Clara Siewert

Self-Portrait with a Palette (around 1895)

Clara Siewert (born December 9, 1862 in Budda , Prussian Stargard district , West Prussia ; † October 11, 1945 in Berlin ) was a German painter, graphic artist, sculptor and since 1900 a member of the Berlin Secession .

Trained primarily by Karl Stauffer-Bern and well networked in the art scene, Siewert had significant initial success by participating in various exhibitions. Her resignation from the Secession in 1912 and the associated loss of her artistic home heralded a decisive career break. Afterwards hardly ever represented in public and thus almost forgotten as a woman in art , the last exhibition of her works took place in 1936. Largely forgotten, the artist died completely impoverished.

It was not until 2008 that her life and work came back into the public eye with a comprehensive retrospective at the Ostdeutsche Galerie art forum in Regensburg. The accompanying volume with the subtitle Between Dream and Reality places your work between tradition and modernity. Her thematic predilection for mystical things, fairy tales and literary material goes back to her childhood in West Prussia and to ideas that were partly developed together with her sisters. She lived in a shared apartment in Berlin with two of the sisters, with the equally unsuccessful writer Elisabeth Siewert and the also painting Victoria Siewert, who almost never appeared in public. Her existence, which is perceived as a life-tragedy, her condition marked by psychological turmoil, she has given expression in her works openly, outwardly undisguised for everyone to read.

Life

Clara Siewert was born on the Budda estate (today: Budy in the Polish municipality of Lubichowo , southwest of Stargard ) as the daughter of Ivan Siewert, a former captain of the Prussian army, and Helene Siewert, née von Baehr .

Ancestors and parental home

Budda estate 1863, drawing by Helene Siewert, Clara's mother

→ See in detail the corresponding sections in the article on Sister Elisabeth Siewert

The ancestors on the father's side were very wealthy Russian-Germans and, after arousing the displeasure of Tsar Paul I , moved from Saint Petersburg to Gdansk . The maternal ancestors were part of the central German birth and mental nobility . The mother, née von Baehr, was related to the Schlegel brothers, the grandmother, née Schlegel. Clara Siewert grew up on the estate together with her three sisters Elisabeth, Victoria and Rosa and her brother Alexander in rather tight financial circumstances; it is not known whether there were any other siblings. The artistically gifted mother ensured that the children were artistically influenced. Accordingly stimulated, the sisters let their imagination run wild from an early age, reenacting historical dramas, composing and drawing. Despite the financial bottlenecks, the lifestyle was more like a manorial. The parents sent the sisters to private riding lessons, later to the high school in Gdansk and paid for the expensive painting and drawing schools during Clara's training time .

artistic education

First training in Königsberg

Before she “irrevocably” decided to “become a famous painter”, Clara Siewert had taken an interest in acting. With her close friend Elisabeth Gnade- Plehn she shared her preference for magic, fairy tales and mysticism and recreated scenes from classic dramas, for example from Maria Stuart or from The Maid of Orleans . Accordingly, she took the subjects of her first drawings from her own imagination, which “preferred to be stimulated by impressions of poetry”. Only later did nature gain artistic importance for her, when she went “outdoors with the sketch pad”. She had her first painting lessons, probably from 1878, in Königsberg . Since the Königsberg Academy was not yet accepting female artists at that time, it had to be trained by expensive private teachers. Between 1880 and 1886, first Rudolf Maurer and later Friedrich Gustav Naujock were among her teachers. Harro Siegel later reported that Clara Siewert had taken up the “nature studies” in Königsberg “with passionate diligence” in order, as he assumed, to be able to put the skills acquired through hard work “in the service of her experiences, dreams and stories”.

Training at Stauffer-Bern and others

Clara Siewert then commuted back and forth between Budda and Berlin every semester. In the capital she first apprenticed to the Swiss painter , etcher and sculptor Karl Stauffer-Bern , probably from 1884 to 1886 . Her second teacher was "the famous imperial painter" Max Koner , who ran a private ladies' studio and then took over painting lessons in the Association of Artists and Art Friends . Most recently, from around 1888, she learned from Hugo Vogel . According to the art historian Roman Zieglgänsberger, Stauffer-Bern had the greatest influence on Siewert's artistic development. This concerned, on the one hand, Stauffer-Bern's insistence on drawing as the basis of all art, and, on the other hand, the etching and the possibilities of printmaking , which Stauffer-Bern discovered for himself during these years. Her early lithographs and the etchings that were added around 1907 show that Siewert took up the suggestions . In addition, Stauffer-Bern drew the young painter's attention not only to the work of his close friend Max Klinger , but also to Adolph Menzel and the symbolist Arnold Böcklin , whom Siewert was demonstrably impressed by.

Relocation to Berlin and Bieber studio

At the end of the 1890s, Clara Siewert moved permanently to Berlin. At first she most likely lived at Uhlandstrasse 157. In 1904 she moved to Durlacher Strasse 14 in Wilmersdorf , in 1906 sister Victoria and in 1915 sister Elisabeth moved in. It is noteworthy that the Berlin address in 1904 at this address J. Siewert, Reindeer indicates 1906 then Siewert, J., retired Captain with the sub-entry Siewert, C. u. V., painters . Later the subentries were separated into C. Malerin and V. Malerin . The father was registered as the main tenant, which could indicate that the parents themselves were still supporting the sisters financially at this time (it is also possible that the daughters were not entitled to sign a rental agreement). Like Clara Siewert, Victoria Siewert was also a painter, although she only participated in three exhibitions. The fourth sister, Rosa, also came to Berlin and lived, at least in her later years, in a boarding house on Kaiserallee.

In the neighboring and now listed building no.15 (in 1932 the two numbers 14 and 15 were changed to 15 / 15a), which had been built in 1894 by the architect Wilhelm Walther , was the studio house Zum Bieber , in which in the 1910s Years ago, the Brücke artists Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Max Pechstein and the sculptors Gerhard Marcks and Richard Scheibe worked. Clara Siewert also set up a workshop in the duplex. From the apartments of the early days style built house in the at that time still independent municipality German-Wilmersdorf offered and provides a clear view to the adjacent public park Wilmersdorf . The poet and writer Herybert Menzel described the apartment, which the three sisters lived in together from 1915, in an obituary for Elisabeth Siewert, who died in mental confusion in 1930, as a refuge that was supposed to preserve the atmosphere of her lost home in West Prussia: “When you enter her room, one had already stepped out of the throbbing present into the timeless. Pictures of ancestors greeted us from the walls, old furniture took up weighty places. They creaked in the twilight like trees rubbing against each other in the wind. They were still completely forest and still smelled and so comforted [...]. "

Membership and resignation from the Berlin Secession

In Berlin, Clara Siewert quickly found access to the artistic scene. During her apprenticeship at Stauffer-Bern, she came into contact with the Association of Berlin Artists and the painters Käthe Kollwitz , Maria Slavona , Linda Kögel, Betty Wolff and Aenny Loewenstein as well as Cornelia Paczka-Wagner , a close friend of Max Klinger. Since around 1892 she has been represented with her works at various exhibitions . This included presentations in the renowned galleries of Fritz Gurlitt and Eduard Schulte , in the Casper Art Salon and in the new, avant-garde Salon Keller & Reiner. Her initial successes were mainly promoted by her early membership in the Berlin Secession . A member since 1900, she was one of the few women who were accepted into the artist group founded in 1898 . From 1901 she regularly took part in the group's exhibitions and gallery owners and museums such as the Kupferstichkabinette Berlin and Dresden or the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung Munich bought works by Siewert. She was also a member of the German Artists' Cooperative and the German Association of Artists, as well as women's associations such as the Lyceum Club and the Association of Visual Artists , which was founded in 1906 by Julie Wolfthorn , Käthe Kollwitz, Dora Hitz , Sabine Lepsius , Hedwig Weiß and Eva Stort . However, their contacts remained rather superficial.

In addition to visits back home, Siewert went on several educational trips, including to Weimar, Munich, Salzburg and Paris. According to Zieglgänsberger, she had little success overall despite all her efforts. In particular, she did not achieve her breakthrough among the general public. One of the reasons for the increasing failure was her exit from the Berlin Secession in 1912, which, according to Zieglgänsberger, represented a break in her career and the loss of her artistic home . It is unclear why she left the association. Between 1912 and 1927 she was only represented at one exhibition, at the Leipzig World Exhibition for Book Trade and Graphics in 1914 in the Frau's house. In 1916 Käthe Kollwitz tried again in vain as a jury member to place Clara Siewert in a Secession exhibition. In her diary, Kollwitz noted: “Judges all day. Unsuccessful in bringing in Clara Siewert ”.

Failure, frenzy of creation, impoverishment and death

Zieglgänsberger suspects that during this time, when the painter was already living with her sisters, Elisabeth paid for Clara financially. Although the writer's lack of literary breakthrough was already evident, she is said to have had some reserves from her novels published before the war . With regard to Clara's artistic work, however, this period of seclusion was the most important. Her most important works such as the main work, the “complex witch cycle” or the “expressive-pathetic episode of Grabbe's drama Don Juan and Faust ” were created and promoted in a “real 'creative frenzy” . In 1930, when she was about to regain a foothold after four successive participations in the Great Berlin Art Exhibition , her sister Elisabeth died. The death of her “living man” in June 1930 plunged Clara into a depression and renewed material crisis. She described herself as a “small pensioner” and in 1939 applied to the Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda for aid. She justified the request for the so-called “artist thanks” donation by stating that she was “entirely without any money” and “wanted to finish [her] last work with a little bit of calm”. She was a member of the Reich Chamber of Culture , but never of the NSDAP .

However, the Berlin art dealer and gallery owner Wolfgang Gurlitt became aware of the painter in the 1930s and organized Siewert's last major appearance in his gallery in 1936. The most extensive exhibition on her oeuvre with 174 works up to that point, however, did not receive much response. A planned follow-up exhibition prevented the beginning of the Second World War . Her studio and house on Durlacher Strasse were bombed in 1943. Very likely completely impoverished, she moved to a hostel. She did not see the payment of the approved war damage claim in the amount of 14,500 Reichsmark. Clara Siewert died shortly after the end of the Second World War in October 1945 of a weak heart in Berlin and was buried in the Reinickendorf cemetery. According to a letter from sister Victoria, Clara Siewert left 100 Reichsmarks .

plant

A large part of Clara Siewert's work was lost when the studio was destroyed. Many of the around 170 works that have been preserved, primarily drawings, lithographs and some paintings, watercolors and embroidery, are now in the Ostdeutsche Galerie art forum in Regensburg.

Rediscovery in 2008

More than 70 years had passed since the last exhibition in 1936 before Siewert's forgotten oeuvre was rediscovered. In 2008, an exhibition conceived and realized by Roman Zieglgänsberger, curator for classical modernism at the Museum Wiesbaden , took place under the title “Clara Siewert - between dream and reality” at the Kunstforum Ostdeutsche Galerie , which offered the first comprehensive retrospective on the artist's life and work. In the monograph of the same name accompanying the exhibition , Zieglgänsberger tried to reconstruct the artist's life. Since the data was only very fragmentary, he made use of what he writes, "unfair" means "by filtering out" from the prose of Sister Elisabeth Siewert [...] biographical information ". Zieglgänsberger saw the procedure legitimized, among other things, by the fact that Elisabeth was Clara's closest confidante all her life. In the appendix, the monograph documented a comprehensive catalog of works. In 2012 the exhibition Käthe Kollwitz and her colleagues in the Berlin Secession followed in the Wertheimer Schlösschen Hofgarten and in the Berlin Liebermann Villa , where numerous works by Siewert were presented. Here, too, the exhibition volume of the same name contains a detailed description of the life and work of Clara Siewert.

Art between dream and reality

In summary, the Kunstforum Ostdeutsche Galerie judges in the exhibition booklet that Siewert's art was “closer to the art of Lovis Corinth and Max Slevogt ” “because of its thematic preference for the mystical and generally for fairy tales and literary subjects [...] than the partially socially critical painting of Max Liebermann or the sculptures by Käthe Kollwitz ”. In addition to a few contemporaries like Martin Brandenburg , she recognized similar artists in older painters like Eugène Delacroix and Goya . Because it is remarkable "that in her fantastic works, in which it is always encoded about general human life processes and life issues, a socially critical approach is missing".

“Since Siewert, with her art, was neither on the side of the conservative academic direction nor the emerging socio-critical development, nor was she one of the continually renewing, liberating and rebelling artists, her work, and thus herself as a person, is most aptly liked as' Ein lost in between 'can be described. […] Overall, Clara Siewert […] will always remain a dark shadow in art history. This is less due to their low level of awareness or their biography, which can hardly be reconstructed, than to their mysterious, visionary-demonic and 'real' works that spread a little uneasiness. "

- Roman Zieglgänsberger : Between dream and reality. 2008.

The parallels and contrasts in the literary and artistic work of the sisters provide further information about the painter's work . Like the paintings by Clara Siewert, Elisabeth Siewert's texts were determined by the artistic influences they shared in their parents' home, the ideas they developed together and the longing for childhood and home in West Prussia. Contrasts in the view of life can be seen in the - almost exclusively female - nudes of Claras: “introverted, sometimes emotionally injured and internally cornered people. […] They don't laugh, show no emotion and stare straight ahead […], are exhausted and seem fatalistically to accept what is to come ”. While with Clara clearly the negative side of existence predominated, with Elisabeth Siewert “happiness and suffering” stand side by side.

In the volume accompanying the exhibition on Käthe Kollwitz and her colleagues in the Berlin Secession , Zieglgänsberger sums up:

“All of this - the solid training, her great knowledge of the pictures of the painters she valued and her own existence, which is perceived as a life tragedy - enabled Siewert to let her psychological turmoil flow into her works in a treacherous way and to make it outwardly legible for everyone . "

- Roman Zieglgänsberger : Clara Siewert (Gut Budda / West Prussia 1862–1945 Berlin). 2012.

Paintings and drawings (examples)

• Self-portrait as Medusa / Maria Stuart (around 1890). Pen drawing, black ink. 15.5 x 24.7 cm.
• Self-Portrait with Raised Hand (1895). Oil on canvas, 57.5 × 47.5 cm.
• Mother at the bedside of her sick child / refuge (before 1902). Oil on cardboard, 69 × 98.5 cm.
• Fairy tale (around 1905). Oil on canvas, 102.5 × 74.5 cm.
• The Adventure of Oijamizza (around 1900/1910; No. 73). Pen, black ink, 22.9 × 40 cm (the sister Elisabeth published a novella in the volume Der Sumbuddawald in 1928 with the slightly different title The Adventures of Oijamitza ).
• Tucheler Heide (forest study) (around 1910). Pencil and colored pencil on gray paper, 32.8 × 19.7 cm.
• "Witch Cycle". Several drawings, gouaches and prints such as The people stone the witch on the cart , Angry crowd surround the stoned witch , The apotheosis of the witch (between 1910 and 1920).
• Self-Portrait in Hell (around 1910/20). Gouache and pencil on cardboard.
• Portrait of Frydia Hermiona Paesler von Luschkowko (1916/17). Mixed media on canvas, 100 × 71 cm.
• Embroidering Girl (around 1920). Oil on cardboard, 60 × 48 cm.
• Don Juan and Donna Anna (around 1925). Gouache, colored chalks and pencil, 47 × 34 cm.

literature

• Siewert, Clara . In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General lexicon of fine artists from antiquity to the present . Founded by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker . tape 31 : Siemering – Stephens . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1937, p. 6 .
• Paul Fechter : The Siewerts. In: West Prussia yearbook. Landsmannschaft Westpreußen (Ed.), Volume 14, 1964, pp. 63-68.
• Carl Lange: Encounters with the poet Elisabeth Siewert. In: West Prussia yearbook. Landsmannschaft Westpreußen (Ed.), Volume 9, 1959, pp. 48-53.
• Herybert Menzel : On the death of Elisabeth Siewert. In: Ostdeutsche Monatshefte. Vol. 11, 1930, pp. 506-508.
• Roman Zieglgänsberger (editor): Clara Siewert. Between dream and reality. With contributions by Renate Berger, Michael Kotterer and Roman Zieglgänsberger. Ed .: Kunstforum Ostdeutsche Galerie Regensburg, Regensburg 2008, ISBN 978-3-89188-116-3 Note: All sources in this book refer to contributions by Roman Zieglgänsberger.
• Roman Zieglgänsberger: Clara Siewert (Gut Budda / West Prussia 1862–1945 Berlin). In: Ulrike Wolff-Thomsen, Jörg Paczkowski (eds.): Käthe Kollwitz and her colleagues in the Berlin Secession (1898–1913). Boyens Buchverlag, Heide 2012, ISBN 978-3-8042-1374-6 , pp. 104–125.

Web links

• Literature by and about Clara Siewert in the catalog of the German National Library
• kunstforum.net
• kunstforum.net

Individual evidence

1. ^ Carl Lange: Encounters with the poet Elisabeth Siewert. 1959, p. 51.
2. ^ Paul Fechter: The Siewerts. 1964, p. 64 f.
3. ^ Paul Fechter: The Siewerts. 1964, p. 65.
4. ↑ Christian Feldmann: The demons live in the soul. A look into the abyss: the rediscovery of the artist Clara Siewert. ( Memento of the original from April 16, 2014 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. In: Sunday paper . Edition 35/2008, August 31, 2008. 
5. ^ Roman Zieglgänsberger: Clara Siewert. Between dream and reality. P. 17 f., 20 f., 23.
6. ^ Roman Zieglgänsberger: Clara Siewert (Gut Budda / West Prussia 1862–1945 Berlin). In: […], p. 106.
7. ↑ ^{a b} Herybert Menzel: On the death of Elisabeth Siewert. 1930, p. 506 f.
8. ^ Roman Zieglgänsberger: Clara Siewert. Between dream and reality. P. 20 f. All quotations from this book. According to p. 34, note 27, the quote from Harro Siegel comes from an exhibition catalog from 1936.
9. ^ Roman Zieglgänsberger: Clara Siewert. Between dream and reality. P. 22 f.
10. ^ Roman Zieglgänsberger: Clara Siewert. Between dream and reality. P. 25.
11. ↑ Durlacher Strasse . In: Berliner Adreßbuch , 1904, Part 5, Vororte, p. 350.
    Durlacher Strasse . In: Berliner Adreßbuch , 1906, Part 5, Vororte, p. 458.
    Durlacher Strasse . In: Berliner Adreßbuch , 1915, Part 5, Vororte, p. 529. In each case cited accordingly for the first time.
12. ↑ Durlacher Strasse . In: Berliner Adreßbuch , 1906, Part 5, Vororte, p. 350.
13. ↑ Durlacher Strasse . In: Berliner Adreßbuch , 1910, Part 5, Vororte, p. 660.
14. ↑ Victoria Siewert participates in exhibitions: 1914 Haus der Frau, world exhibition for book trade and graphics Leipzig; 1915 House of the Woman, Leipzig; 1936 art exhibition German cityscapes. Berlin. Source: Documentation: Victoria Siewert. In: Roman Zieglgänsberger: Clara Siewert. Between dream and reality. P. 185.
15. ^ Roman Zieglgänsberger: Clara Siewert (Gut Budda / West Prussia 1862–1945 Berlin ). In: […], p. 22 ff., 125 (note 26).
16. ↑ Entry in the Berlin State Monument List
17. ↑ Georg-Kolbe-Museum : Ick to paint inside very beautiful but very difficult. The black acrobat Sam inspires Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Gerhard Marcks and Richard Scheibe. (PDF; 33 kB) Section 5 of the exhibition Magic of the nude model ( Memento of the original from February 28, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 2012/2013. 
18. ^ Roman Zieglgänsberger: Clara Siewert (Gut Budda / West Prussia 1862–1945 Berlin). In: […], pp. 22, 25, 35 (note 48).
19. ↑ Full members of the German Association of Artists since it was founded in 1903 / Siewert, Clara kuenstlerbund.de ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been 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 February 26, 2016) 
20. ^ Roman Zieglgänsberger: Clara Siewert. Between dream and reality. P. 26 f.
21. ^ Roman Zieglgänsberger: Clara Siewert. Between dream and reality. Pp. 28–30, 185. Quotation on Kollwitz from: Jutta Bohnke-Kollwitz (Ed.): Käthe Kollwitz. The diaries 1908–1943. Siedler, Berlin 1989, ISBN 3-88680-251-5 , p. 232, entry on 30./31. March 1916. (Here quoted from Zieglgänsberger, p. 30.)
22. ^ Roman Zieglgänsberger: Clara Siewert. Between dream and reality. Pp. 30f., 185.
23. ^ Roman Zieglgänsberger: Clara Siewert. Between dream and reality. P. 31 f., 185.
24. ^ Roman Zieglgänsberger: Clara Siewert (Gut Budda / West Prussia 1862–1945 Berlin ). In: […], pp. 122, 125 (note 26). Note: Until 2012, 1944 was the year of death. Zieglgänsberger's research, published in 2012, showed that this false statement was made by the art dealer Wolfgang Gurlitt , who “wanted us to believe that [she] died in the hail of bombs on Berlin in 1944”. A recently discovered letter from Sister Victoria to her brother rather shows October 11, 1945 as the date of death and a weak heart as the cause of death.
25. ^ Roman Zieglgänsberger: Clara Siewert. Between dream and reality. Pp. 153-182 (catalog of works).
26. ^ Roman Zieglgänsberger: Clara Siewert. Between dream and reality. Pp. 7, 12, 186.
27. ^ Roman Zieglgänsberger: Clara Siewert. Between dream and reality. P. 61.
28. ^ Roman Zieglgänsberger: Clara Siewert. Between dream and reality. P. 61 f.
29. ^ Roman Zieglgänsberger: Clara Siewert. Between dream and reality. Pp. 12, 75, 91, 117.
30. ^ Roman Zieglgänsberger: Clara Siewert. Between dream and reality. P. 91, 117 f., 138 f.
31. ^ Roman Zieglgänsberger: Clara Siewert (Gut Budda / West Prussia 1862–1945 Berlin). In: […], p. 107.
32. ↑ Figure ( Memento of the original from April 16, 2014 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. the Lex way. 
33. ↑ Illustration by Frölich & Kaufmann.
34. ↑ All information from the two exhibition volumes, see Zieglgänsberger.