Emil Julius Epple

Self-portrait Emil Epple, 1893

Emil Julius Epple (born March 6, 1877 in Stuttgart , † February 25, 1948 in The Hague ) was a German-Dutch sculptor who was mainly active in Italy and southern Germany. In 1937 he settled in the Netherlands and took Dutch citizenship.

biography

youth

Emil Epple was born in Stuttgart and grew up in a traditional Protestant family of teachers. Allegedly, the Epple were originally or by birth Swiss.

Epple with Schiller and Anadyomene (1912)

Education and career

Epple attended high school and then the Stuttgart art school . There he studied for a few years with Adolf von Donndorf before moving to Munich in April 1896 , where he was taught by Wilhelm von Rümann at the Academy of Fine Arts .

After a short stay in Stuttgart and Berlin , Epple looked for inspiration in London . In the British Museum he carefully examined the Elgin marble sculptures , a collection of classical Greek marble sculptures that were created under the direction of the architect and sculptor Phidias (approx. 480-430 BC).

Emil Epple moved to Rome in 1899 , where he stayed until 1907. In the “Eternal City”, both the natural landscape of Italy and the countless (classical) art treasures shaped Epple's own artistic sense and his classical preferences. He developed a highly personal style. Epple had his first exhibition in Munich as early as 1900.

After living and working in Rome for almost a decade, Epple moved to Munich. In the Bavarian capital he was commissioned to produce six oversized herms (Wagner, Shakespeare, Goethe, Schiller, Mozart and Beethoven) for the Royal Stuttgart Court Theater . During this time he also created numerous portraits, memorials, reliefs, etc. in close collaboration with other artists and architects such as Albert Eitel and Eugen Steigleder , which made the Villa Gemmingen in Stuttgart a unique total work of art that is still highly praised today. Much of the work was commissioned by successful private entrepreneurs, bankers or specialists as well as by state institutions such as the Bavarian State Police ; for the latter he made an impressive sculpture in honor of the fallen officers.

First marriage

On August 21, 1901 Emil Epple married Johanna Groneman, daughter of a Dutch high school director in the northern city of Groningen and the well-known singing teacher Jacoba Kappeyne van de Coppello. She had studied in Munich and Berlin. From 1894 she performed regularly and successfully as a soprano with her two sisters Frederika and Goswina and their mother. At the same time she promoted herself as a singing master and concert singer in local newspapers. The marriage remained childless.

First World War

At the beginning of the First World War, Epple was declared unfit for service in the German army. The next year, however, he volunteered for military service and was soon sent to the Western Front as a gunner in the Royal Bavarian 7th Field Artillery Regiment "Prince Regent Luitpold" . He then fought on the Franco-German front from Verdun to the Somme.

Emil Epple returned from the First World War in 1918; he was a broken and dazed man ("completely stupid," in his own words). As a discharged officer, he remained paralyzed in both arms for more than a year, which made it impossible for him to work marble or other stones with his chisels. In that year he mainly worked with wax as the basis for bronze cast figures. Eventually he recovered and became extremely productive again in the 1920s.

In 1919 he and Johanna separated. Johanna returned to the Netherlands and partly worked as a translator of German children's books, including Die Biene Maya und seine Abenteuer (1920) by the German bestselling author and anti-Semite Waldemar Bonsels . In the early 1930s she allegedly sympathized with the National Socialist ideology and lived briefly in Holland, Switzerland and Austria.

On May 17, 1921 Emil Epple married Hendrika de Witt Huberts in Zandvoort, the Netherlands . A year later a daughter, Eleonora, was born.

The interwar period

In 1921 Epple was back in the Netherlands, where the financial conditions for artists were much more favorable than in anarchic, inflation-weakened post-war Germany.

An exhibition of contemporary German art was organized by De Onafhankelijken (The Independent) at Amsterdam's Stedelijk Museum , the most prestigious museum for contemporary art in the Netherlands. This group of artists leaned on the Parisian Les Indépendants, who wanted to hold exhibitions outside the established art institutions. In addition to German expressionists such as Max Pechstein , Alexej von Jawlensky and Erich Heckel , Epple took part in the exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum with drawings, paintings and sculptures.

On February 6, 1921, his marble bust of the Dutch Senator Jacobus Kappeyne van de Capello, the uncle of his former wife, was unveiled there; it is on display today in the hall of the Dutch Parliament in The Hague. After Adolf Hitler's seizure of power on January 30, 1933 and the subsequent abolition of civil rights, the increase in paramilitary violence, the enabling laws (which turned Hitler's government into a dictatorship) and the Nuremberg Racial Laws of 1935, Emil and his family settled in the Netherlands.

In July 1936 he was able to publish an article in the popular German art magazine Die Kunst für Alle , in which he explained once again how, as a sculptor, he "woke up the picture sleeping in the stone" with his chisels and his dabbing technique. His essay was illustrated with four pictures that show different stages of his work on the sculpture "German Mother".

In Nazi Germany, Epple had refused to become a member of the NSDAP and the Reich Chamber of Culture , a professional organization led by the Nazis that required all German cultural workers to register as members and to propagate the National Socialist ideology in their work. His refusal meant that he was no longer given any government contracts and that his work was also in retrospect more and more regarded as un-German, even as “ degenerate art ”. Another reason for Epple to leave Germany and choose to live in the Netherlands was his reluctance to have his only daughter growing up in an inescapable social environment dominated by Nazi organizations such as the Hitler Youth and the Bund deutscher Mädel to see.

In 1937 he applied for Dutch citizenship. In the same year Emil Epple, a sick and disaffected man, left Germany forever and left behind many (unfinished) works and valuables, including his villa in Munich.

Last years of life

During the Second World War, the occupying Nazis razed the Villa Zandvoort of Epple's parents-in-law to the ground to make way for Atlantic Wall bunkers and flak. Emil Epple and his family moved to The Hague. After the war, the Epples were compensated for this loss and were allowed to build a new villa, this time in the Limburg village of Geulle in the south of the Netherlands. They called it "Beeldenhof" (picture garden). Unfortunately, Emil could not see the completion of the building. He died on February 25, 1948 in The Hague. A drawing and a death mask were made by his friend Chris de Moor.

Creation and style

Emil Epple was anything but an uncritical epigone of the famous sculptors of his time such as Auguste Rodin and Adolf von Hildebrand or later the French sculptor Aristide Maillol , who would have a strong influence on German sculpture in the first half of the 20th century. Soon he managed to step out of its shadow and find his own form of expression. He developed a very personal style that many art critics and art lovers quickly came to appreciate.

Periods

Epple's work can be divided into three periods:

1. Italian period (Rome, around 1898 to 1908)
2. German period (Munich, around 1909 to 1935)
3. Dutch period (The Hague, around 1935 to 1948)

German mother, 1935

Technique and procedure

Emil Epple became known for his " direct carving " technique (French "en taille directe"). In this modus operandi , sculptors work with a hammer and chisel, which come into direct contact with a block of stone and allow the sculptor close and intimate contact with the material. The artist will only look at a rough sketch on paper, a photo or clay model, but will take few measurements and will not use a carefully worked out model. Gradually the sculpture emerges from the stone. Although this technique definitely promotes the spontaneity of the creative process, the sculptor also risks fatal mistakes. Other sculptors, besides Epple, who became famous with this technique, were z. B. Constantin Brâncuși , Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore .

Awards

• In 1912, Epple received the Württemberg Order of Knights First Class for Art and Science from King Wilhelm II of Württemberg for his six Hermen in the Stuttgart Court Theater.
• Iron Cross, 1918.
• Professor honoris causa, Reichsakademie Munich, 1928.

Exhibitions

A selection of exhibitions in Germany

1. 1900, first exhibition in the Glaspalast , Munich
2. 1907, Galerie Schulte, Berlin
3. 1923, Galerie Paulus, Munich
4. 1926, Galerie Thannhauser, Munich

A selection of exhibitions in the Netherlands

1. 1921, exhibition "De Onafhankelijken" in the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam
2. 1947, exhibition in Amsterdam's Vondelpark on the occasion of Epple's 70th birthday

Reassessment

The Sculpture Institute of the Museum Beelden aan Zee publishes the annual journal Sculptuur Studies (sculpture research) with essays on modern and contemporary sculpture. Marjet van de Weerd published an article in Sculptuur Studies (in Dutch) about Emil Epple in 2017 and the book Love and Art in 2018 . In it she describes Epple's life against the cultural-artistic and political-social background of his time. The book title refers to his motto Amor et Ars regnant ( love and art rule ).

Web links

Commons : Emil Julius Epple  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Emil Julius Epple artist description on rkd.nl. Retrieved November 9, 2017 (Dutch)
2. ↑ M. van de Weerd, Emil Epple (Epplé), Sculpture Studies, jrg. 8 no. 1 2017. Archive link ( Memento of the original dated August 4, 2017 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. 
3. ↑ 'Een persoonlijke zoektocht naar beeldhouwer Emil Epplé', Cadeau no. 7, voorjaar 2011, p. 16-19
4. ↑ 'Een persoonlijke zoektocht naar beeldhouwer Emil Epplé', Cadeau no. 7, voorjaar 2011, p. 16-19
5. ↑ 'Een persoonlijke zoektocht naar beeldhouwer Emil Epplé', Cadeau no. 7, voorjaar 2011, p. 16-19
6. ↑ M. van de Weerd, Emil Epple (Epplé), Sculpture Studies , jrg. 8 no. 1 2017. Archive link ( Memento of the original dated August 4, 2017 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. 
7. ↑ M. van de Weerd, Emil Epple (Epplé), Sculpture Studies , jrg. 8 no. 1 2017. Archive link ( Memento of the original dated August 4, 2017 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. 
8. ↑ M. van de Weerd, Emil Epple (Epplé), Sculpture Studies , jrg. 8 no. 1 2017. Archive link ( Memento of the original dated August 4, 2017 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. 
9. ↑ 'Een persoonlijke zoektocht naar beeldhouwer Emil Epplé', Cadeau no. 7, voorjaar 2011, p. 16-19
10. ↑ M. van de Weerd, Emil Epple (Epplé), Sculpture Studies , jrg. 8 no. 1 2017. Archive link ( Memento of the original dated August 4, 2017 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. 
11. ↑ M. van de Weerd, Emil Epple (Epplé), Sculpture Studies , jrg. 8 no. 1 2017. Archive link ( Memento of the original dated August 4, 2017 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. 
12. ↑ 'Een persoonlijke zoektocht naar beeldhouwer Emil Epplé', Cadeau no. 7, voorjaar 2011, p. 16-19
13. ↑ G. Jacobs, Duitsland en Maillol: een onderzoek naar de invloed van Aristide Maillol op de beeldhouwkunst in de eerste helft van de 20e eeuw in Duitsland in het bijzonder in de nazi period , proefschrift 2015, Universiteit van Leiden.
14. ↑ Marjet van de Weerd: Emil Epple (Epplé) ( Memento of the original from August 4, 2017 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.