August Kaufhold (painter)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

August Kaufhold (born April 11, 1884 in Bremen , † June 6, 1955 in Dötlingen ) was a German painter .

Life

Grave site in Dötlingen

Kaufhold was the son of an innkeeper couple. At the age of 14 he began an apprenticeship with the industrial painter Otto Bollhagen (1861–1924) in Bremen . In addition to other work, he was also in church paintings, u. a. the Bremen Cathedral , the cotton exchange and the decorative painting of Lloyd steamers .

He began his art education in 1902 at the Dresden Art Academy with Johannes Raphael Wehle (1848–1936) and Hermann Freye (1844–1921) and continued it in 1904 at the Munich Art Academy a . a. as a master student of Heinrich von Zügel . His first summer trips to Dötlingen took place during his student years. He made the “artist's one year” with the best mark and in 2005 became a master student of the animal painter Heinrich von Zügel.

Kaufhold moved to Dötlingen in 1908. After his houses were built, he settled in the Dötlingen artists' colony . In 1925 his house burned down along with a valuable library and valuable farm furniture. Most of his works also burned. Then the construction of what he called Lopshof took place at the same place . In 1936 he moved into his fourth house at today's Karkbäk 15, which was sold in 1937 to the Gauamt für Erzieher of the National Socialist German Teachers' Association .

On his 70th birthday the Wildeshauser Zeitung wrote: "If you can speak of a painter who cherishes and cares for the love for animals and knows how to combine nature and art with a fine hand, then it is August Kaufhold".

Kaufhold was married twice. His first wife Marie (called Mariechen) died in 1943 and he married his wife Charlotte in the same year; both had a son.

plant

In November 1907, the art critic Wilhelm von Busch (1868–1940) wrote on the occasion of an art exhibition of the Oldenburger Kunstverein in the Augusteum in the “Nachrichten für Stadt und Land”, Oldenburg: “August Kaufhold, Wildeshausen, exhibits two strange heather pictures. A new, unknown name, perhaps a summer visitor to the old Huntestadt who ended up there. In neighboring Dötlingen there are also painters and painters who live all the time. "

This "unknown summer guest" was August Kaufhold. The passionate animal painter offered the most rewarding motifs in the moving landscape around Dötlingen. His animal heads are extremely lively, more picturesque the grazing white and colored cows and bulls on the lush hunt meadows, the working horses with the farmer in front of the plow and the field wagon and the herd of heather sheep with shepherds, dogs and sheep in a sun-drenched heathland. The depiction of the interaction of light and shadow and the hazy, blue background that blurred in the distance also showed the painter's skill. Kaufhold, in whom Impressionist and Expressionist elements only appear in early pictures, was one of the artists who preferred to accept difficulties right down to the last brushstroke rather than deviate from the line that was once given. August Kaufhold cannot be classified in one of the many “drawers” ​​in our approach to art. He painted so much from within that each of his pictures is a completely separate work. It shows the painter's current emotional state. August Kaufhold was successful. In good times he painted 60 to 80 pictures a year, which he often sold straight from the easel. Customers came and went with him.

Dotlingen

Kaufhold was closely associated with Dötlingen and lived here from 1907 to 1955. His art was devoted to the varied landscape, he painted the village, its streets, its farms and again and again sheep and cows. They appear in his pictures like individuals, like proud residents of the Dötlinger landscape. The high-contrast "games" with light and dark and light and shadow let the animals step out of the picture frame under advantageous lighting . He was a great animal lover. That's why he always made his four-legged friends look correct and advantageous in his pictures.

Kaufhold had his first artist house built in the Goldberg Mountains in 1908. A typical reform villa with a view of the hunt. After two years the house sold. On Heideweg, below the Gierenberg (then called Petersberg), he built the first Lopshof according to his own design in 1912 , as a thatched-roof house just outside the populated area, in an almost wild natural landscape.

The Bremer Sportzeitung wrote in 1920: “In every room of his small, single-storey house, the gaze falls on something beautiful and special, on wonderful old chests, cupboards and equipment. And outside the whole slope of the hill is covered with wild, brightly blooming flowers, between which tall silver thistles sway in the wind, as if covered with a light-colored carpet. On the other side of the path is the Petersberg, which stretches towards Dötlingen and the plain stretches to the east, lush green meadows in front, glistening through the Hunte, and behind it gray heather with bluish pine forests along the horizon. Far and wide there is no one to be seen, birds roar around the steep roof and above us, in the crowns of the oaks, it rustles and rustles ”.

In 1925 his house burned down. With the money from the fire insurance, he built a large boarding house to offer fellow artists a hospitable home. Georg Müller vom Siel (1865–1939) had already taken this route before him . Kaufhold received regular visits from artists and those interested in art. In particular, the nearby artists such as Ludwig Fischbeck (1866–1954), Heinz Witte-Lenoir (1880–1961) and many others liked to visit the Dötlingen artists' colony.

literature

personal data
SURNAME Kaufhold, August
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter
DATE OF BIRTH April 11, 1884
PLACE OF BIRTH Bremen
DATE OF DEATH June 6, 1955
Place of death Dotlingen