Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler

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Portrait in front of the tiled stove (around 1928)
Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler: self-portrait (around 1930); Oil on cardboard 43.0 × 45.0 cm

Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler (* 4. December 1899 in Loebtau as Anna Frieda Wächtler ; † 31 July 1940 in Pirna ) was a German painter of the avant-garde . She was murdered as part of the National Socialist euthanasia campaign T4 in the Pirna-Sonnenstein killing center . In the memorial there, a permanent exhibition documenting the crimes has been commemorating her life and work since 2000.

Life

Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler grew up in a middle-class family as the daughter of the Dresden- born commercial employee Gustav Adolf Wächtler and his Bohemian wife Maria Zdenka (Sidonie) Ostadal , who got engaged in May 1898 and who, due to denominational obstacles, only died on the 17th They married in July 1899 when the Catholic Maria Zdenka was already pregnant with her. Anna Frieda Wächtler, who later named herself Elfriede, was baptized as a Protestant and had a brother, Hubert Wächtler (1911–1988), who was twelve years her junior. She left her parents' house at the age of 16 and attended the Royal School of Applied Arts in Dresden from 1915 to 1918 (first fashion class, then from 1916 applied graphics class). From 1916 to 1919 she also took painting and drawing courses at the Dresden Art Academy . She joined the Dresden Secession Group in 1919 and joined the circle of friends around Otto Dix , Otto Griebel and Conrad Felixmüller . She rented a room in the latter's studio near Dresden city center and earned a living with batik , postcard and illustration work .

In June 1921 she married the painter and opera singer Kurt Lohse , whom she followed to Görlitz in 1922 and to Hamburg in 1925. The marriage was difficult and the couple separated several times in the years that followed. In 1926 Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler joined the Association of Hamburg Artists and Art Lovers , and in 1928 she was able to take part in a number of New Objectivity exhibitions . In addition, she joined the Hamburg Art Association that year .

Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler: Painfully Resting People (1929)
Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler: Self-Portrait in Fantastic Company (around 1930)
Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler: Loschwitz Bridge (1931)

In 1929 she suffered a nervous breakdown due to material and partnership difficulties and was admitted to the Friedrichsberg State Hospital . During the roughly two-month stay, he created the Friedrichsberg Heads , a group of around 60 drawings and pastels, mainly portraits of fellow patients. After her recovery and final separation from Kurt Lohse, she experienced a creative phase, she created numerous pictures of the Hamburg harbor, the working class and prostitute milieu, as well as her self-portraits, which were described as ruthless. Despite some exhibition participations, sales and small grants, she lived in abject poverty.

In the middle of 1931 she returned to her parents' house in Dresden because of material problems and increasing isolation. After her mental condition had deteriorated, her father had her admitted to the state sanatorium and nursing home in Arnsdorf in 1932. It was schizophrenia diagnosed. From 1932 to 1935 she continued to be creative, she drew portraits and worked in the arts and crafts. After the divorce from Kurt Lohse in May 1935, he was incapacitated because of " incurable mental illness ".

After she refused to give her consent to the sterilization, she was denied the previous free exit from the nursing home. In December 1935 she was subjected to forced sterilization as part of the National Socialist eugenics in the gynecological clinic of the Dresden-Friedrichstadt City Hospital . With this intervention her creative power was finally broken. In 1940 she was deported to the state sanatorium and nursing home in Pirna-Sonnenstein , where she was murdered as part of the National Socialist euthanasia campaign T4 . The official cause of death was "pneumonia with heart failure". In total, the National Socialists gassed 13,720 mainly mentally ill and handicapped people in the "sanatorium and nursing home", which became a killing facility, in 1940/41.

Works

Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler: View over the harbor (around 1929); Watercolor 51.0 × 72.8 cm
Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler: The old flower (1930); Watercolor and pencil 57.5 × 46.0 cm

Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler's most creative creative period fell during her stay in Hamburg. Some of her main works were created from 1927 to 1931. The large number of head and body studies of the mentally ill that she carried out during her stays in the State Hospital Hamburg-Friedrichsberg in 1929 and in the State Sanatorium and Nursing Institution in Arnsdorf between 1932 and 1935 also received and continue to receive great attention .

As part of the “ Degenerate Art ” campaign in 1937, nine of her works from the Hamburger Kunsthalle and the Altona Museum were confiscated and presumably destroyed, and a large number of her Arnsdorf paintings were also destroyed.

Aftermath

In 1989, her works were publicly recognized as part of a presentation in Reinbek near Hamburg. In 1994 the Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler eV support group was founded. With the publication of the monograph Immersed in the maelstrom of life ... - Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler. 1899-1940. The life and work of Georg Reinhardt in 1996 and exhibitions in Dresden, Hamburg-Altona and Aschaffenburg began a broader reception of the artistic work and fate of the long-forgotten painter.

In 1997, Heide Blum produced the documentary film: … everything will be fine again… portrait of the painter Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler (1899–1940) , promotional film - Saxon State Ministry for Science, at the IMS Medion office in Saxony with the film dramaturge Valerie Ry Andersen, after two years of research and art. Valerie Ry Andersen designed a short article in the culture magazine artour of the MDR, organized film lecture series on the artist and on the subject of the T4-Aktion and wrote the play Laus - or the discretion of reciprocity (1998-2000). The film and the activities surrounding the film first drew the attention of authors, editors and art historians to the artist and also brought about her honor.

In 1999 a stele was erected in memory of Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler in the Saxon Hospital in Arnsdorf and a ward house was named after her. In Pirna-Sonnenstein , a street was dedicated to the painter in 2005, and a street in Arnsdorf has also been named after her since 2008.

Rose garden dedicated to Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler
Stumbling block for Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler

A rose garden with a memorial plaque was laid out in 2004 on the site of the former Friedrichsberg Hospital (today Schön Klinik Hamburg Eilbek in Hamburg-Barmbek-Süd ). Another street was named after her in the new Parkquartier Friedrichsberg development area . In the women's garden at the Ohlsdorf cemetery in Hamburg, she is remembered with a stone in the memory spiral. In Hamburg and Dresden streets are also named after her.

Since 2012 a stumbling stone in front of the residential building Voglerstraße 15 has been reminding of Lohse-Wächtler.

Exhibitions and participation in exhibitions

Solo exhibitions:

  • 1991: Reinbek Castle near Hamburg
  • 1997: Gallery Finckenstein, Dresden
  • 1999: Dresden City Museum , Altona Museum in Hamburg and City Gallery of the City of Aschaffenburg
  • 2002: Galerie Kunsthandel & Edition Fischer, Berlin
  • 2003: Pirna City Museum
  • 2004: Prinzhorn Collection , Heidelberg
  • 2005: Representation of the Free State of Saxony at the federal government, Berlin
  • 2008/2009: Zeppelin Museum , Friedrichshafen / Bodensee and Paula Modersohn-Becker Museum , Bremen: extensive exhibition on the life and work of the painter: Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler. 1899–1940 with around one hundred of her works from all creative phases (with an extensive catalog of the same title)
  • July 11 to October 10, 2010: Käthe-Kollwitz-Haus, Moritzburg (near Dresden): watercolors and drawings
  • 2013/2014: Edwin Scharff Museum, Neu-Ulm
  • 2017: Kunstmuseum Solingen (Center for Persecuted Arts)

Exhibition participation:

  • 1993/1994: Städtische Galerie der Stadt Aschaffenburg: The female gaze ; 1994 Deichtorhallen in Hamburg: Fritz Schumacher and his time
  • 1994: Kunsthalle Mannheim: New Objectivity. Images in search of reality. Figurative painting of the twenties
  • 1995: Pallazo della Permanente Milano, Milan: Germania e Italia 1920–1930
  • 1995/1996: Kallmann Museum Ismaning, Kunsthalle Wilhelmshaven, Kunsthalle Worpswede, University Museum for Fine Arts Marburg, Municipal Gallery of the City of Aschaffenburg: Painters of the XX. Century
  • 1996: Liljevalchs Konsthall Stockholm: Konst Som Emergency - Tysk Konst Fran Mellankristiden. Exhibition of the Marvin Collection to Janet Fishman, Milwaukee
  • 1996/1997: Städtische Galerie Albstadt, Städtische Galerie Moers: Three Dresden artists
  • 1997: Städtische Galerie Überlingen: Sinn-Bilder. Exhibition of the Frank Brabant Collection, Wiesbaden
  • 2003: Schleswig-Holsteinisches Landesmuseum Schloss Gottorf: Expressionism and madness
  • 2004/2005: August Macke Haus Bonn, Paula Modersohn-Becker Museum Bremen: FEMME FLANEUR. Explorations between the boulevard and the restricted area
  • 2006: In the Hamburger Kunsthalle , some works by Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler were on view as part of the exhibition Artists of the Avant-garde (II) in Hamburg 1890 to 1933 (2006). Among other things, one of the most famous paintings by Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler was shown in the exhibition with “Lissy” from 1931. For a long time now “Die Blumenalte” has also been on show again. The exhibition was dedicated to the importance of women in the Hamburg Secession .
  • 2010: Municipal gallery Kubus of the state capital Hanover: Exhibition elementary forces
  • September 29 to December 9, 2011: Haspa Gallery, Hamburg: From the entertainment district to the Kiez - Hamburg artists on St. Pauli. Exhibition of the Hamburger Sparkasse
  • October 1, 2011 to January 8, 2012: Galerie Neue Meister, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden: Exhibition Neue Sachlichkeit in Dresden. Painting of the twenties from Dix ​​to Querner
  • October 7, 2011 to January 29, 2012: August Macke Haus, Bonn: Exhibition Between Madonna and Mother Courage - Representation of the mother in art from 1905 to 1935
  • October 23, 2011 to March 18, 2012: Hospital Museum / Galerie am Park, Bremen: Exhibition Sanatorium Sehnsucht. Art and illness in the age of nervousness
  • 2013/2014: Jewish Museum; Frankfurt am Main
  • 2013/2014: Municipal Gallery of the City of Aschaffenburg; Brabant Collection
  • 2015: Municipal gallery of the city of Bietigheim-Bissingen
  • 2015: Kunsthalle Bielefeld
  • 2016: Stadtkirche Wunstorf (exhibition catalog)
  • 2016: Kallmann Museum Ismaning: "Persecution of Modernism in the Nazi State" (Gerhard Schneider Collection) (exhibition catalog)
  • 2017: Galerie Fischer, Berlin: "Anniversary Exhibition" (exhibition catalog)
  • 2017/2018: Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt am Main: "Splendor and misery in the Weimar Republic from Otto Dix to Jeanne Mammen" (exhibition catalog)

Monographs

  • Boris Böhm: "We want to live, life!". Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler. 1899-1940. A biography in pictures. Edited by the Kuratorium Gedenkstätte Sonnenstein eV, 128 pages, 182 illustrations, some in color. Dresden: Sandstein Verlag 2009, ISBN 978-3-940319-85-2 .
  • Regine Sondermann: Art without compromise. The painter Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler. 1899–1940 (PDF reading sample, 398 kB). 2., revised. Edition, Berlin: Weißensee Verlag 2008, ISBN 978-3-89998-994-6 .
  • Sandra Scheffer: The "lost generation". Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler and Erna Schmidt-Caroll. Two artists at the beginning of the 20th century. Saarbrücken: VDM Verlag Dr. Müller 2008, 131 p. M. 76 ills., ISBN 978-3-8364-5386-8 .
  • Dirk Blübaum, Rainer Stamm, Ursula Zeller (eds.): Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler. 1899–1940 (exhibition catalog for the exhibition of the same name from November 7, 2008 to February 8, 2009 in the Zeppelin Museum Friedrichshafen - Technology and Art and from March 1 to May 3, 2009 in the Paula-Modersohn-Becker Museum, Bremen). 176 p., Mostly ill., Tübingen u. Berlin: Wasmuth 2008, ISBN 978-3-8030-3328-4 .
  • Boris Böhm: "I alone know who I am". Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler (1899–1940). A biographical portrait. Edited by the Kuratorium Gedenkstätte Sonnenstein eV (companion volume to the joint exhibition of the Pirna City Museum and the Saxon Memorials Foundation / Pirna-Sonnenstein Memorial in cooperation with the Kuratorium Gedenkstätte Sonnenstein eV), Pirna 2003.
  • "... the often rising feeling of being abandoned". Works by the painter Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler in the psychiatric hospitals in Hamburg-Friedrichsberg (1929) and Arnsdorf (1932–1940). Edited by the Saxon Memorials Foundation in memory of the victims of political tyranny. With a contribution by Hildegard Reinhardt and a foreword by Norbert Haase. Dresden: Verlag der Kunst, 2000, ISBN 90-5705-152-4 or Philo & Philo ISBN 3-86572-477-9 .
  • Georg Reinhardt (Ed.): Lost in the maelstrom of life ... Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler. 1899-1940. Life and work. With contributions by Georg Reinhardt, Boris Böhm, Hildegard Reinhardt and Maike Bruhns. Wienand, Cologne 1996, ISBN 3-87909-471-3 .
  • Winfried Reichert (Ed.): "Against Expectation". Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler 1899–1940. Private printing. Rothenburg near Aschaffenburg 1994, ISBN 3-9803800-0-9 .

literature

  • Ulrike Evers: German women artists of the 20th century. Painting - sculpture - tapestry. Ludwig Schultheis Verlag, Hanover 1983, p. 209.
  • Hildegard Reinhardt: "... must go, just go!" - Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler 1899–1940. In: Bernd Küster (Ed.): Painters of the XX. Century. Donat, Bremen 1995, ISBN 3-924444-95-1 .
  • Otto Griebel: I was a man on the street. Halle: Mitteldeutscher Verlag 1986. pp. 50, 53 f., 58, 65, 70, 106 (2nd revised edition Altenburg: DZA Verlag für Kultur und Wissenschaft 1995).
  • Anne Peters, Adolf Smitmans: Paula Lauenstein, Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler, Alice Sommer. Three Dresden artists in the twenties. Städtische Galerie Albstadt, November 24, 1996 to January 19, 1997. Albstadt 1996. (Overall title: Publication of the Städtische Galerie Albstadt; No. 108). Catalog, ISBN 3-923644-74-4 .
  • Hildegard Reinhardt: Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler. German painter and graphic artist, 1886-1941. In: Delia Gaze (Ed.): Dictionary of Women Artists. Volume 2, London and Chicago 1997.
  • Norbert Haase, Bert Pampel (Ed.): Double burden - double challenge. Memorial work and comparison of dictatorships in places with a double past. Frankfurt a. M. et al .: Peter Lang 1997, ISBN 3-631-32807-9 .
  • Rita Täuber: The ugly Eros. Depictions of prostitution in painting and graphics 1855–1930. Gebr. Mann Verlag, Berlin: 1997. pp. 194-201.
  • Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler. Understand the strange riddle of man. In: Sibylle Duda (ed.): Wahnsinns Frauen. Suhrkamp-Verlag, Frankfurt a. M. 1999. pp. 139-171.
  • Ingrid von der Dollen: Painters of the 20th Century. Visual art of the "lost generation". Hirmer Verlag, Munich 2000. pp. 62, 137-140, 142, 187, 190, 197, 332, 387, 390.
  • Maike Bruhns: Art in Crisis. Dölling and Galitz Verlag, Hamburg 2001. Vol. 1: Hamburg Art in the Third Reich. Pp. 46, 55, 68, 177, 194, 197, 225, 291, 301, 414, 494, 510. Vol. 2: Künstlerlexikon. P. 267 ff.
  • Jessewitsch, Schneider, Wendelberger: Expressive objectivity. Fate of figurative painting in the 20th century. Druck Verlag Kettler Kunst, Bönen / Westfalen 2002. P. 332, 567.
  • Luise F. Pusch, Susanne Gretter: Famous women. Suhrkamp-Verlag, Frankfurt a. M. 2002. p. 180.
  • Street names in Dresden - a man's business? , Part 1, p. 18 (PDF, 214 kB) Edited by: Frauenstadtarchiv Dresden, Nicole Schönherr. Dresden: Public Relations of the State Capital Dresden, 2003.
  • Kay Rump (Ed.): The New Rump. Lexicon of visual artists from Hamburg, Altona and the surrounding area. Revised New edition of Ernst Rump's Lexicon (1912). Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 2005. P. 267 f.
  • Wulf Kirsten, Hans-Peter Lühr: Artists in Dresden in the 20th century. Literary portraits. Verlag der Kunst, Dresden 2005. p. 59.
  • Jürgen Schreiber: A painter from Germany. Gerhard Richter: The drama of a family. Pendo Verlag, Munich / Zurich 2005.
  • Hamburger Kunsthalle (ed.): Women artists of the avant-garde in Hamburg between 1890 and 1933. Vol. 2. Hachmannedition, Bremen 2006. Exhibition volume, ISBN 3-939429-10-4 .
  • Association August Macke Haus eV (ed.), Rita Täuber: Femme Flaneur. Explorations between the boulevard and the restricted area. Exhibition catalog. In terms of print + media, Bonn 2006
  • Wolfgang Haedicke: Dresden. The story of splendor, catastrophe and departure. Carl Hanser Verlag, Munich 2006. pp. 242, 250 ff.
  • Women's art - art by women. 353 watercolors, drawings and graphics by women artists from 4 centuries . With an introduction by Edith Valdivieso. Edited by the Joseph Fach Gallery. Frankfurt am Main: Henrich Editions, 2012, ISBN 978-3-921606-99-5 .
  • Dieter Hoffmann: Whipped Tauerweiden. Walks through the Dresden art of the 20th century . Dresden: Verlag der Kunst, 2014, ISBN 978-3-86530-203-8 .
  • Frank Schneider, Petra Lutze, Sophie Plagemann: captured, pursued, destroyed. Sick and disabled people under National Socialism / registered, persecuted, annihilated. The Sick and the Disabled under National Socialism . Edited by the German Society for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Psychosomatics and Neurology (DGPPN), Berlin: Springer, 2014, ISBN 978-3-642-54027-1 .
  • Anett Kollmann: Dresden. A city in biographies . Series of MERIAN portraits . Munich: Travel House Media Verlag, 2014, ISBN 978-3-834214942 , pp. 122–129.
  • Barbara Degen: Bethel during the Nazi era. The secret story . Bad Homburg: Verlag für Akademische Schriften, 2014, ISBN 978-3-88864-530-3 .
  • Rita Bake : A memory of the city. Streets, squares, bridges in Hamburg named after women and men , Vol. 2: Women's biographies from A to Z (PDF, 5.7 MB), Hamburg: State Center for Civic Education Hamburg, 2015, ISBN 978-3-929728-91- 0 , pp. 111-113.
  • Reinhard Otto: 150 years of Friedrichsberg. From the insane asylum to the clinic in the residential complex . Published by the Barmbek history workshop , Hamburg 2015
  • Gisbert Porstmann, Johannes Schmidt: Otto Griebel. Directory of his works . Bielefeld: Kerber, 2017, ISBN 978-3-7356-0270-1 .
  • Dagmar Fohl: Frieda . Meßkirch 2019, ISBN 978-3-8392-2473-1 . (Fictional representation)

Film and radio features

Web links

Commons : Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Video about Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler on heideblum.de, accessed on February 11, 2016.
  2. ↑ Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler
  3. ↑ movie lecture series on stsg.de, accessed on February 11 2016th
  4. ↑ ... everything will be fine again. ( Memento of the original from February 11, 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. (PDF) on societaetstheater.de.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.societaetstheater.de
  5. ↑ Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler-Weg in Hamburg on clac.at, accessed on February 11, 2016.
  6. ↑ Deutschlandfunk contribution to the exhibition of March 21, 2009: Tragik einer Künstlerin on dradio.de.
personal data
SURNAME Lohse-Wächtler, Elfriede
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wächtler, Anna Frieda; Lohse, Anna Frieda
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German avant-garde painter
DATE OF BIRTH 4th December 1899
PLACE OF BIRTH Löbtau
DATE OF DEATH July 31, 1940
Place of death Pirna