Beatrice Zweig

Margarethe Beatrice Zweig (born May 27, 1892 in Berlin ; † October 18, 1971 there ) was a German painter . She was Arnold Zweig's wife .

Life

Beatrice Zweig grew up in a Jewish merchant family as the daughter of Regina Zweig, b. Abraham, (June 29, 1865 - August 18, 1924) and Carl Zweig (February 28, 1850 - January 4, 1929). The family also includes the older brother Hans Zweig (born January 14, 1888; † June 24/26, 1942, deported to Maly Trostinec and murdered) and his sister Marie (Miriam) Zweig (born December 12, 1893; † January 27 1972).

As a child, Beatrice attended the Margarethen Lyceum in Berlin. In 1909 she met Arnold Zweig, a distant relative, for the first time in her parents' house. Arnold and Beatrice moved in together against the family's wishes.

In March 1914, Beatrice Zweig confirmed to the Graz District Court that she was treated by the doctor and psychoanalyst Otto Gross from January to May 1913 and that she had completely freed her from a neurosis .

Beatrice and Arnold Zweig married on July 5, 1916. She attended philosophy lectures in Munich and Berlin and began studying painting with various teachers, including Leo von König and Ludwig Meidner . In 1919 the Zweig moved to Starnberg near Munich. Their eldest son Michael was born in 1920 and his brother Adam in 1924 .

After the failed Hitler coup in 1923, Zweig found anonymous anti-Semitic threats in their mailboxes, left Bavaria and returned to Berlin. In 1926 the family moved into their own apartment with a garden in the Eichkamp settlement , which is organized as a cooperative . There they found like-minded people and planned a community school in the settlement.

A love affair between Arnold and Lily Offenstadt (which lasted until 1933) triggered a deep crisis for Beatrice Zweig.

In the early 1930s Beatrice attended private art schools in Berlin, became a student of Max Dungert and completed her studies at the Bauhaus with Johannes Itten . At the end of 1932 she completed a study visit to the private art school Académie Julian in Paris as a student of Frans Masereel .

In May 1933 Beatrice Arnold followed via Vienna and Basel to southern France (although in Berlin she was initially prevented from continuing to Vienna and was taken into police custody). On October 4, 1933, she went ashore with the children and sister Marie in Haifa .

Large parts of Beatrice's early work were lost in the escape. In Palestine she presented her newly created pictures in nine exhibitions - in Haifa, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem . Beatrice was in close contact with the graphic artist Hermann Struck , who set up an artists' colony in Haifa and later founded an art school in Jerusalem. The family was also closely connected to Mira and Max Eitingon .

On July 14, 1948, the Zweig left Israel and went to Prague. The Czechoslovak government accepted the Zweig as state guests in Dobříš Castle near Prague . Beatrice was frightened by the thought of having to return to Germany. Severe depression, thoughts of suicide and several hospital stays followed. In 1949 Beatrice came to Berlin. The Zweigs got an apartment in the Pankow "Villa Schlossgut", later in Homeyerstraße 13. They took up the artistic work again and in 1951 had a first exhibition.

Beatrice Zweig died on October 18, 1971 in Berlin-Pankow .

Beatrice Zweig's artistic estate, which is kept in the art collection of the Akademie der Künste , includes more than 1,300 works by the artist. Stylistically, they can be assigned to post-impressionism . This includes 47 sketchbooks, more than 750 sketch and study sheets as well as watercolors, 147 paintings, 367 prints and 44 printing plates.

On May 3, 2014, the Pankow district office named the previous number road 201 after Beatrice Zweig.

literature

• Dehmlow, Raimund: Snow through Therapy - The Treatment of the Sisters Branch . http://www.dehmlow.de/index.php/de/otto-gross/225-schnee-durch-therapie-die-verarbeitung-der-schwestern-zweig
• Heid, Ludger (Ed.): That's what I call a durable alliance!  : Arnold Zweig, Beatrice Zweig and Ruth Klinger; Correspondence (1936–1962). Bern [u. a.]: Lang, 2005. ISBN 3-906757-02-1
• Jung, Ulla: It is impossible to be German . Beatrice Zweig 1892–1971, in: Baath, Doris, Sybille Budau-Ebelt a. Ulla Jung (Ed.): Search for traces. Women in Pankow. Portraits. Berlin: District Office Pankow, 1996
• Jung-Diestelmeier, Maren u. Bernt Roder (Ed.): "I drew, all sorrow is gone." Beatrice Zweig 1892–1971 . Berlin: Museum Pankow, 2017
• Sandberg, Herbert: Beatrice Zweig , in: Die Weltbühne, Vol. 26. 1971, H. 45, pp. 1430-1431.
• Zweig, Arnold: My wife, the painter , in: Das Magazin, issue 6/1959.
• Zweig, Arnold, Beatrice Zweig u. Helene Weyl: Come here, we love you . Letters of an unusual friendship for three. Berlin: Aufbau-Verl., 1996. ISBN 3-351-03439-3