August Babberger

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August Babberger (born December 8, 1885 in Hausen im Wiesental , † September 3, 1936 in Altdorf UR , Switzerland ) was a German painter. He is one of the protagonists of Expressionism and one of the most important artistic personalities of Classical Modernism in the German south-west. Nevertheless, he is one of the almost forgotten artists of the early 20th century .

Life

August Babberger was born the son of a carpenter in Hausen im Wiesental in 1885 . His most important school days were in Basel , where his parents moved in 1895. His talent for painting was noticed early in secondary school. Later he apprenticed to a master painter. The young journeyman painter got around on a subsequent hike. In Munich he tried to get into the art academy, but failed.

In 1908 Babberger was active in painting in Karlsruhe . The decisive factor there was his meeting with Hans Thoma , to whom he showed his pen drawings. Thoma advised the 23-year-old to stay in Karlsruhe and study at the academy there. Babberger attended the etching class and received a scholarship for the International Art School in Florence the following year through Thomas' mediation . Babberger spent two winters there, painting and drawing mainly nudes. During these years it became particularly important to him that, in addition to his artistic apprenticeship, he also gained the personal, lifelong friendship of the Grisons painter Augusto Giacometti .

In addition to his interest in modern wall art, the search for the original in nature made him discover pure landscape painting in the Swiss Alps from 1915 onwards . In temporal and spatial proximity to Ernst Ludwig Kirchner , Babberger spent regular summer stays in an alpine hut on the Klausen Pass in the canton of Uri from 1918 .

After his marriage to the reverse glass painter and poet Anna Maria Tobler from Lucerne, Babberger moved to Frankfurt am Main . In 1919 he was a founding member of the Darmstadt Secession . In 1920 he was appointed professor of decorative painting at the newly founded academy in Karlsruhe under the name of the Landeskunstschule . From 1923 to 1930 he was director of this academy.

Already at this time a stumbling block for some conservatives in his art, he was defamed as a “ degenerate artist ” and removed from his teaching post soon after the seizure of power by a decree of July 25, 1933 . His colleague and compatriot from Wiesental, the painter Hans Adolf Bühler , who was the director of the academy at the time, played an inglorious role . Babberger moved to his wife's homeland, Switzerland. At the age of less than 51 he died in Altdorf , Canton Uri in 1936 as a result of a neck operation.

Persecution after death

Babberger's artistic estate was transferred to Altdorf and thus saved from the threat of seizure by the National Socialists . But in Germany the rulers persecuted the painter even after his death. In 1937, Babberger's pictures were confiscated from many public museums. Among other things, they were removed from museums in Karlsruhe , Frankfurt am Main , Mannheim and Essen and then exhibited in the defamatory traveling exhibition “ Degenerate Art ”.

plant

Choral mosaic in the Protestant section of the collegiate church in Neustadt an der Weinstrasse , executed by Puhl & Wagner based on a design by August Babberger

The development of August Babberger's art is based on a large-scale conception of things, initially in the style of the early Florentine Renaissance . The early etchings and figure paintings created during his studies in Karlsruhe are in the tradition of Symbolism and Art Nouveau and reveal the influence of Ferdinand Hodler , Arnold Böcklin and Hans Thoma .

Babberger came more and more to an independent interpretation of the landscape and the people. Perhaps it was Augusto Giacometti who introduced the artist to the Swiss Alps. In any case, during his summer stays in the pristine Alps , Babberger found his actual main motif and realized his ideal of a unity of human existence, art and nature. In dialogue with the landscape, in the expressive main works of the 1920s and 1930s, he advanced towards the expressionist style , which is characterized by radical simplification of form and vehement increases in color.

The monumental movement in Babberger's art is less a matter of format, but of course he was also forced to design walls. Many designs for murals , mosaics, and stained glass windows attest to this. Examples of this are the designs for the Protestant Christ Church in Oberursel with glass windows from 1913 to 1914 and for a choir mosaic and glass windows in the Protestant part of the collegiate church in Neustadt an der Weinstrasse , made in 1928.

Probably only one striking wall painting has survived: the painting of the reformed church in Wolhusen , Canton Lucerne . The woodcuts that Babberger created from 1918 onwards are outstanding examples of expressionist printmaking and capture people, nature and the cosmos in strict, compact pictorial symbols.

Influence on other artists

Inspired by his modern view of the landscape, Babberger formed the loose artist group Urner Kreis from 1925 , to which, in addition to his students Heinrich Danioth and Erna Schillig, other Swiss artists, writers and musicians belonged. As the driving force of this group, the person and work of Babberger are closely linked to the development of art in Central Switzerland on the dawn of modernity . Babberger had a decisive influence on Danioth.

Honors

  • In 1966, Babbergerstrasse in Karlsruhe was named after him.

literature

  • Babberger, August . In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General Lexicon of Fine Artists of the XX. Century. tape 1 : A-D . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1953, p. 85 .
  • Leo Mülfarth : Small lexicon of Karlsruhe painters. Karlsruhe 1987, ISBN 3-7617-0250-7 , pp. 19-20.
  • Kunstmuseum Luzern (ed.): August Babberger on the 100th year of birth and 50th year of death. Lucerne Art Museum, 1986.
  • Markus Moehring, Andreas Gabelmann (ed.): August Babberger - The Baden Expressionist. Lörracher Hefte - Rote Schriftenreihe des Museum am Burghof, Issue 12. Loerrach 2010.
  • Elmar Vogt: An unexpected reunion with August Babberger at the Hohenkarpfen Art Foundation. In: Das Markgräflerland, Volume 2018, pp. 143–153

Web links

Commons : August Babberger  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Property Office Karlsruhe: Street names in Karlsruhe. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on February 12, 2019 ; Retrieved April 18, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.karlsruhe.de
personal data
SURNAME Babberger, August
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German expressionist painter
DATE OF BIRTH December 8, 1885
PLACE OF BIRTH Hausen in Wiesental
DATE OF DEATH September 3, 1936
Place of death Altdorf UR