Emil Block

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Emil August Moritz Block (born November 25, 1884 in Leipzig ; † March 19, 1966 there ) was a German painter .

Life

Emil Block completed an apprenticeship as a painter in Leipzig, attended the municipal trade school and trained as a decorative painter . Block worked in the church painter Richard Schultz's studio until 1904 and in Richard Hesse's studio between 1913 and 1945. He carried out wall paintings for restaurants and coffee houses, designed glass windows and carried out restoration work of all kinds. Self-taught, he learned to paint portraits, figurines, landscapes and still lifes. Block increasingly worked as an oil and watercolor painter and as a draftsman. He painted portraits, landscapes, still lifes and pictures of animals, also allegorical and mythological scenes. From 1931 Block took part in the "Great Leipzig Art Exhibition", and in 1940 he exhibited in a collective exhibition in the Gohliser Schlösschen .

His main work is the preserved design of the Bethanienkirche in Leipzig- Schleußig . For the church built between 1931 and 1933 by the Zweck & Voigt office , he designed the monumental colored lead glass window “The entering Christ”, which closes the choir with the function of an altarpiece. The window, originally made in 1932 according to Block's design by CG Müller, was destroyed in 1944. In April 1950 it was made from the original box by the Leipzig art glazier Rolf Reinecke. Block also created the two paintings “ Maria and Martha ” and “Raising Lazarus ” on leather on the front of the nave on both sides of the choir. The pictures, inspired by the work of the Swiss painter Ferdinand Hodler , were deliberately designed for the strong soffit that dominates the church. They refer as part of a Bethany - iconography on the glass paintings of coming to Bethany Christ. Block created portraits of Kurt Schröder (pastor 1906–1937; oil on canvas, 104 × 80 cm) and Otto Flor (pastor 1906–1929; oil on canvas, 103 × 74 cm) for the sacristy of the Bethanienkirche.

During the renovation of the Leipzig inn “ Thüringer Hof ” between 1930 and 1933 and the associated expansion of the former Luther room into the Luther Hall, Block created the templates for a large arched window and eight smaller stained glass windows. This artificial glazing and the entire building fell victim to the bombs of World War II in 1943. In the successor building erected in 1993–1996, the templates for these windows framed as murals can be viewed today.

Block signed his pictures almost exclusively with the overlapping and entwined letters "EB".

From 1920 he taught at the municipal trade school in the decorative painting department. There he worked out a curriculum that was taught until 1946. For decorative painters, Block published master sheets in the forms of Art Deco in 1922 . From 1936 to 1946 he taught decorative painting at the Leipzig School of Applied Arts. After 1946 he only worked freelance.

In 1911 he married Magdalena Gaudlitz (* May 5, 1887; † June 20, 1945), the couple had a daughter. Emil Block died at the age of 81 and was buried on March 24, 1966 in the Leipzig- Gohlis cemetery.

Works

  • 1928: Wall paintings in Café Corso on Augustusplatz in Leipzig
  • 1931: "Descent from the Cross" (oil on canvas)
  • 1932: "Christ entering" (template for a colored glass window)
  • 1932: "Maria and Martha" (panel painting set into the wall)
  • 1932: "Raising Lazarus from the dead" (panel painting set into the wall)
  • 1933: "Luther on the Reichstag in Worms" and eight city pictures (templates for colored glass windows in the Thuringian court in Leipzig)
  • 1934/35 restoration of the interiors of the baroque Gohliser Schlösschen in Leipzig (construction management: Otto Trautmann)
  • 1937: Portrait of Kurt Schröder
  • 1937: Portrait of Otto Flor
  • 1940/41: "Heimatliche Elsteraue in autumn" (oil on canvas, 290 × 530 cm, in the stairwell of the Natural History Museum Leipzig )
  • 1941: "Mammoth Herd in Ice Age Landscape" (oil on canvas, 335 × 550 cm, in the stairwell of the Natural History Museum Leipzig)
  • 1945: Memorial picture "Crucifixion" (IN MEMORIAM MAGDALENA BLOCK MCMXLV)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Thüringer Hof zu Leipzig: Luther with us  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.thueringer-hof.eu  
  2. ↑ Emil Block: Colored painted furniture. GDW Callwey, Munich 1922

literature

  • Ute Camphausen; Olaf Thormann: The Leipzig School of Applied Arts. Documentation on the history and impact of the Leipzig School of Applied Arts and its predecessor and successor institutions. (published on the occasion of the exhibition “Die Leipziger Kunstgewerbeschule”, December 20, 1996– March 16, 1997 in the Museum für Kunsthandwerk Leipzig), Faber and Faber, Leipzig 1996, ISBN 3-928660-75-6
  • The architectural and art monuments of Saxony. City of Leipzig. The sacred buildings. Volume 2, edited by Heinrich Magirius u. Hanna-Lore Fiedler, Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich 1995, ISBN 3-422-00568-4 , pp. 1259-1262.
  • Author: Block, Emil . In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General Lexicon of Fine Artists of the XX. Century. tape 1 : A-D . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1953, p. 233 .
  • Volker Frank: Block, Emil . In: General Artist Lexicon . The visual artists of all times and peoples (AKL). Volume 11, Saur, Munich a. a. 1995, ISBN 3-598-22751-5 , p. 538.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Block, Emil
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Block, Emil August Moritz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter
DATE OF BIRTH November 25, 1884
PLACE OF BIRTH Leipzig
DATE OF DEATH March 19, 1966
Place of death Leipzig