August Weckbecker

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Professor August Weckbecker (* 1888; † 1939)

August Weckbecker (born May 28, 1888 in Münstermaifeld ; † September 13, 1939 in Munich ) was a German sculptor , painter , glass painter and professor .

Main portal tympanum of the Dreifaltigkeitskirche (Wiesbaden) , created by August Weckbecker after the first year of the academy in 1912. The left and right corner figures (St. Elisabeth and St. Ferrutius) bear the facial features of him and his future wife Ottilie Schönenberger
The Speyer Madonna "Patrona Spirensis" - client was Pope Pius XI. - In 1930 for the 900th anniversary of the Speyer Cathedral, in place of the miraculous image destroyed in 1792, solemnly erected there.

Life

August Weckbecker was a son of the businessman Johann Peter Weckbecker and his wife Helena nee Alt. Like his younger brother Karl, he was born in Münstermaifeld, but the family soon moved to Lorch am Rhein . His brother Johannes (* July 4, 1892) (who later became government director) and his sister Anna Maria (* December 1, 1893) were born here. In Lorch he spent his earliest childhood and youth up to adulthood, where he attended elementary school and then switched to secondary school in Geisenheim . Even as a child he liked to do handicrafts and carving. Again and again he studied and admired the sacred, sculptural works of art for hours, especially the carved altar, the Gothic St. Martin's Church in his home town of Lorch. After finishing school he began an apprenticeship as a businessman, urged by his father. He lasted only a few months, then he secretly moved to Aulhausen to work with a stone sculptor . In the end, out of necessity, his father accepted the irrepressible enthusiasm for art and left August in the sculpture apprenticeship. With the skills he acquired here, he was already able to create a child's head carved in marble, which, by submitting it, earned him the “one-year- old ” in the military, which he later served in 1911/12. In 1908 the von Lorch family moved to Wiesbaden . A year later, 21-year-old August finally came to Munich , where he was preparing to study at the Academy of Fine Arts at the School of Applied Arts. He worked in the "Sculptor Nature School" with Professor Balthasar Schmitt . Later he also attended the “composing school for Christian art (sculpture) ” with him . He attended lectures by Berthold Riehl and Fritz Burger on art history and was a registered guest student at the overcrowded main lectures of Heinrich Wölfflin . In the study hospice in the Königinstraße he met his future wife, Ottilie Schönenberger, a daughter of the Prefect Johann Schönenberger (* 1849, † 1922) from Zug in Switzerland, who studied here at the Munich Conservatory of Music. His brother Karl was ordained a priest in Limburg an der Lahn in 1913 . Karl, with whom August was always closely connected, married the young artist couple on November 8, 1915 in Zug. They took up residence in Munich on Koeniginstrasse. Due to a heart condition, August Weckbecker was spared military service, but it did not prevent him from further developing as an artist. He wanted to work as a universal artist in all areas of the visual arts, not only as a sculptor and carver but also as an architect, graphic artist and painter. As a gifted autodidact , he taught himself the relevant skills. Numerous of his outstanding paintings prove his great painting art.

As a devout Christian, August Weckbecker was accepted as an Oblate of St. Benedict in St. Ottilien in 1915/16 , but he never talked about it. From 1915 to November 1918 he held the master class at the academy , but in the spring of 1916 he rented his own studio in the Atelierhaus Köcket. Some important early works soon gathered here. Many prominent guests were interested in his work and visited Weckbecker in his studio, including King Ludwig III. , who gave him the title of professor on this occasion, or Eugenio Pacelli, later Pope Pius XII. From then on, high-ranking personalities were among his customers and patrons. In 1920 even Pope Benedict XV sat him . in Rome patient model for a bronze bust. In 1922, Weckbecker was able to acquire a large residential building near the Siegestore in Kaulbachstrasse 63a in Munich . A studio was soon added to it.

Study and commission trips took him to Spain, Paris, London, Ireland and several times to Italy in 1924/25. In 1925 he received from King Alfonso XIII. (Spain) personally awarded a high Spanish medal on the collar. Weckbecker kept a distance from the new rulers of the III. Rich. In 1937 August Weckbecker had to lie in bed for five weeks because of his weak heart. In 1938 he demonstratively took part in the great Munich Corpus Christi procession. He is one of the photographed and papal award-winning, prominent, confessional participants. On August 25, 1938, his beloved brother Karl suddenly died in an accident in Hattenheim , where he had been pastor since 1927 and is still unforgettable today because of his great charity. The sudden death of his brother and the outbreak of World War II one year later apparently weakened his heart so much that August Weckbecker died of a heart attack on September 13, 1939, at the age of only 51.

He was initially buried in the forest cemetery (Munich) . Through his wife's mediation, he was soon (November 30, 1939) transferred to the crypt of the Counts of Montgelas , in the Hl Kreuzkapelle near Schloss Egglkofen . In 1916/17 this chapel was built according to Weckbecker's plans and all the furnishings were designed by him. How respected the artist was in his time can be measured by the fact that even high-ranking dignitaries such as B. Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber or Pope Pius XII with his sudden, early death condoled.

Honors

  • Appointed Knight of the Order of St. Gregory, 1934
  • Kgl. Chip. Academy for Art and Science: Appointment as a corresponding member, 1925

Memberships

Examples of his art

  • Bust of Franz Andreas Cardinal Frühwirth (1845–1933) made of Carrara marble in 1916.

  • Fallen honor at the St. Martinskirche in Lorch / Rh, the hometown of his childhood and youth. Colored marble 1920.

  • Grave monument of Franz Cardinal v. Bettinger (1850–1917) in Munich's Liebfrauendom made of deep red Wimberg marble, completed in 1920.

  • Bust of his brother, Pastor Karl Weckbecker, created in 1920/21.

  • Epitaph for Bishop Dr. Jakob Stammler in the Trinity Church in Bern, made of limestone from 1925.

  • Stations of the Cross in St. Laurentius (Schifferstadt) XIV. Station: On the far right, August Weckbecker, to the left, the church architect Albert Boßlet , depicted as “witnesses” to the Entombment of Christ (1928).

  • The Joseph Altar in St. Laurentius (Schifferstadt) from 1933

  • The Marien Altar in St. Laurentius (Schifferstadt) from 1933

  • Figure of the Virgin on the Marien Altar by St. Hildegard (Eibingen) from 1939

  • The Joseph altar in St. Hildegard (Eibingen) from 1939

  • One of the altars created by A. Weckbecker in St. Oswald (Zug) , made of light gray sandstone from 1939.

  • High altar town parish church Bad Königshofen i.Grabfeld started in 1935 by Prof. Thomas Buscher after his death (1937) finished by A. Weckbecker by 1939.

literature

  • Karl Busch : August Weckbecker 1888–1939 . Schnell & Steiner, Munich - Zurich 1963.
  • Josef Kreitmaier SJ: Christian Art, 21st year, issue 3 . December 1924.
  • Gappenach, Hans: In memoriam August Weckbecker. New studies on the life and work of Prof. August Weckbeckers, in: Yearbook for History and Art of the Middle Rhine and its Neighboring Areas, 15./16. Born in 1963.
  • Remer, Maria: A look into August Weckbecker's art . December 4, 1941.

Web links

Commons : August Weckbecker  - Collection of images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ https://www.metropolnews.info/mp72446/gnadenbild-im-speyerer-dom-gierter-und-ausgebessert
  2. ^ Church book of St. Martin Lorch "Births from 1866 to 1893" Lfd. No. 42 and 73
  3. ↑ Parish chronicle St. Martin Lorch Copy Pastor Albert Zell
  4. ↑ https://carlow-nationalist.ie/2017/02/17/historic-treasure-at-risk-in-st-dympnas-church/
  5. ↑ https://www.rheingau-echo.de/nachrichten/region/eltville/80-todestag-noch-unvergessen-id37421.html
  6. ↑ https://www.innsalzach24.de/innsalzach/region-neumarkt-sankt-veit/egglkofen-ort54498/graf-montgelas-richten-stiftung-innsalzach24-2253958.html
personal data
SURNAME Weckbecker, August
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German sculptor, painter, glass painter and professor
DATE OF BIRTH May 28, 1888
PLACE OF BIRTH Münstermaifeld
DATE OF DEATH September 13, 1939
Place of death Munich