Clara Porges
Clara Porges , née Clara Sommer (born September 17, 1879 in Berlin , † May 17, 1963 in Samedan ) was a German modern painter who lived in Switzerland from 1918 .
Life
Clara Sommer attended the municipal art school in Berlin from 1896 to 1898 , which at that time was headed by Max Liebermann . There she received not only her first training as a painter, but also as a musician. From 1898 to 1900 she attended the Fehr Academy founded by Conrad Fehr in Berlin. One of her teachers there was Walter Leistikow , who founded the Berlin artist group Vereinigung der XI .
From 1901 on, Clara Sommer made her first study trips to Austria and Italy. During this time she met the art professor and painter Paul Kutscha in Vienna , who encouraged her to take further art trips. In 1905 she married the Austrian violinist Friedrich Wilhelm Porges. From 1905 stays in Heidelberg and Munich followed. In Irschenhausen near Munich, she and her husband built a painting and music studio in the Hollerhaus from 1910 .
Inspired by the correspondence between Friedrich Nietzsche and “Peter Gast” (the German writer and composer Heinrich Köselitz ), she came to Sils-Maria for the first time in 1911 and was extremely impressed by the landscape on Lake Sils . In 1918 Clara Porges moved to Sils-Maria. Many of her depictions of the landscapes in the Engadine and Bergell were created there. Her husband died in 1932.
Her travels and acquaintances often also took her to Ticino , where she was involved in the art salon of Villa Margherita in Bosco Luganese . Especially the moods on Lake Sils and Lake Lugano were painted by her again and again.
Exhibitions
From 1912 to 1946, Clara Porges' pictures were shown at exhibitions in Dresden, Freiburg im Breisgau, Munich, Stuttgart, London, Vienna, Zurich, Bern, St. Gallen, Bellinzona and Lausanne. In 1912 she was represented in the Glaspalast (Munich) . In 1922 the Kunsthaus Zürich showed pictures by Clara Porges, together with Swiss painters such as Fanny Brügger, Ernst Geiger, Ernst Hodel junior , Adolf Dietrich , Otto Gampert and Johannes Itten . In 1928 her pictures were exhibited in the Kunsthalle Bern . The time in the Engadin led to works that are still hanging in some buildings in the Engadin, for example in the historic Hotel Waldhaus in Sils. After her death, her work was largely forgotten outside the Engadine.
It was not rediscovered until 2011 by the art collector René Brogli, who honored it in several exhibitions at Bromer Kunst in Roggwil from 2013. These exhibitions showed the potential of the painter for the first time in an overview of her entire work. The first monograph on Clara Porges by Sergio Michels was also published. Since then, Clara Porge's works have achieved high sales in international art auctions. In 2014, an oil painting from Lake Sils was auctioned at Christie's auction house for more than 80,000 US dollars.
plant
Along with Marianne von Werefkin, who lived in Ascona, Clara Porges was one of the most important painters of her time living in Switzerland . Back then it was not easy for a woman to be recognized. Ferdinand Hodler and Giovanni Segantini did not value the works of women in principle. Hodler's quote Mir wei känner Wiiber became famous after the female members of the GSMBA (Society of Swiss Painters, Sculptors and Architects) demanded the same rights for exhibitions. The mere fact that Clara Porges was a woman blocked a career in her lifetime. The GSMBA did not allow active membership for women until 1972.
In the 1920s she mainly created works influenced by Expressionism . Ferdinand Hodler's expressive depictions of Lake Sils are kept in rather good blue and yellow. The atmospheric effect of the light and the expressive use of color contrasts in the sky, in the mountains or in the reflections of the lake are even more exaggerated with Clara Porges. This also applies to the lines and shapes of the mountains and horizons. The painter's brush is light and with a lot of swing. This makes her pictures the female counterpart to the more angular pictures of her male colleagues. Porges uses pure colors, i.e. pure ultramarine blue or cobalt blue . Black is largely absent from the palette. In the case of watercolors , for example, light and dark are represented by the skilful comparison of pure colors and their dilution with water. All of this leads to a high expressiveness of the landscape compositions with their atmospheric light effects. The effect is often reinforced by branching trees in the foreground, which appear again and again in different variations, as is the case with her watercolors from Lake Lugano.
Clara Porges has also painted portraits and cityscapes, as well as allegorical motifs that are close to symbolism . Her style with the pure, bright colors is unmistakable. She stayed with representational painting until her death in 1963.
literature
- Porges, Clara. In: Sikart (as of 2015), accessed on March 24, 2016.
- Biographical lexicon of Swiss art. Zurich 1988. Volume 2, page 833.
- Sergio Michels: Clara Porges - The painter of light. Volume 1, Michels Design Art Editions, Comano 2013.
- Sergio Michels: Clara Porges - The painter of light. Volume 2, Michels Design Art Editions, Comano 2015.
Web links
- Beat Stutzer: Clara Porges. The painter of light - La Pittrice della Luce. Short biography in German and Italian, tabular curriculum vitae, information on the 2014 exhibition, image documentation. PDF file , Aste Auctions St. Moritz Engadin 2014, accessed on May 15, 2016.
Individual evidence
- ^ Paul Raabe: Walks through Nietzsche's Sils Maria , pp. 107-108, Arche-Verlag, Zurich / Hamburg 1994.
- ↑ Sergio Michels: Clara Porges - The painter of light. Volume 1, Michels Design Art Editions, Comano 2013.
- ↑ 2013 exhibition at Bromer Art Collection: https://de-de.facebook.com/events/1397895387104650/
- ↑ Findartinfo.com, Art auction result for Clara Porges , http://www.findartinfo.com/english/list-prices-by-artist/5/42958/clara-porges/page/1.html
- ↑ Sabine Altorfer: Ferdinand Hodler became a national painter against his will, Aargauer Zeitung October 22, 2013, http://www.aargauerzeitung.ch/kultur/buch-buehne-kunst/ferdinand-hodler-wurde-zum-nationalmaler-wider-willen -125955763
- ^ Marie Claire Jur: Second art volume on Clara Porges published . Engadiner Post, August 15, 2015, PDF file , accessed on November 3, 2016
- ↑ Sergio Michels: Clara Porges - The painter of light. Volume 1, Michels Design Art Editions, Comano 2013.
- ↑ Sergio Michels: Clara Porges - The painter of light. Volume 2, Michels Design Art Editions, Comano 2015.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Porges, Clara |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Sommer, Clara (maiden name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German painter |
| DATE OF BIRTH | September 17, 1879 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Berlin |
| DATE OF DEATH | 17th May 1963 |
| Place of death | Samedan |