Charlotte Berend-Corinth

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Lovis and Charlotte Corinth in their Berlin studio in 1908
Lovis Corinth: Charlotte in front of the easel (1912 in Bordighera)

Charlotte Berend-Corinth (born on May 25, 1880 in Berlin ; died on January 10, 1967 in New York ) was a German painter , lithographer , book illustrator and author of modernism. She was also a student, wife and frequent model of the painter Lovis Corinth .

From 1908, she presented her own works in exhibitions at the Berlin Secession , but focused primarily on her family and her husband's career. After Lovis Corinth's death, she was successful as an artist in Germany and, after emigrating, also in the USA. She also wrote several books and in 1958 compiled the catalog raisonné The Paintings by Lovis Corinth , which is still used as a standard today.

life and work

Early years and education

Charlotte Berend was born as the second daughter of the Jewish cotton importer Ernst Berend and his wife Hedwig, née Gumpertz, on Kochstrasse in Berlin . Ernst Berend came from a Jewish merchant family who lived in Dessau and Hamburg , while the Gumpertz family had lived in Prussia for more than 200 years and was one of the country's oldest protective Jews . His business was on Berlin's Alexanderplatz and, like many successful Jewish businessmen, he moved to the merchant quarter on Kurfürstendamm in 1884 , where the family moved into an apartment on Berggrafenstrasse. Together with her older sister Alice Berend (1875–1938), who later became known as a writer, Charlotte went to the public Charlotte School near Magdeburger Platz . At school she received her first drawing lessons from Eva Stort , a private student of Max Liebermann and Karl Stauffer-Bern , and after finishing school she wanted to become a painter herself. Although initially opposed, her father consented to his daughter studying art because of Charlotte's talent for drawing. In 1898 she passed the examination for admission to the Royal Art School in Berlin at Klosterstrasse 75, which served as a “preschool” for the teaching establishment of the Berlin Museum of Decorative Arts . She studied there with Maximilian Schäfer and Ludwig Manzel . A year later she was accepted into the teaching establishment of the Museum of Applied Arts and continued her studies. On February 28, her father shot himself after losing his own fortune and embezzling funds in trust while speculating on the stock market . Hedwig Berend moved into a small apartment on Halensee with her two daughters , Charlotte had to finish her expensive studies.

Your life with Lovis Corinth

Lovis Corinth : Portrait of Charlotte Berend in a White Dress (1902)
Lovis Corinth and Charlotte Berend 1902
Lovis Corinth: Young Woman with Cats , 1904. The portrayed is also Charlotte Berend

From 1901 Charlotte Berend was the first student to take lessons from Lovis Corinth , who had founded a private "painting school for women". Like many women in art , Charlotte Berend was a painter, muse and model, and sometimes also a nude model. She was regularly available to him as a model from 1902, the first picture Portrait of Charlotte Berend in a white dress being a full portrait in a light dress with a dark sash. In the same year she accompanied him alone on a study trip to Horst in Pomerania , today's Niechorze . During their stay in Horst, the relationship between Lovis Corinth and Charlotte Berend deepened and they became lovers. Charlotte Berend described in her memoirs Mein Leben mit Lovis Corinth , how they both sat tightly entwined on a jetty and she told him the story of their first marriage proposal. During the beach vacation, Lovis Corinth painted the picture Petermannchen as well as the Paddle Petermannchen , and Charlotte sketched her teacher in pencil drawings.

On March 23, 1904, the wedding between Lovis Corinth and Charlotte took place, where they took the double name Berend-Corinth. Later depictions often mention the date of March 23, 1903, but the marriage is notarized under StA Berlin-Charlottenburg 1, marriage register no. 57/1904. A possible background for the later bringing forward of the date could be the date of birth of their son Thomas, who was born on October 13, 1904 (date of baptism: April 4, 1905) and thus only seven months after the wedding. The daughter Wilhelmine Corinth followed five years later on June 13, 1909.

His wife's painting career received little support from Lovis Corinth, while he was one of the most famous painters of the Berlin Secession at the time. In 1906 Charlotte Berend-Corinth also became a member of the Berlin Secession and exhibited her first pictures in 1908. The first painting that she showed, The Hard Hour, impressed both the public and the specialist press, but during that time she mainly concentrated on the family and on being available as a model for her husband. After the New Secession split off , it remained in the Secession headed by Lovis Corinth at the time. From 1924 to 1932 she was active on the board there. From 1909 she began with various graphic works in the form of lithographic portfolios and first book illustrations .

“This year, too, women are involved in the exhibition of the Berlin Secession, four painters and three sculptors. Two of the painters are the wives of leaders of the Secession: Charlotte Berend (Mrs. Corinth) and Alice Trübner , the partner of the Karlsruhe master . "

- Note in the Wiener Hausfrauen-Zeitung of June 27, 1909

After Lovis Corinth's first stroke in 1911, she stopped working and looked after her husband. In 1919 Lovis Corinth bought a piece of land in Urfeld am Walchensee on which his wife Charlotte had a house built for him. Corinth wrote: “Of everything you did for me, your greatest deed was the building of our house on Lake Walchensee”. The house became the family retreat, where Corinth produced his famous Walchensee pictures, portraits and still lifes, while his wife bowed to his will and temporarily gave up painting.

Lovis Corinth painted numerous portraits of his wife in different life situations during his life. Carl Georg Heise wrote about this in 1958 that he "created around 80 portraits of his wife, not to mention the works for which she was the model without any specific pictorial intent."

After Corinth's death

Lovis Corinth died on July 17, 1925 at the age of 67. After his death, Berend-Corinth put her own art projects on hold and initially devoted himself to sifting through and organizing his estate. In 1926 she published the autobiography of her late husband, which she had edited. In addition, she organized the first memorial exhibition in the Alte Nationalgalerie in the same year and began work on the catalog raisonné of his paintings.

Since 1924 she was a member of the board of directors of the Secession and was also a member of the jury for art exhibitions. With her portfolios and book illustrations for Max Pallenberg , Fritzi Massary and Valeska Gert , she often supported people in Berlin theater life in the 1920s. She portrayed Michael Bohnen , Werner Krauss , Paul Bildt and Paul Graetz , among others .

In 1927 she opened a school for aspiring painters at Klopstockstrasse 48, in the same building as Corinth's former school. She subsequently made a series of study trips to Italy, Turkey, Egypt and Denmark. For most of the 1930s she lived in Italy , with short interruptions ; In 1936 she made friends with an Italian named Fernando and lived with him for some time in Alassio. There she developed her very own style of landscape watercolor painting , with which she was invited to American exhibitions. In 1936 she had her first collective exhibitions in the USA , including in New York, Davenport and Scranton. She was also invited to international exhibitions at the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh , a gallery in New York.

Emigration to the USA

During the Nazi era , she emigrated as a Jew from Switzerland to the United States, where her son Thomas had been based in New York since 1931. She only stayed in New York for a few months, then moved to Santa Barbara , California . She lived there from 1940 to 1943, made close friends with Donald Bear , director of the Santa Barbara Museum of Art , and painted numerous Californian landscapes. In 1943 she moved back to New York and stayed there; Her daughter Wilhelmine and her husband, who had survived the Second World War in Hamburg - Wilhelmine had been banned from working as a so-called Jewish mixed race by the Nazi regime - also moved there in 1948. Since then, Berend-Corinth's work has mainly consisted of landscape watercolors, still lifes, and portraits, and she was able to organize numerous exhibitions in American private galleries and museums.

In 1948 she published her autobiographical book My Life with Lovis Corinth , which she had completed in 1937. In 1950 the writing When I Was a Child followed , in which she reflected on her youth in Berlin. In the following year as well as in 1952, 1954 and 1958 she traveled to Europe, including Germany and Austria. In 1956 she took her daughter on a cruise to the Caribbean islands . In the same year she exhibited about 40 of her own watercolors in the Kunstamt Berlin-Reinickendorf , these pictures were then shown in the Hamburg artist club “Die Insel”. In 1959 she took part in a group exhibition in the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus in Munich with over 20 watercolors .

In 1958, on the 100th birthday of Lovis Corinth, she published the catalog raisonné The Paintings by Lovis Corinth , which is still regarded as a standard work and was edited by Béatrice Hernad in 1992 . She traveled to Germany and in the same year published another memory book entitled Lovis. In 1960 and 1961 she again had a series of exhibitions in American and German private galleries.

Charlotte Berend-Corinth died on January 10, 1967 in New York City. In the same year her works were shown in the East Berlin National Gallery; she was still involved in the conception of the exhibition, which became a memorial exhibition after her death. In 2016, some of her paintings were shown in the Stadtmuseum Berlin in the joint exhibition Berlin - City of Women .

Charlotte Berend-Corinth was a member of the German Association of Artists .

Works (selection)

painting

  • Love scene (1907)
  • Help (1909)
  • The Difficult Hour (1908)
  • Portrait of a Young Artist (1912)
  • Self-portrait (1921)
  • Self-portrait with model (1931)
  • Portrait Fernando (1936)

Portfolio works (lithographs)

Fonts

  • My life with Lovis Corinth . Hamburg 1948
    • My life with Lovis Corinth. In: Kerstin Englert (Ed.): Lovis Corinth. Collected Writings . Berlin: Mann, 1995 ISBN 3-7861-1840-X , pp. 175-271
  • When I was a kid . Hamburg 1950
  • The paintings by Lovis Corinth , catalog raisonné , Munich 1958
  • Lovis . Munich 1958
  • Preface. In: Heinrich Müller: The late graphic of Lovis Corinth . Lichtwark Foundation, Hamburg 1960

literature

  • U. Gillitzer: Berend-Corinth, Charlotte . In: General Artist Lexicon . The visual artists of all times and peoples (AKL). Volume 9, Saur, Munich a. a. 1994, ISBN 3-598-22749-3 , p. 266.
  • Irmgard Wirth: Charlotte Berend-Corinth. Paintings - watercolors - graphics. Berlin Museum, Berlin 1969.
  • Rudolf Pfefferkorn: The Berlin Secession. An era in German art history. Haude & Spener, Berlin 1972.
  • Peter-Klaus Schuster , Christoph Vitali , Barbara Butts (Eds.): Lovis Corinth . [on the occasion of the exhibition "Lovis Corinth. Retrospective", Haus der Kunst, Munich, 4.5. until July 21, 1996 ... Tate Gallery, London, February 20. until 4.5.1997] Prestel, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-7913-1645-1 .
  • Corinth, Charlotte b. Berend . In: Ulrich Thieme (Hrsg.): General Lexicon of Fine Artists from Antiquity to the Present . Founded by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker . tape 7 : Cioffi – Cousyns . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1912, p. 413 ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).
  • Katja Behling, Anke Manigold: The painting women. Intrepid artists around 1900 . Munich: Elisabeth Sandmann, 2009, pp. 76–78
  • Karoline Künkler: From the darkrooms of modernity: Destructiveness and gender in the visual arts of the 19th and 20th centuries . Cologne: Böhlau, 2012 ISBN 978-3-412-18005-8 . Zugl .: Düsseldorf, Univ., Diss. (Part 2: Lovis Corinth and Charlotte Berend-Corinth , pp. 157–291)
  • Martina Weinland: Charlotte Berend-Corinth (1880–1967). In: Paul Spies, Martina Weinland: Berlin - City of Women. courageous & feminine, 20 extraordinary biographies. City Museum Berlin Foundation, 2016; Pp. 91-100. ISBN 978-3-939254-36-2
  • Berend-Corinth, Charlotte. In: Lexicon of German-Jewish Authors . Volume 2: Bend Bins. Edited by the Bibliographia Judaica archive. KG Saur, Munich 1993, ISBN 3-598-22682-9 , pp. 137-140.
  • Ursula El-Akramy: The Berend sisters - story of a Berlin family . European publishing house Rotbuch Verlag, Hamburg 2002
  • Margret Greiner : Charlotte Berend-Corinth & Lovis Corinth. I want to belong to myself. Novel biography . Herder, Freiburg 2016, ISBN 978-3-451-06841-6
  • Thomas Pensler: “And the inner voice always calls out: Don't give up!” The painter and author Charlotte Berend-Corinth (1880–1967) . Diss. Univ. Salzburg 2020

Web links

Commons : Charlotte Berend-Corinth  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Martina Weinland: Charlotte Berend-Corinth (1875–1938). In: Paul Spies, Martina Weinland: Berlin - City of Women. courageous & feminine, 20 extraordinary biographies. City Museum Berlin Foundation, 2016; Pp. 91-100. ISBN 978-3-939254-36-2
  2. ↑ Charlotte Berend-Corinth: My life with Lovis Corinth. Paul List Verlag, Munich 1958; Pp. 116-118.
  3. ^ Lothar Brauner: Petermannchen, 1902. In: Peter-Klaus Schuster , Christoph Vitali, Barbara Butts (ed.): Lovis Corinth . Prestel Munich 1996; P. 149. ISBN 3-7913-1645-1 .
  4. ↑ Lothar Brauner: Paddel-Petermannchen, 1902. In: Peter-Klaus Schuster , Christoph Vitali, Barbara Butts (ed.): Lovis Corinth . Prestel Munich 1996; 148. ISBN 3-7913-1645-1 .
  5. ↑ From the world of women . In: Wiener Hausfrauen-Zeitung . No. 26 , June 27, 1909, pp. 327 ( ANNO - AustriaN Newspapers Online [accessed May 25, 2020]).
  6. ↑ a b Charlotte Berend-Corinth (1880–1967) , Stadtmuseum Berlin Foundation online, accessed on May 14, 2016
  7. ↑ Carl Georg Heise : Lovis Corinth - portraits of his wife. Work monographs on the fine arts in Reclam's Universal Library No. 26, Reclam-Verlag, Stuttgart 1958; P. 4.
  8. ↑ Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich (ed.): Exhibition catalog Charlotte Berend-Corinth - Leo Marschütz - Werner Glich. Jan - Feb 1959 . Munich 1959.
  9. ↑ kuenstlerbund.de: Full members of the Deutscher Künstlerbund since it was founded in 1903 / Berend-Corinth, Charlotte ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (accessed on May 15, 2016) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.kuenstlerbund.de
personal data
SURNAME Berend-Corinth, Charlotte
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Berend, Charlotte (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German artist of the Berlin Secession and wife of the painter Lovis Corinth
DATE OF BIRTH May 25, 1880
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH January 10, 1967
Place of death New York City , New York , United States