office furniture for NS officials. Jessen also took on "the decorative design of the festival rooms, the squares and streets of Lübeck during the 'national holidays'".

After his Lübeck painter colleague Alfred Mahlau was appointed to the artistic advisory board in the Reich office of the strictly National Socialist Nordic Society , Jessen became his assistant.

At an unknown point in time, the artist joined the SS . On behalf of the Reich Culture Office of the NSDAP, he traveled to the occupied Baltic States for four months in 1943 as a war correspondent and member of the SS, in order to make "visual art recordings" of motifs in the cultural area of ​​the Hanseatic League and the Teutonic Order .

In the same year, together with Erich Klahn , Fritz Behn and Hans Heitmann, he received the Emanuel Geibel Prize of the City of Lübeck, which was awarded for the first and last time and which was awarded to National Socialist artists. In a laudatory speech, Brockhaus emphasized Jessen's propagandistic decorations for plazas, rooms and streets, "an area of ​​work in which he worked with particular love and achieved exemplary results."

The co-award winner Erich Klahn was one of Jessen's close circle of friends. There was a lively exchange of ideas between the two, and suggestions from Jessen were incorporated into works by Klahn. Jessen also tried to promote Klahn by arranging exhibitions.

After the end of National Socialism, Jessen was arrested and interned (1945-1947) by the British military government because of his Nazi burden. He was fired from the public service and initially lost his pension entitlement. From 1949 he lived in Legan and continued to work as an artist. Until 1956, von Brockhaus continued to entrust him with the design of the yearbook Der Wagen .

Works

In 1935, as a spectacular example of art in public space, a wooden model of Lübeck's old town from the early modern period was created by a large number of students under Jessen's direction. After graduation, Jessen traveled to Berlin with students to present the Hitler model in the Reich Chancellery . It was shown in 1936 on the occasion of the Olympic Games in Berlin at the “Greater Germany Exhibition”, after which it was given a place in the Holstentor Museum , where it can still be found today.

The clinker floor in the hall of the office building was created according to Jessen's design . His Lübeck emergency money from 1921 was against the funnier draft of the egg money by Alfred Mahlau . In 1927 he repainted the Hamberge village church based on preserved fragments. His expressionist depictions of St. Mary's Church and the similarly styled portfolio of interior views of Lübeck Cathedral are well known . In the phase of isolation after 1945 he turned more the motives of the nature around his little in Legan just outside the town center, this Kate to and especially painted landscape motifs from the Travetal .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Henning Repetzky, "To plow a world lies ahead of me ..." Erich Klahn. A monograph, ed. from the Klahn-Freundeskreis e. V., Bonn 2001, p. 64.
  2. ↑ Illustration and criticism in Vaterstädtische Blätter 1922/23 ( digitized version ), p. 46
  3. ↑ Memories of the painter Ervin Bossanyi: The artist's son comes to the city library and tells about his father's life, in: Hansestadt Lübeck (ed.), Lübecker Stadtzeitung, March 24, 1998; Friedrich Gleiss, Jewish life in Segeberg from the 18th to the 20th century, Norderstedt 2002, p. 122.
  4. ↑ Abram B. Enns, Art and Bourgeoisie. The controversies of the 1920s in Lübeck, Hamburg 1978, p. 61.
  5. ↑ This and the following information according to: Heimatverein der Landschaft fishing e. V. (Ed.), Asmus Jessen's 120th birthday, see: [1] .
  6. ↑ Henning Repetzky, "To plow a world lies ahead of me ..." Erich Klahn. A monograph, ed. from the Klahn-Freundeskreis e. V., Bonn 2001, p. 64.
  7. ↑ Henning Repetzky, "A world to plow is ahead of me". Erich Klahn. A monograph, Hannover 2001, p. 78.
  8. ↑ See z. B .: National Socialist monthly issues. Central political and cultural journal of the NSDAP , Volume 14 (1943), No. 11, p. 84; Eva Dambacher: Literature and Art Awards 1859–1949. A documentation. Marbach (Neckar) 1996, pp. 55, 153; Lübeck's Geibel Prize, in: Marburger Zeitung, October 29, 1943, [2] .
  9. ↑ See: Paul Brockhaus, Kunsthandwerk und Volkstum. From the work of two Low German artists, in: Der Wagen. A Lübeckisches Jahrbuch 1942–1944, pp. 105–111, here: p. 108.
  10. ↑ Henning Repetzky, "To plow a world lies ahead of me ..." Erich Klahn. A monograph, ed. from the Klahn-Freundeskreis e. V., Bonn 2001, p. 64f.
  11. ↑ Henning Repetzky, "To plow a world lies ahead of me ..." Erich Klahn. A monograph, ed. from the Klahn-Freundeskreis e. V., Bonn 2001, p. 64.
  12. ↑ This and the following information according to: Heimatverein der Landschaft fishing e. V. (Ed.), Asmus Jessen's 120th birthday, see: [3] .

literature

  • Paul Brockhaus: Handicrafts and folklore. On the work of two Low German artists. In: Der Wagen 1942/1944, pp. 105–111.
  • Heinrich Dose: Asmus Jessen . In: Der Wagen 1972, pp. 52–63 (with 12 illustrations).
  • Abram B. Enns: Attempt at an appreciation , in: ders., Art and bourgeoisie. The controversial twenties in Lübeck , Hamburg / Lübeck 1978, ISBN 3-7672-0571-8 , pp. 215-219.
  • Ulrich Szperalski: Asmus Jessen, artist and educator - victim of an era . In: Der Wagen 1984, pp. 197-218.
  • Jörg Fligge : Lübeck schools in the "Third Reich": a study on education in the Nazi era in the context of developments in the Reich , Schmidt-Römhild, Lübeck 2014, p. 545 ff.

Web links

Commons : Asmus Jessen  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Jessen, Asmus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German art teacher, painter and graphic artist
DATE OF BIRTH May 15, 1890
PLACE OF BIRTH Havetoft
DATE OF DEATH February 6, 1977
Place of death Lübeck