Bernhard Huys

Bernhard Huys (born February 25, 1895 in Oesede , Osnabrück district , † December 4, 1973 in Worpswede ) was a German painter .

life and work

Huys (pronounced: Heus) is considered to be one of the last painters who still set up their easel in the open field in order to stay close to the object during the work process. As a co-founder and long-time chairman of the Association of Friends of Worpswedes, he was committed to the village and the landscape of the Teufelsmoors .

Born in Oesede in 1895 as the son of Rector Huys, he graduated from the Carolinum in Osnabrück . From 1913 until the outbreak of war he studied dentistry for one semester in Münster . He was a soldier in the First World War . Unable to prepare for a civil profession after his experiences on the Western Front , he traveled the country as a traveling scholar with his guitar, earned money as a waiter, casual laborer in a peat mill and in a potash mine . Every year he visited Worpswede, which he had known since 1917, and made friends here. The highlight for him was a summer stay with Martha Vogeler , who had opened a boutique and café here. Benni Huys was a big attraction with his guitar. In 1929 he settled in Worpswede, married Maria Gründel in 1931, with whom he had 2 children. And found a job here that supported him and his family. After a year-long apprenticeship with a carpenter in Hoya, he began to manufacture picture frames, which soon became famous thanks to his own technique - gold leaf with thin-covering paint.

On the side, he drew a lot, which he had already done in the last years of school, and began to paint. Otto Modersohn and Fritz Mackensen took on him in an advisory capacity. He learned how to use the etching needle from Martin Paul Müller . In the Worpswede art show he was constantly represented with pictures. During the Second World War he was arrested by the Gestapo in August 1943 and sentenced to prison in December 1943 for “despising the Führer”. He saved himself by serving in the sick department of the Hameln prison . So he came out again in 1945, physically marked by suffering, but internally strengthened. Now his really fruitful creative years began, in which his best pictures were created. Landscapes in fog or snow, developed from not very soft color values. With them he made his own contribution to the artistic translation of the Worpswede landscape in a relaxed manner.

At the age of 71 he was awarded the Lower Saxony Order of Merit, First Class, for his commitment to the “Friends of Worpswedes”. In his honor there is the "Bernhard-Huys-Ring" in Worpswede.

Web links

• Biographical information with details on the arrest on August 25, 1943, on the trial before the Special Court in Hanover on December 7, 1943 and on the imprisonment until May 17, 1945 (since January 12, 1944 in the Hameln prison); with a photo by Bernhard Huys from the post-war period

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Dominik Lapp: Bernhard Huys: From Oesede to the front and on to Worpswede. In: noz.de. April 10, 2019, accessed December 3, 2019 . 
2. ↑ chronos, chronosroma, peter lüssenheide: chronosROMA a OSnabrück - Hanns Gerd Rabe: Osnabrücker art and artists - 1900 to 1970 -. (No longer available online.) In: chronosroma.eu. Formerly in the original ; accessed on January 4, 2017 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.    
3. ↑ Wolf-Dieter Mechler: Everyday War on the "Home Front" - The Special Court Hanover 1939-1945 , Hannoversche Studien Volume 4, 1997, ISBN 3-7752-4954-0 , p. 107
4. ↑ Dominik Lapp: Bernhard Huys: From Oesede to the front and on to Worpswede. In: noz.de. April 10, 2019, accessed December 3, 2019 . 
5. ↑ Wolf-Dieter Mechler: Everyday War on the "Home Front" - The Special Court Hanover 1939 - 1945 , Hannoversche Studien Volume 4, 1997, ISBN 3-7752-4954-0 , p. 108 ff.