August Blepp

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August Blepp (born January 9, 1885 in Weilen unter den Rinnen , † August 15, 1949 ibid) was a German church painter .

The interior of numerous churches was designed by him. Among other things, he designed the altar wings of St. Nicholas' Church in his hometown, where a street was named after him. Blepp was a student of the painter Adolf Hölzel . It can be assigned to Expressionism .

Life

August Blepp was born on January 9, 1885 in Weilen unter den Rinnen. After attending elementary school, he started an apprenticeship as a painter in Hechingen in July 1899 , after which he passed the journeyman's examination in October 1902. He then spent time as a journeyman and wanderer in Freiburg im Breisgau , Stuttgart , Switzerland and finally returned to Stuttgart, where he attended the Stuttgart School of Applied Arts from 1904 . In autumn 1908 he entered the Royal Württemberg Academy of Fine Arts , where he was influenced by his teachers Robert Poetzelberger , Carlos Grethe and Adolf Hölzel . During 1913 travels to Lake Constance and the Bavarian Alps . On August 7th, 1914 involuntary entry into the Württemberg infantry, from December 1914 front-line deployment on the Somme and near Verdun . In January 1919 Blepp was released from army service as a private . Until the late summer of 1919 he worked as a drawing teacher in Heilbronn , after which he worked as a freelance artist.

Blepp has made a particular contribution to the area of ​​sacred painting. From 1921 he mainly designed altar wings and church interiors. At the end of November 1923 he traveled through Italy for four months with the Swiss painter Karl Röhrli. From around 1927 Blepp employed two assistants: the painters Karl Bauer from Ravensburg (1927 to around 1937) and Anton Geiger from Schörzingen (until 1939). In 1928 married Blepp his wife Anna (born Strong, born May 15, 1887 in Bonn , †?).

In January 1933 Blepp won a design competition that had been announced by the Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft , Reichsbahndirektion Stuttgart . It was about the painting of the walls of the dining room in the reception building of the port station in Friedrichshafen .

Blepp became a member of the Weilener Municipal Council, in 1935 he received honorary citizenship in Weilen on the occasion of his 50th birthday . Together with the Lindau sculptor Willi Veit , he continued to design churches (e.g. the crucifix for the Aichstetten altar in 1943 ). In the summer of 1944, Blepp was drafted as a private to the State Rifle Battalion. After a short training in Lahr , he was obliged to do guard duty in the Utting concentration camp on Lake Ammersee (a satellite camp of the Dachau concentration camp ) until the end of the war . After the end of the war he was briefly interned in Utting, but was soon released again and classified in 1948 as "unencumbered".

On November 20, 1945, the Balingen District Administrator Robert Wahl, in agreement with the French military government, appointed Blepp as a member of the municipal council committee of von Weilen ud R.

August Blepp died of stomach cancer on August 15, 1949. He is buried in the cemetery of his hometown Weilen.

Works

From 1921 to 1949 Blepp was responsible for the design of 56 churches and also completed designs for three other churches. Already during his lifetime his work was the subject of exhibitions, e.g. B. in Speyer 1925, Ulm 1926, Rottenburg am Neckar 1932, Tübingen 1945 or Ravensburg 1949/46.

In around a quarter of the churches that August Blepp helped design, his works have now been completely or partially painted over. The estate, about 1500 documents, is the county archives of the Zollernalb district ( Balingen managed).

Notes and sources

  1. ^ Röhrli came from Winterthur. The route led via Milan , Genoa , Rome , Naples , Salerno , Amalfi , Capri , Assisi , Perugia , Florence , Padua and Venice to Switzerland . On March 11, 1924 he returned home from Einsiedeln Monastery (Switzerland) to Weilen.

literature

  • Zollernalbkreis (ed.): Andreas Zekorn / Andreas Zoller: Expression and faith. The artist and church painter August Blepp [Ill.] (1885–1949) . [Catalog for the exhibitions in the Zollernalbkreis district office….] With a contribution by Wolfgang Urban . Zollernalbkreis, Balingen 1996, ISBN 3-927249-08-4 .

Web links
personal data
SURNAME Blepp, August
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German church painter
DATE OF BIRTH January 9, 1885
PLACE OF BIRTH While under the gutters
DATE OF DEATH August 15, 1949
Place of death While under the gutters