Bettina Encke von Arnim

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Bettina Encke von Arnim

Bettina Encke von Arnim (born May 3, 1895 in Zernikow , † August 23, 1971 in Waldbröl ) was a German painter .

Live and act

Origin, childhood and youth

Bettina Encke von Arnim, great-granddaughter of the German romantics Bettina and Achim von Arnim , was born as the eldest child of Erwin Kühnemund and Agnes von Arnim on their parents' estate Zernikow in the Ruppin district. Her younger brother Friedmund Ernst Freiherr von Arnim (1897–1946) was the father of her niece of the same name , who is also a painter.

From 1917 to 1920 she studied painting in revolutionary Berlin at the painting school of the Verein der Künstlerinnen und Kunstfreundinnen zu Berlin (later the Association of Berlin Artists ) - a 'substitute' academy for women who were not admitted to higher education in Prussia until 1919 by law got -, with the Berlin Secessionists Leo von König and Martin Brandenburg and with Johann Walter-Kurau .

On May 8, 1921, she married the commoner Walther Encke. The two daughters Gunhild (1922–2013) and Ortrud (* 1923) emerged from the marriage.

Period of the Weimar Republic and National Socialism

Bettina Encke von Arnim: Old olive trees II, 1954, watercolor and ink

Marriage and family often did not give Bettina Encke von Arnim the freedom she wanted to develop her painterly activity, although she was expressly supported in her painting by her husband. She participated intensively in the cultural life of Berlin in the 1920s, cultivated friendships and maintained a lively exchange with other visual artists such as Otto Pankok , Erwin Graumann, their teachers Johann Walter-Kurau and Max Dungert , the Bauhaus artist and teacher Fritz Kuhr , the painters Felicitas Meinshausen, Margarete Schall and many others. She continued to take regular painting lessons well into the 1940s; for example with Johann Walter-Kurau and Max Dungert (nude painting). Together with her husband, out of a liberal, prejudice-free attitude, she ran a cultural and political salon (the “Saturday evenings”) in her Berlin apartment, where well-known artists (e.g. Erwin Piscator , Felix Gasbarra ), intellectuals (e.g. B. Alfred Kurella , Bernhard von Brentano) and politicians from various directions took part (from KPD members to the political center of the SPD, liberals and members of the center to Otto Strasser ).

After the National Socialists came to power , the tradition of “Saturday evenings” came to a standstill, as an openly democratic attitude was undesirable. Bettina Encke von Arnim's husband was finally banned from working. Bettina Encke von Arnim supported persecuted or defamed friends. These included the former Jewish and Communist member of the Reichstag, Iwan Katz , the Germanist of Jewish descent Werner Milch and the Bauhaus artist Fritz Kuhr , who was defamed as 'degenerate' . After the death of her husband in 1941 and in view of the increasing number of area bombardments, Bettina Encke von Arnim moved from Berlin to Schloss Wiepersdorf, the widow's residence of her mother Agnes von Arnim.

During this time she mainly painted impressive, modern portraits of her contemporaries, but also landscapes in oil on various materials or in watercolor. She went on regular study trips.

End of the war and the immediate post-war period

Bettina Encke von Arnim: The White Fortress, 1962, oil on canvas

Bettina Encke von Arnim experienced the end of the war at Wiepersdorf Castle when the Red Army marched in on April 22, 1945. After the owner of the castle, her brother Friedmund von Arnim, was arrested after the Soviet soldiers marched into Zernikow, she was responsible for mother, sisters and other household members, as well as for the traditional manor house with its library and the extensive estate of Bettina and Achim von Arnim.

Driven out of the castle, forced into subsistence farming and constantly moving to another place of residence within the community, and also temporarily imprisoned, she and her family had to watch the castle and the valuable inventory of the library and romantic writers' estate being plundered and partially destroyed. In this situation, her painting almost came to a standstill. What Bettina Encke von Arnim achieved with the personal support of Iwan Katz , however, is the rescue of Wiepersdorf Castle, which was threatened with demolition and oblivion by the land reform, and its inventory that remained after the looting. She played a key role in helping to preserve the castle as a “workplace for writer Bettina von Arnim”. She and her (remaining) family were finally expelled from Wiepersdorf in 1947 and fled to the West.

1947 to 1971

Bettina Encke von Arnim: Holzplatz in Überlingen , 1962, monotype

After a first stop with daughter Ortrud and her husband Werner Heymach in Biedenkopf in Hesse , Bettina Encke moved from Arnim to Überlingen on Lake Constance . From now on, the determining element of her life was art, as she had always striven for. She painted in oil and watercolor, drew, and produced idiosyncratic collages from colored Japanese paper using a technique she developed and monotypes . In the tradition of her teacher Leo von König , her preferred subjects were portraits, as well as landscapes and architecture.

Bettina Encke von Arnim, closely associated with the international Bodenseeclub, soon found her own circle of painter friends (including Barbara Michel-Jaegerhuber, Ilse Fark, Werner Gürtner ). She went on study trips through Europe and regularly exhibited in the Lake Constance region for many years (e.g. in Überlingen , Konstanz , Singen ).

On August 23, 1971, Bettina Encke von Arnim died with her daughter Ortrud Heymach in Waldbröl , where she is also buried.

literature

  • Dorothea Böhland, Michael Schremmer. (Ed.): “Painting is my whole happiness.” Bettina Encke von Arnim. Life and work 1895–1971. Böhland & Schremmer Verlag, Berlin 2015, ISBN 978-3-943622-08-9 .
  • Article: Bettina Marie Luise Gisela: * Zernikow May 3, 1895; † Waldbröl August 23, 1971, painter. In: Genealogical manual of the nobility. Edited by CA Starke Verlag. Noble Houses A, Volume XIII. Limburg / Lahn 1975. p. 51.
  • Petra Heymach: Homage to Bettina Encke von Arnim on her 100th year of birth. In: Arnim Nachrichten 9, 1995.
  • Walk through a realm of images. Bettina Encke von Arnim is preparing her own art exhibition. In: Schwäbische Zeitung of April 5, 1962.
  • Letters from Bettina Encke von Arnim to Felicitas Meinshausen 1921 to 1949. Heymach private archive.
  • Erwin Graumann. 100 works for the 100th birthday. Editor: Galerie Remmert and Barth. Düsseldorf 2002.
  • Peter Brandt, Axel Kellmann: Walther Encke - a “radical democratic” Berlin police officer at the end of the Weimar Republic. In: The Bear of Berlin. Yearbook of the Association for the History of Berlin. Forty-fifth episode 1996. Edited by Sibylle Einholz and Jürgen Wetzel. Berlin / Bonn 1996. pp. 119-154.
  • Jens Kronika: Can catastrophes undgaas? In: Flensborg Avis from January 20, 1933. German translation with the title: Among Germans in Berlin. Can the disaster be avoided?
  • Correspondence between Bettina Encke von Arnim and Walther Encke 1932 to 1940. Heymach private archive.
  • Katharina Norris: Fritz Kuhr. In: Fritz Kuhr. Life dances. Works by a Bauhaus artist. Edited by Dorothea Böhland and Michael Schremmer. Berlin 2012.
  • Article: Milch, Werner Johannes. In: Christoph König (Ed.), With the assistance of Birgit Wägenbaur u. a .: Internationales Germanistenlexikon 1800–1950 . Volume 2: H-Q. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2003, ISBN 3-11-015485-4 , pp. 1225-1228.
  • Petra Heymach, Ingo Erhart: Wiepersdorf Castle in the Jüterbog / Brandenburg district. From the residence of the von Arnim family to the GDR artists' home “Bettina von Arnim”. 1992.
  • Bettina Encke: The fate of Wiepersdorf after the collapse in 1945. In: Contributions to the history of the von Arnim family. 1957. pp. 393-399.
  • Verena Nolte, Doris Sossenheimer (ed.): Wiepersdorf Castle. Künstlerhaus in the Mark Brandenburg Publication of the Künstlerhaus Schloss Wiepersdorf of the Stiftung Kulturfonds. Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 1997. In it especially Petra Heymach, Ingo Erhart: Castle Wiepersdorf in the country Bärwalde. Chronology since the 18th century. Pp. 155–165 .: Castle. Wiepersdorf. Künstlerhaus in the Mark Brandenburg .
  • Sibylle Badstübner-Gröger (eds.): Ingo Erhart, Petra Heymach, Wiepersdorf, Teltow-Fläming district, issue 144 of the castles and gardens of the Mark series, 3rd updated edition, Berlin 2015 ( ISBN 978-3-941675-72- 8 ).
  • Barbara Michel-Jaegerhuber: Artist friends. In: Manfred Bosch and Barbara Zoch-Michel (eds.): Barbara Michel-Jaegerhuber. Life and work. “And you want to become a painter ...?” Friedrichshafen 2002, p. 83ff.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Bettina Marie Luise Gisela: * Zernikow May 3, 1895; † Waldbröl August 23, 1971, painter. In: Genealogical manual of the nobility . Noble Houses A, Volume XIII. CA Starke, Limburg / Lahn 1975, p. 51.
  2. ↑ A walk through a realm of images. Bettina Encke von Arnim is preparing her own art exhibition. In: Schwäbische Zeitung of April 5, 1962.
  3. ^ Galerie Remmert and Barth (eds.): Erwin Graumann. 100 works for the 100th birthday. Düsseldorf 2002.
  4. ↑ See e.g. B. Letters from Bettina Encke von Arnim to Felicitas Meinshausen 1921 to 1949. Heymach private archive.
  5. ↑ Peter Brandt, Axel Kellmann: Walther Encke - a "radical democratic" Berlin police officer at the end of the Weimar Republic. In: Sibylle Einholz, Jürgen Wetzel (Ed.): The Bear of Berlin. Yearbook of the Association for the History of Berlin. Forty-fifth episode 1996. Berlin, Bonn 1996. pp. 119–154.
  6. ↑ Jens Kronika: Kan Katastrofen undgaas? In: Flensborg Avis from January 20, 1933. German translation with the title: Among Germans in Berlin. Can the disaster be avoided?
  7. ↑ Milk, Werner Johannes. In: Christoph König (Ed.), With the assistance of Birgit Wägenbaur u. a .: Internationales Germanistenlexikon 1800–1950. Volume 2: H-Q. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2003, ISBN 3-11-015485-4 , pp. 1225-1228.
  8. ^ Katharina Norris: Fritz Kuhr. In: Dorothea Böhland, Michael Schremmer (Ed.): Fritz Kuhr. Life dances. Works by a Bauhaus artist. Berlin 2012.
  9. ↑ See e.g. B. Correspondence between Bettina Encke von Arnim and Walther Encke 1932 to 1940. Heymach private archive.
  10. ^ Bettina Encke: The fate of Wiepersdorf after the collapse in 1945. In: Contributions to the history of the von Arnim family. 1957, pp. 393-399.
  11. ↑ Petra Heymach, Ingo Erhart: Wiepersdorf Castle in the Jüterbog / Brandenburg district. From the residence of the von Arnim family to the GDR artists' home “Bettina von Arnim”. 1992.
  12. ↑ Barbara Michel Jaeger Huber: artist friends. In: Manfred Bosch, Barbara Zoch-Michel (ed.): Barbara Michel-Jaegerhuber. Life and work. “And you want to become a painter ...?” Friedrichshafen 2002, p. 83 ff.
  13. ↑ z. B. Participation in the spring exhibitions of the Bodenseeklub 1962 and 1963, group exhibition with Bettina von Arnim (* 1940) September 1962, group exhibition with Ilse Fark, Eleonore Frey, Barbara Michel-Jaegerhuber and Hilde Hoppe 1967. All exhibitions in the municipal gallery “Fauler Pelz ".
  14. ↑ z. B. Regular participation in the Christmas exhibitions in Konstanz Wessenberghaus, so also in 1965/1966.
  15. ↑ Participation in the 21st Singen art exhibition in 1968.
personal data
SURNAME Encke von Arnim, Bettina
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter
DATE OF BIRTH May 3, 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH Zernikow
DATE OF DEATH 23rd August 1971
Place of death Waldbröl