Carl Theodor Protzen

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Carl Theodor Protzen (born October 17, 1887 in Stargard , † September 13, 1956 in Munich ) was a German painter . He is particularly known for his pictures of the building of the Reichsautobahn , which are considered the epitome of National Socialist art .

Life

Carl Theodor Protzen was born in Stargard on October 17, 1887. He first studied graphics in Leipzig and Paris. During the First World War he stayed in Corsica , where he first worked as a painter. Between 1919 and 1925 Protzen studied with Ludwig von Herterich at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. He was involved in the general student committee of the Academy, in the Munich Art Association , in the Munich Artists 'Association , in the Business Association of Visual Artists , in the German Society for Christian Art and in the Munich Artists' Cooperative . He also went on various study trips. Protzen presented itself to the public with still lifes, landscapes and portraits. Even before 1933 he was an established member of the Munich art scene. In 1921 Protzen married the painter Henny Protzen-Kundmüller (1896–1967).

Streets of the leader
before 1940
Oil on canvas
169 × 257 cm
German Historical Museum , Berlin

Link to the picture
(please note copyrights )

Protzen dealt in his works in particular with industrial topics . While these were still influenced by Cubism and Expressionism in the 1920s and focused on the working people, such as in the painting Industry I from 1919/1929, the focus of his depiction shifted to construction and monumentality in the 1930s. In art historical research, this development is at least interpreted as a tendency towards Nazification. In addition to artists such as Erich Mercker , Albert Birkle and Karl Hubbuch, Protzen was involved in the media support of the motorway construction in the Third Reich . From June to September 1934, the exhibition Die Strasse was held in Munich , which was subsequently shown in other German cities. One of eight monumental frescoes that could be seen there came from Protzen. He was also involved in the exhibition The Streets of Adolf Hitler from 1936. At the end of the 1930s he created the painting Streets of the Führer , which shows the Holledau Viaduct, completed in August 1939 on the Nuremberg-Munich route, during its construction. The painting was exhibited at the Great German Art Exhibition in Munich in 1940, where Adolf Hitler acquired it. While the media coverage of the construction of the autobahns waned in the course of the 1930s, Protzen tried once again with this painting to give his autobahn painting a monumental and heroic form. Its ideological structure goes beyond the works that were created in the mid-1930s, in that the person working on the monumental building now becomes part of the representation again and the perspective is alienated in favor of the inclusion of a local church, which the viewer can see should enable a regional assignment of the work. The title of the picture exaggerated Protzen with reference to Hitler about the actually technical picture object, with which he used a typical means of Nazification, which Berthold Hinz described as "substantialization through verbal predicates". This underlined once again the large format elevation of the construction site to a monument. Overall, Protzen's autobahn pictures remained stylistically committed to the New Objectivity . For Bernhard Maaz , the ambivalence of the pictures is due to the fact that they documented the technical innovations on the one hand, and on the other hand showed an object of the picture that, from today's perspective, is related to armament and war preparation.

In total, Carl Theodor Protzen was able to show 19 works at the Great German Art Exhibitions in Munich. However, he also experienced rejections. He was one of the artists from whom Hitler had works removed when he previewed the exhibition in 1941. In 1944 he was represented in the exhibition German Artists and the SS in Breslau.

After the war, Protzen continued to take part in cultural life. He co-founded the new Munich artists' cooperative in 1945 and exhibited at its first exhibition in the Lenbachhaus in 1947 after the fall of National Socialism. In 1949 he was also a co-founder of the exhibition management at the Haus der Kunst . In 1976 a commemorative exhibition took place in the municipal gallery in the Lenbachhaus.

Reception and discount

Protzen is a rightly forgotten artist, as in the context of reviews of the exhibition “Artige Kunst”. Art and politics under National Socialism (2016-2017 in the situation of art in Bochum, the Kunsthalle Rostock and the art forum Ostdeutsche Galerie in Regensburg) was emphasized. His work Straßen des Führers , for example, was classified by Max Florian Kühlem for Die Tageszeitung as “a single Nazi cliché” and given the following description: “Tiny little Aryan males froze in humility for the Führer (although their hair was somewhat too dark) with strong upper bodies work happily in front of the gigantic construction site of a valley bridge, which is glowing in the warm sunlight. An uplifting slogan adorns the wide, gilded frame: 'Clear the forest - blow up the rock - overcome the valley - force the distance - pull the train through German land'. "Art historical research on Carl Theodor Protzen's life and work existed until 2020 Not.

The estate of Carl Theodor Protzen and his wife is in the German Art Archive , which is located at the Germanic National Museum in Nuremberg . The Bavarian State Painting Collections hold over a hundred works by Protzen. A watercolor Protzen is one of the remaining four hundred works of the German War Art Collection in the Center for Military History in Washington, DC

literature

  • Annika Wienert, Artige, malicious art , in: Jörg-Uwe Neumann, Silke von Berswordt-Wallrabe and Agnes Tieze (eds.), "Artige Kunst". Art and Politics in National Socialism , Bielefeld 2016, ISBN 978-3-7356-0288-6 , pp. 49–57.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Horst Ludwig: Munich painter in the 19th century . Volume 6. Bruckmann, Munich 1994, ISBN 3-7654-1633-9 , p. 194
  2. ↑ a b c d Gerhard Finckh, Carl Theodor Protzen , in: Christoph Stölzl (ed.), The Twenties in Munich, Munich 1979, 760.
  3. ↑ Matriculation database
  4. ↑ a b Bernhard Maaz, Adapted, upright or "degenerate". History (in) of art in the Pinakothek der Moderne , in: Aviso, No. 3 (2016), 38-43, 40f.
  5. ↑ Ines Schlenker, Hitler's Salon. The Great German Art Exhibition at the Haus der Deutschen Kunst in Munich 1937-1944 , Bern 2007, 157.
  6. ^ A b Annika Wienert, Artige, malignant art , in: Jörg-Uwe Neumann, Silke von Berswordt-Wallrabe and Agnes Tieze (eds.), "Artige Kunst". Art and Politics in National Socialism , Bielefeld 2016, ISBN 978-3-7356-0288-6 , 49-57, 53.
  7. ↑ Erhard Schütz and Eckhard Gruber, Mythos Reichsautobahn. Construction and staging of the “streets of the Führer” 1933-1941 , Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-86153-117-8 , 105 and 114f.
  8. ^ Berthold Hinz, The painting of German fascism. Art and Counterrevolution , Munich 1974, ISBN 3-446-11938-8 , 98-101.
  9. ↑ Christina Uslular-Thiele, Autobahn , in: Frankfurter Kunstverein (ed.), Art in the 3rd Reich. Documents of submission , Frankfurt am Main 1975, 68-85, 80.
  10. ↑ a b Bernhard Maaz, Adapted, upright or "degenerate". History (in) of art in the Pinakothek der Moderne , in: Aviso, No. 3 (2016), 38-43, 41.
  11. ^ Sabine Brantl, House of Art, Munich. A place and its history under National Socialism , Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-86520-242-0 , 100.
  12. ^ German artists and the SS . Limpert, Berlin 1944 (catalog for the exhibition in Breslau 1944)
  13. ↑ Anonymous, Great Demand for Art , in: Der Spiegel, No. 34/1947, August 23, 1947, accessed on January 17, 2017.
  14. ↑ Max Florian Kühlem, exhibition on “good” art. What the Führer liked , in: Die Tageszeitung, January 9, 2017, accessed at taz.de on January 17, 2017.
  15. ↑ Anke Gröner: "Pulls the train through German land." Painting on the Reichsautobahn by Carl Theodor Protzen (1887–1956) in the context of his complete works. Inaugural dissertation to obtain a doctorate in philosophy at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich .
  16. ↑ Inventory list of the German Art Archives, accessed on January 16, 2017.
  17. ^ US Army Documents Concerning Holdings of WW2-era Nazi / German Artworks, 1993–2002, 11, accessed on January 17, 2017.
personal data
SURNAME Protzen, Carl Theodor
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter
DATE OF BIRTH October 17, 1887
PLACE OF BIRTH Stargard
DATE OF DEATH September 13, 1956
Place of death Munich