August Potter

August Heinrich Töpfer (* 1834 in Ingolstadt ; † September 2, 1911 in Bremen ) was a German teacher and designer for the arts and crafts and director of the commercial museum in Bremen.

Life

Töpfer studied architecture in Munich and was initially artistic director of August Riedinger's bronze goods factory in Augsburg for several years . In order to set up a technical institute for tradespeople in Bremen , which was supposed to convey techniques and styles from history to craftsmen and manufacturers in the sense of historicism , the Bremen Chamber of Commerce appointed potters to set up it in 1873. The new institution included the establishment of a (advisory) drawing office for craftsmen , a library and a collection of models , which also included a collection of handicrafts from the past and present. So Töpfer developed side by side a arts and crafts school with an advisory, teaching and taste-forming function, in conjunction with the institute, which was developing into a public trade museum, whose collection and exhibition activities were constantly growing. From 1886 Töpfer published the communications of the trade museum. The reform currents that broke out towards the end of his activity (1903) and new artistic tasks in the Art Nouveau period remained as alien to him as a scientific and cultural-historical approach to the collection; only his successor Emil Högg turned more decisively to the new. In 1924 the trade museum was merged with the historical museum to form the Focke museum .

Works

• Bird's eye view of the city of Bremen, gouache, 1901, Focke Museum, Bremen.
• Marcus Fountain in Bremen's Bürgerpark, 1889.
• Entrance to the commercial building, painting, 1891, Focke Museum.

literature

• Johann Focke : Töpfer, August , in: Bremische Biographie des 19. Jahrhundert, Bremen 1912, pp. 490–491.

proof

1. ↑ The part of the model collection consisting of printed reproductions and illustrations of works of art still exists today in the old compilation in the archive of the Focke Museum .