Bernhard Winter

Bernhard Winter (born March 14, 1871 in Neuenbrok ; † August 6, 1964 in Oldenburg ) was a German painter, graphic artist and photographer who is particularly important for the Oldenburg area.

Life

Winter came from a farming family in Neuenbrok. His parents were the master painter Bernhard Winter (1838–1911) and his first wife Mette Katharina geb. Vogelsang. The family moved to Oldenbrok in 1875 , where Winter gained his first formative impressions of the marshland landscape in the nearby Moorriem , to which he later often referred in his motifs. In 1882 the father took over a paint shop in Oldenburg. Winter attended secondary school here, where his talent for drawing was encouraged at an early age. He owed the most formative support for Winter in his youth to the curator of the grand ducal gallery in the Augusteum, Sophus Diedrichs (1817–1893), who introduced him to the art of Dutch landscape painting , which Winter would admire his entire life.

From 1887 to 1891 Winter attended the Dresden Art Academy , which he initially valued for the strict and conservative teaching, but later turned away from it. In 1891 he returned to Oldenburg. A trip to Berlin in the winter of 1891 and a visit to the world exhibition in Chicago at the invitation of an uncle did not leave much of an impression on Winter and his work. In 1895 he went to the Düsseldorf Art Academy , where he frequently interrupted his studies for longer stays in the Oldenburg homeland, with which he had a strong relationship.

In 1903 he received the title of professor from Grand Duke Friedrich August because of his “outstanding artistic achievements”, making him the youngest professor and the first painter with this title in the history of the city of Oldenburg. Winter mainly painted pictures of rural life in the Oldenburg region, with which he wanted to document and preserve the life and work of the rural population in times of economic and social change. He is considered a leading representative of the Heimat movement in the Oldenburger Land . He was honored several times for his large-scale paintings with gold medals at art exhibitions, for example in 1896 in Munich, in 1898 at the Great Berlin Art Exhibition ( Small Gold Medal ), in 1899 in Dresden and in 1901 in Oldenburg.

Bernhard Winter also created many portraits , especially of Oldenburg citizens, of historical events and genre scenes. That is why he was considered a scene painter for the Oldenburg citizens , especially in the period before the First World War, and his works achieved high prices. Winter also made a name for himself as a book illustrator, graphic artist , photographer and collector of rural cultural assets.

In 1904, Winter was one of the founders of the Oldenburger Künstlerbund along with Paul Müller-Kaempff , Richard tom Dieck and Gerhard Bakenhus and, as its chairman, was co-signer of a request to the State Ministry for support "of the fine arts and related endeavors". The application was successful and from 1906 onwards the ministry provided 3000 marks annually in funding. As a member of the advisory committee and of the newly formed purchasing committee, Winter helped to decide on their use.

Also in 1906, Winter suggested in a further petition that Oldenburg artists record motifs from the state for the future modern collection. The background to this was his view that the main task of the collection was to reproduce the familiar to the widest possible audience.

Winter also tried to promote the folkloric and original of the Oldenburger Land by setting up the Zwischenahner Freilichtmuseum , which he founded in 1909/10 together with Johann Heinrich Sandstede and Wilhelm Gleimius, as well as by making contributions to the local history of the Duchy of Oldenburg , which was published in 1913 .

During the First World War , Winter created the templates for at least two nail pictures , Isern Hinnerk for the city of Oldenburg and the Rüstringer Friesen for the city of Rüstringen .

In 1931 the city of Oldenburg honored Bernhard Winter with an entry in the city's Golden Book , in 1941 he received the Goethe Medal for Art and Science and in 1961 he was made an honorary citizen of the city of Oldenburg. Bernhard Winter's mindset was conservative and anti-Semitic from his youth, and later decidedly völkisch-nationalistic . He left the Evangelical Lutheran Church in 1910. His application for membership in the NSDAP was rejected in 1942 because of the age of the applicant, who was already over 70 years old, but in particular because of his membership in the Oldenburg Masonic Lodge "Zum Goldenen Hirsch" from 1910 to 1914 . Winter later identified himself with the " Tannenbergbund " (since 1934: "Bund für deutsche Götterwissennis") of the couple Erich and Mathilde Ludendorff .

Many of his works, his possessions and collections as well as his estate are now kept in the Oldenburg City Museum , where an extensive exhibition about Bernhard Winter is shown.

family

In 1904 Winter married Martha Schröder (1878–1960), the daughter of the Economics Council and state parliament president Wilhelm Schröder (1853–1939).

Works

• The Stedinger. 20 pictures with Low German texts. New edition to commemorate the 750th anniversary of the Stedinger Wars , with an introduction by Edo Pille, Niederdeutscher Heimat- und Kulturverein 1984

literature

• Hans M. Fricke: The life's work of the painter Bernhard Winter in Oldenburger Jahrbuch , 1940/41, p. 218ff digitized
• Ewald Gäßler: The painter and graphic artist Bernhard Winter (1871-1964) , in: Uwe Meiners (Hrsg.): Search for security. Homeland Movement in City and Country Oldenburg , Oldenburg 2002, pp. 136–173.
• Elfriede Heinemeyer: Winter, Bernhard. In: Hans Friedl / Wolfgang Günther / Hilke Günther-Arndt / Heinrich Schmidt (eds.): Biographical manual for the history of the state of Oldenburg. Oldenburg 1992, ISBN 3-89442-135-5 , pp. 805-806 ( online )

Web links

• Literature by and about Bernhard Winter in the catalog of the German National Library
• Stadtmuseum Oldenburg - Bernhard Winter Foundation on stadtmuseum.oldenburg.de
• Collection of paintings by the city of Wilhelmshaven at wilhelmshaven.de
• Bernhard Winter in the Bavarian literature portal (project of the Bavarian State Library )

Individual evidence

1. ^ Ewald Gäßler: The painter and graphic artist Bernhard Winter (1871-1964) . In: Uwe Meiners (Ed.): Search for security. Home movement in city and countryside Oldenburg . Isensee Verlag, Oldenburg 2002, ISBN 3-89598-834-0 , p. 169 f .
2. ^ Ewald Gäßler: The painter and graphic artist Bernhard Winter (1871-1964) . In: Uwe Meiners (Ed.): Search for security. Homeland movement in the city and country of Oldenburg. Isensee, Oldenburg 2002, p. 163 .