Carl Moritz Schreiner

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Carl Moritz Schreiner, self-portrait 1937

Carl Moritz Schreiner (born October 17, 1889 in Barmen ; † November 7, 1948 in Konstanz ) was a German sculptor .

Life

Carl Moritz Schreiner was the son of the Protestant pastor at the Pauluskirche in Barmen , Moritz Schreiner , who came from Herborn . His mother came from the Klein-Schlatter family, which had been resident since 1832 and had Swabian and Swiss factory owners as ancestors. He had a sister, Hanna. The autodidact carpenter wanted to become a sculptor from an early age "despite the greatest difficulties with [his] relatives". Classes and homework were anathema to the young high school student, and his father tried to “plant earnestness and collection” in the offspring, among other things with the help of the later writer and literary critic Will Vesper , whom he hired as a drummer for Latin grammar and historical data for his son would have.

His father insisted that the “difficult boy”, instead of attending the Düsseldorf Art Academy , should first take up a “normal job”. Schreiner then founded a family in Beyenburg "in a crunchy house that had been abandoned" . He earned his living doing odd jobs and working for a master carpenter, as a cabinet maker, in a pottery workshop and as a draftsman for an architect. From 1908 to 1910 he attended the Barmen School of Applied Arts . Here he took part in Max Bernuth's "figurative class", probably as an evening schoolboy .

Schreiner suddenly broke out of his family, left his wife and two children and moved to Düsseldorf in 1911 , but "more because of the atmosphere of the art and garden city than for its academy". Studying living objects attracted him more than a “boring” academy training. Here he married Johanna Wilhelmina Speckenbach (* 1890) from Elberfeld . The marriage, which had three children, was divorced in 1919.

A critical reception from 1913 attested that the then 24-year-old artist had “overbearing self-confidence and a strong dash of stupidity” - traits that he would lack in his more mature years. His youthful, provocative demeanor should identify him as an “ anti-Philistine and Frondeur ”. A contemporary comment read: "A strange separation brother introduces himself."

In August 1914, Schreiner volunteered for the cuirassier regiment "von Driesen" (Westphalian) No. 4 in Münster, where he participated in the First World War as a member of a training department and bakery column . The handling of the regiment's horses found expression in his later work.

Like Richard Paling , Walter Gerber , Kurt Nantke and others, Schreiner was a regular visitor to Lutz Aldinger's attic apartment near the Barmer Hall of Fame . In the apartment "music was played, declaimed and discussed". In 1919 or 1920 he married Aldinger's sister, the painter Margarethe Aldinger from Barmen, who followed the sculptor to Düsseldorf. The marriage ended in divorce in the 1930s. In the 1920s, Schreiner was regarded as “a valued Düsseldorf sculptor” and moved around the “most painted woman in Germany”, the gallery owner Johanna Ey . As a board member of the artists' association Das Junge Rheinland he represented the progressive art of the Rhenish avant-garde of those years.

The artist was a cat lover and had already modeled cat figures as an adolescent. His apartment on Xantener Strasse in Düsseldorf- Golzheim "at times contained two dozen living specimens" and "more or less perfect cat sculptures". In 1921 Schreiner moved with a traveling circus for a while, documenting the movements and resting state of lions in drawings. Around the same time it became common to speak of the “cat carpenter”.

Schreiner took a study trip to Norway in 1928. In 1929/30 he received a scholarship at the Villa Massimo in Rome. In 1934 he was granted a travel grant to Greece. Further study trips took him to Italy and France, from whose Gothic sculptures Schreiner drew his inspiration.

The increasing air raids on Düsseldorf during the Second World War caused at least 12 partial damage to Schreiner's workshop, whereupon he left the city with his third wife Hildegard (née Brunner) in 1943 and sought refuge in an apartment and a studio in Breisach am Rhein . After the ordered evacuation of Breisach, they moved into emergency accommodation on the island of Mainau and in Allensbach , and in autumn 1945 they moved to Constance . Schreiner's request for support in his efforts to return his studio and his apartment in Breisach and for a job at the planned Freiburg Art Academy was unsuccessful. The hardships and horror of the war years had consumed Schreiner, "you couldn't think of work". In 1948 he died of "material fatigue, aging of the vessels and état criblé", according to the doctor's report.

Carl Moritz Schreiner was a member of the German Association of Artists .

plant

Monument to Theodor Körner in Ulmenallee in Wuppertal , 1938

Schreiner's first sensational work was unveiled on August 24, 1913 and featured a monument to Theodor Körner on Ulmenallee in Barmer Fischertal . According to the artist's description, the memorial shows “[...] the figure of the young poet, glowing with holy fire, who put his high mission into practice as a freedom fighter [...]. Boldly shooting up from the stored staircase, the stone pillar stretches out, bearing the shape of a bard with a lyre and sword. And this pillar is covered by the ravishing verses of the poet of freedom: "

" You sword on my left.
What is your secret flashing?
"

The monument of the idealized young man on a very high pedestal was not without controversy, as the figure showed the young man quite bared. A newspaper noticed that there was concerned silence and giggling among the festival participants at the inauguration, that fathers avoided going for walks with their families from then on, and that the pupils of the secondary school for girls now went to other areas on their botanical tours. In July 1939, the city council debated the elimination of the figure, which was perceived as objectionable. The memorial was destroyed during World War II and the remains were removed in April 1959.

Two benches with cats , Ehrenhof in Düsseldorf, 2011
Moritz Schreiner, 2 benches, Bank 1, Düsseldorf Ehrenhof 2011 (1) .jpg
left bank
Moritz Schreiner, 2 benches, Bank 1, Düsseldorf Ehrenhof 2011 (2) .jpg
left bench, detail on the left
Moritz Schreiner, 2 benches, Bank 1, Düsseldorf Ehrenhof 2011 (3) .jpg
left bench, detail right
Moritz Schreiner, 2 benches, Bank 2, Düsseldorf Ehrenhof 2011 (2) .jpg
right bench, detail on the left
Moritz Schreiner, 2 benches, Bank 2, Düsseldorf Ehrenhof 2011 (3) .jpg
right bench, detail right
Left planet group Venus and Saturn, right planet group Mars and Jupiter.  Ehrenhof Düsseldorf, 2012 Left planet group Venus and Saturn, right planet group Mars and Jupiter.  Ehrenhof Düsseldorf, 2012
Left planet group Venus and Saturn ,
right planet group Mars and Jupiter .
Ehrenhof Düsseldorf, 2012
Relief above the entrance of the Museum Kunstpalast Düsseldorf, 2011
The torchbearer from 1928, Mülheim an der Ruhr

In 1922, Schreiner made a bronze commemorative plaque for the members of the Concordia Society in Barmen who died in World War I. It is still in the stairwell of the Society am Werth . He received major public commissions for building sculpture , including the marble lion sculpture from 1923 in the entrance hall of the Wilhelm-Marx-Haus and in 1924/26 a heraldic conspecific made of shell limestone at the marathon gate of the Düsseldorf Rheinstadion , which has been at the new main entrance since 1974. Schreiner also designed the two benches with cats (1924/1926); two travertine benches in the courtyard to the left and right of the eastern entrance to the Kunstpalast Museum . The armrests each form two statues of lying cats. Schreiner created the benches with the animal figures for the opening of the Great Exhibition in Düsseldorf in 1926 for health care, social care and physical exercise (GeSoLei) .

Schreiner's planetary groups in the Ehrenhof (1926) on the north side of the Tonhalle Düsseldorf represent the embodiment of Mars, Venus, Saturn and Jupiter and refer to the original function of the Tonhalle as a planetarium . Above the east entrance to the Museum Kunstpalast is a classic sopra porta relief called Drei Künste designed by Schreiner , which he also made for GeSoLei in 1926 from travertine. It is unclear whether the three figurines are actually to be regarded as allegories of the genres architecture, sculpture and painting or rather as the embodiment of the three graces Ephrosyne (cheerfulness), Thalia (festive joy) and Aglaia (shiny).

After the National Socialists came to power , the sculptor was regarded by the new rulers as "unadjusted"; as a result, Nazi propaganda rated his art as " un-German ". In 1928, Schreiner had erected a six-meter-high sculpture of a bronze torchbearer in Mülheim an der Ruhr , a memorial on the Witthaushöhe (at the current location of the Ruhr-Reeder-Haus). The statue, popularly known as The Naked Heinrich , was “demolished and scrapped” in 1933 (another source says in the mid-1930s) "under circumstances that were not fully clarified."

In the same year (another source says 1936) Schreiner's planetary group in Düsseldorf was removed. In a letter dated August 20, 1936, the local district leader of the NSDAP, Karl Walter , commented on Schreiner's "still negative attitude towards the state". The planetary group escaped the destruction of World War II due to the forced temporary storage in the municipal building yard and was put back in its original location in 1980 (another source says 1978). In 1928, Schreiner made the Treidelstein erected on the banks of the Rhine in Düsseldorf south of the Schnellenburg .

To the left above the main entrance to the Bochum Police Headquarters , which was built in 1929 and designed in the late Expressionist style, there is another work by Schreiner, the national emblem as a limestone relief with an expressively stylized German imperial eagle . Marina von Assel (art at every step in Bochum) said: “He recorded the flight movements of the animal as if the viewer on the left and right wing could see different phases of movement at the same time, thus increasing the sensation of movement. He took up the design elements of Cubism and Expressionism. "

Another work by Schreiner, entitled Ascent , showed two male figures on the facade of the former Elberfeld main post office in 1935 , one of whom was removing the chains and the other unfurling a flag with a Nazi swastika, referring to the Nazi seizure of power. The relief was removed during or immediately after World War II.

Stone relief Merkur and his entourage, Chamber of Commerce and Industry Wuppertal-Solingen-Remscheid.PNG
Stone relief Merkur and his entourage , Chamber of Commerce and Industry Wuppertal-Solingen-Remscheid in Wuppertal, 2008
Relief of five mounted Lützower Jäger by Carl Moritz Schreiner at the Lützow barracks in Aachen.PNG
Relief of five Lützow hunters on horseback at the Lützow barracks in Aachen, 2006

On August 12, 1939, the stone relief Merkur and his entourage was unveiled on the eastern outer wall of the Wuppertal Chamber of Commerce and Industry , for which a mighty stone block had been planned since the building was erected in 1929. Schreiner, who had been awarded first prize in the previous competition in May 1939, contributed the design with a heraldic Bergische Löwen and without the National Socialist emblems that were common at the time. The relief was made on the spot by the Barmer stone sculptor Heinrich Ostlinnig . Also in 1939 was a three-meter-high stone figure for the urn grove of the main cemetery in Krefeld , a larger-than-life relief of Five Lützower Jäger on horseback (1939/40) at the entrance to the Lützow barracks in Aachen and a portal relief on the transmitter on the Großer Feldberg (1939/40) in the Taunus.

Schreiner created portrait busts of Curt Langenbeck , Wilhelm Schmurr , Gunnar Gunnarsson , Alfons Paquet , Karl Röttger (1937), Elly Ney , Werner Kraus and Will Vesper . He was unable to complete another bust with the image of Alfred Cortot , which Schreiner had already sketched for this before the Second World War.

On the left, Schreiner's bust Margarethe Aldinger from 1922; on the right his woman's head from 1942

A bust from 1922 based on Schreiner's wife Margarete Aldinger experimented with deformations, similar to the sculpture Der neue Mensch (1912) by Otto Freundlich , which was collaged on the title page of the exhibition guide Degenerate Art from 1937 with a red throat cut through the word art . Schreiner 's woman's head from 1942, on the other hand, corresponds to the feminine ideal of National Socialist propaganda. The required adaptation to the prevailing aesthetics becomes clear in Schreiner's work.

In addition to exhibitions in Berlin, Mulhouse in Alsace and other places, Schreiner's work was represented at several exhibitions by the association Das Junge Rheinland . In 1931 and 1936 he took part in collective exhibitions with sculptures, watercolors and drawings in the Kunsthalle Mannheim , in 1912 in the winter exhibition and in 1942 in the summer exhibition of the Bergische Kunstgenossenschaft , in 1932 in the Düsseldorf-Munich art exhibition in the Museum Kunstpalast Düsseldorf, in 1940 in an exhibition in the Kunstverein in Hamburg and in 1948 at the exhibition in Haus Beckmann in Wuppertal.

Most of Schreiner's work was lost during World War II. A 44.5 centimeter high sculpture of a cat made of Elberfeld marble by the artist has been in the possession of the Von der Heydt Museum in Wuppertal (Inv.No. P160) since 1950 , together with the 37 centimeter high portrait bust of Will Vesper mentioned above made of gold bronze, which the museum acquired in 1942 (inv. no. P133). In the sculpture park - Museum Schloss Moyland a cast (1997) by Schreiner's sculpture was two angry cats (1920) issued, which, however, in 2014 along with other works from fear of metal thieves was initially removed. Schreiner's art is also part of the Karl Gröppel collection in the Ostwall Museum in Dortmund .

Quote

At first I was attracted by the most vital, natural and at the same time most puzzling creature in nature, the animal - and I hope to be able to find my way back there. The animal, related to him in animalistic terms, was joined by the woman. I have known how to create difficulties and enemies in life, but they must be overcome. "

- Carl Moritz Schreiner, 1922

literature

  • Will Seringhaus: Carl Moritz Schreiner, 1889–1948. In: Wuppertal biographies. Episode 8. Contributions to the history and local history of the Wuppertal, Volume 16. Born Verlag, Wuppertal 1969, ISSN  0512-4239 , pp. 89-99.
  • Ruth Meyer-Kahrweg : Monuments, fountains and sculptures in Wuppertal. Biographies of the participating artists. Contributions to the preservation of monuments and the cityscape of the Wuppertal, Volume 11. Born Verlag, Wuppertal 1991, ISBN 3-87093-058-6 , pp. 139–141.

Web links

Commons : Carl Moritz Schreiner  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. Name, marital status and the exact chronological location of the women with whom Schreiner was in a relationship from around 1908 to 1919 are not fully mentioned in the literature. It is therefore unclear whether the mother of his two children from Beyenburg is Johanna Wilhelmina Speckenbach, whom he married in Düsseldorf and with whom he fathered three children.
    • Around 1910, wife and children not named: “Then he suddenly broke out of the Beyenburg idyll, which also means that he left his wife and two children. He moved to Düsseldorf [...] "
    In: Will Seringhaus: Carl Moritz Schreiner, 1889–1948. In: Wuppertal biographies 8th episode - contributions to the history and local history of the Wuppertal. Volume 16, pp. 89-99.
    • “In 1911 he moved to Düsseldorf and married Johanna Wilhelmina Speckenbach from Elberfeld. The marriage, which had three children, was divorced in 1919. "
    In: Ruth Meyer-Kahrweg : Monuments, fountains and sculptures in Wuppertal. Biographies of the participating artists. Born Verlag 1991, ISBN 3-87093-058-6 , pp. 139-141.
  2. On November 17, 2014, construction workers uncovered a 38.4 × 29.7 cm old case made of copper sheet during the renovation work on the walls of Broich Castle in Mülheim an der Ruhr, on the lid of which there was a crown and the words "IR 159 “Found short for 8th Lorraine Infantry Regiment No. 159 . Up until the emergency securing of the wall in danger of collapsing in 2011, a memorial plaque was placed there to commemorate the two regiments 159 and 219 . The “ time capsule ” contained 28 well-preserved period documents, including newspapers from 1928, many pictures, a complete set of coins and much more. At first it was assumed that the box and the memorial plaque had found their place in and on the castle wall in 1928. In fact, on the day the foundation stone was laid, the cassette was walled into the Torch Bearer Honor Monument by Carl Moritz Schreiner. After its demolition and scrapping in 1933, the cassette ended up in the wall of Broich Castle on May 4, 1958 at the initiative of the relatives of the regimental members, when the memorial plaque was first placed there. The whereabouts of the box in the period between 1933 and 1958 has not yet been clarified.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Letter Foundation : Schreiner, Carl Moritz
  2. Susanne Anna, Annette Baumeister: The Young Rhineland: Forerunners, Friends, Successors. Publication series Stadtmuseum, Hatje / Cantz 2008, ISBN 978-3-7757-1989-6 , p. 20.
  3. ^ A b Henry Schaefer Simmern: Sculpture in Europe Today. University of California Press, 1955, p. 31.
  4. a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Will Seringhaus: Carl Moritz Schreiner, 1889–1948. In: Wuppertal biographies 8th episode - contributions to the history and local history of the Wuppertal. Volume 16, pp. 89-99.
  5. ^ A b c Museum Ostwall , Leonie Reygers (ed.), Karl Gröppel, Ludwig Grote : Gröppel Collection: With works by expressionist artists from the museum's collection. 116 pp.
  6. a b c d e f Bergische Kunstgenossenschaft : 100 years Bergische Kunstgenossenschaft - a chronicle (PDF, 11.73 MB)
  7. a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x Ruth Meyer-Kahrweg : Monuments, fountains and sculptures in Wuppertal. Biographies of the participating artists. Born Verlag 1991, ISBN 3-87093-058-6 , pp. 139-141.
  8. a b c d Cultural Office State Capital Düsseldorf, Johannes auf der Lake: Two benches with cats, object number KA.SB121
  9. Bruno Erich Werner: The German sculpture of the present. Rembrandt Verlag, 1940, p. 212.
  10. August von der Heydt , Carl Georg Heise : The collection of Baron August von der Heydt, Elberfeld: Selected works of contemporary art. K. Wolff, 1918, p. 40.
  11. a b c d Cultural Office State Capital Düsseldorf, Johannes auf der Lake: Planetary Group, Object Number KA.SB122
  12. ^ City Museum State Capital Düsseldorf: Johanna Ey
  13. ^ Deutsche Akademie Rom Villa Massimo : The Villa Massimo scholarship holders from the year of foundation 1913 to 2013 ( Memento from November 21, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  14. ^ A b Ulrich Krempel, Städtische Kunsthalle Düsseldorf: In the beginning: the young Rhineland. Claassen Verlag, 1985, p. 338.
  15. a b Baden-Württemberg State Archives : C 25/3 No. 822, request from the sculptor and painter Carl Moritz Schreiner for support in his efforts to return his studio and apartment in Breisach and for a job at the planned Freiburg Art Academy. In it: printed images of Schreiner's works of art; Exhibition brochure in Constance .
  16. ^ Deutscher Künstlerbund : Ordinary members of the Deutscher Künstlerbund since it was founded in 1903; Entry: Schreiner, Carl Moritz ( Memento from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
  17. a b denkmal-wuppertal.de: Theodor-Körner-Denkmal , July 23, 2012.
  18. a b Andreas Vowinckel, Wilfried Rössling (ed.), Badischer Kunstverein: Style dispute and leadership principle: Artists and work in Baden, 1930–1945. Der Kunstverein, 1987, p. 267.
  19. Hans Maes (ed.), Hatto Küffner, Edmund Spohr: Düsseldorf in stone and bronze . Triltsch Verlag, Düsseldorf, 2nd edition. 1984, ISBN 3-7998-0018-2 , p. 84.
  20. Rolf Purpar: art city Dusseldorf. 2nd Edition. Grupello Verlag, Düsseldorf 2009, ISBN 978-3-89978-044-4 .
  21. ^ Carl Moritz Schreiner: Mars and Jupiter, part of the planetary group, 1926. on: localkompass.de
  22. ^ Department of Culture, State Capital Düsseldorf, Johannes auf der Lake: The three arts . Property number KA.SB119
  23. Landschaftsverband Rheinland : A cassette with many surprises , December 8, 2014.
  24. Rolf Purpar: art city Dusseldorf. Objects and monuments in the cityscape. P. 9 (PDF; 2.72 MB)
  25. a b artibeau: art in bochum - free and outside: national emblem at the police headquarters (1929)
  26. denkmal-wuppertal.de: Stone reliefs "Ascent" and "Blitzschleuderer" at the Elberfeld main post office , May 11, 2013.
  27. denkmal-wuppertal.de: Stone relief Merkur and his entourage , November 4, 2011.
  28. ^ Karl Röttger in the Lexicon of Westphalian Authors
  29. ^ Department of Culture, State Capital Düsseldorf: Will Vesper
  30. ^ Carl Moritz Schreiner - sculptures, watercolors, drawings: Mannheim, Städtische Kunsthalle from October 6th: opening, Sunday, September 6th, 1936 , Städtische Kunsthalle (Mannheim), 1936.
  31. ^ Exhibition catalog: Düsseldorf - Munich Art Exhibition, Kunstpalast Düsseldorf, May 14 - August 31, 1932
  32. artfacts.net: Carl Moritz Schreiner 1889–1948
  33. Von der Heydt-Museum (Ed.), Eva Rowedder: Von der Heydt-Museum Wuppertal. Sculpture collection. 1987, ISBN 3-89202-004-3 .
  34. Moyland Castle Sculpture Park , entry 25
  35. Klaus Hübner: The Moyland Castle Museum is in the sights of metal thieves. In: Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung of September 11, 2014.
  36. ^ Eduard Trier: Entry into the museum. In: The time . No. 13 of March 27, 1958.