Emmy Gotzmann

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Emmy Auguste Elisabeth Gotzmann (* 19th March 1881 in Frankfurt / Main ; † 27. September 1950 in Berlin ) was a German painter of the Post-Impressionism . In her later creative period she created “something of her own that is interpreted today as expressive realism ”.

life and work

Eva Kusch: Portrait of the artist Emmy Gotzmann (oil on canvas, around 1920)

The Gotzmann family moved from Chemnitz to Groß-Lichterfelde due to the father's job change (directorate of the Reichsbank ) . Emmy Gotzmann probably attended the local “Krahmersche higher girls' school”, today Goethe High School , and began an artistic training in Berlin after the end of school. Her style of painting was strongly influenced by post-impressionism.

It is no longer possible to determine which school of women artists Emmy Gotzmann chose. It is conceivable that between 1901 and 1904 she completed her training in the “Association of Artists and Friends of Art in Berlin”. It was politically undesirable to study art at a Prussian university. Nevertheless, there were exceptions for women beyond this practice: Since 1777, according to the statutes of the Kassel Academy, it was also possible to study art there. After the November Revolution of 1919, women were given access to all academies. According to their own statements, their teachers were Hans Baluschek , Martin Brandenburg , both taught at the Association of Berlin Women Artists , and Max Uth ; also according to the Lovis Corinth family . Uth and Baluschek had also opened a private schoolgirls studio in Berlin. Study trips had taken Gotzmann to Teterow in 1901 and to Penzlin in 1902 . In the summer of 1903 she came to Ekensund for the first time, where she became friends with Anton Nissen and Otto H. Engel. During this first stay, she created watercolors with titles such as "Kornfeld bei Rinkenis Mühle", "Stenshoi", "Alte Fischerhäuser, Ekensund" or "An der Fähre Ekensund". In addition to the watercolors, he created oil paintings that prove that Gotzmann was concerned with different light phenomena: "Morning Mood, Ekensund" and "Blue Hour, Ekensund".

In 1905 Emmy Gotzmann found a place to stay in Flensburg in the house of the sculptor Heinz Weddig, who created a marble bust of her. In the winter semesters 1905/1906 and 1908/1909 she took part in evening courses in life drawing that Weddig held at the applied arts college in Flensburg. In 1908 the painter went on a study trip to Italy . In the same year she had an exhibition in the Flensburg Museum of Applied Arts . The press praised the bright and wonderfully tuned color, emphasized the rich, strong tones that gave the pictures a very painterly overall effect; one newspaper wrote as characterizing the pictures "bold, clearly masculine."

After 1903 she joined the Ekensund artists' colony on the Flensburg Fjord for a long time.

“The triumphant advance of open-air painting at the end of the 19th century was the hour of birth of the artist colonies in Europe. For female painters who were denied access to the art academy , artist colonies offered a welcome opportunity to compete with their male colleagues. In Ekensund ... Emmy Gotzmann-Conrad overshadowed everything with her modern works, which were trained on van Gogh and the French pointillists . "

- Ulrich Schulte-Wülwer, Ekensund artists' colony on the north bank of the Flensburg Fjord .

In 1909 she moved back to Berlin. She now appeared increasingly in the Secession, although she was neither a full nor an extraordinary member.

Gotzmann married the lawyer Walter Conrad in Berlin in 1905. The marriage lasted until 1913. Through her second marriage to the Jewish reciter Ludwig Hardt , she came into contact with literary expressionism and its protagonists. Among these were Elias Canetti , Bertolt Brecht , Thomas Mann , Walter Benjamin . This influence caused her to turn away from impressionistic modes of expression. From now on she moved mainly in a Jewish environment. The marriage with Hardt was strained by the consequences of the First World War and also broke up. Gotzmann later failed to create an alternative life with the philosopher Rudolf Pannwitz on the Dalmatian islands of Koločep and Korčula .

After her return to the capital, she had highly regarded exhibitions at short intervals. During this time the National Gallery and municipal institutions acquired their works. From 1928 to 1930 she was chairwoman of the Association of Berlin Women Artists .

During the time of National Socialism she turned away from the politically controlled art scene of so-called German art . Their critical attitude brought about a certain proximity to a resistance movement . Cut off from the art business, she visibly became impoverished. In spite of her own hardship, she supported hidden Jews, even though she knew that her behavior was placing her in a dangerous situation.

Until the end of her life, her closest friends were Else Milch, a sister of the poet Gertrud Kantorowicz , and Helene Skaller, the wife of a Jewish internist. Both friends had emigrated to the United States as a result of persecution .

In the last years of the Second World War , her works, as far as they were outside Berlin, were completely destroyed. Only a small part of her oeuvre was able to survive at home and with relatives (oil sketches, drawings, oil paintings ). Concerned about her health, the actress and peace activist Elsbeth Bruck, who had previously returned from exile in England, contacted Emmy Gotzmann. This was done at the request of American Jewish circles. The stresses of the war had made Gotzmann sick and resigned. She died in 1950 in Berlin-Lichterfelde.

With the monograph by Ferdinand Ruigrok van de Werve on Gotzmann, a comprehensive appraisal of the artist has been available since 2015.

Exhibitions (selection)

literature

  • Nancy Macdonald: Homage to the Spanish Exils. New York 1987.
  • Geertje Andresen: The dancer, sculptor and Nazi opponent Oda Schottmüller 1905–1943. Berlin 2005.
  • German artist colonies and artist locations. Munich 1976.
  • Ferdinand Ruigrok van de Werve: Emmy Gotzmann. Colorful power in difficult times. Ludwig Verlag, Kiel 2015, ISBN 978-3-86935-256-5 .
  • Ulrich Schulte-Wülwer: Painting in Schleswig-Holstein. West Holstein Publishing House Boyens, Heide 1989

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ according to earlier, now falsified, assumptions in 1942.
  2. ↑ Ferdinand Ruigrok van de Werve: Emmy Gotzmann - Colored Power in Difficult Times. Ludwig Verlag, Kiel 2015, ISBN 978-3-86935-256-5 .
  3. ↑ "You could take part in exhibitions. Diplomas were also awarded." Martina Sitt: "Uncovered - female painters around Tischbein and the Kassel Art Academy 1777-1830", Hamburg 2016, project report of a master’s course in art studies at the University of Kassel
  4. ↑ Both previous paragraphs summarized according to: Ulrich Schulte-Wülwer, Painting in Schleswig-Holstein. West Holstein Publishing House Boyens, Heide 1989, passim
  5. ^ Ulrich Schulte-Wülwer: Ekensund artists' colony on the north bank of the Flensburg Fjord. Westholsteinische Verlagsanstalt Boyens, Heide 2000 ISBN 9783804208674
  6. ↑ Ferdinand Ruigrok van de Werve: Colored power in difficult times. Emmy Gotzmann. A painter for the Berlin Secession 1881–1950. Kiel 2015. p. 75
  7. ↑ First marriage: Extract from the registry office register-1905, Groß-Lichterfelde B, No. 24. Second marriage: Civil registry office register B. No. 195 Charlottenburg I, April 11, 1913.
  8. ↑ Rudolf Pannwitz: The New Life. Munich 1927.
  9. ↑ Ferdinand Ruigrok van de Werve: Colored power in difficult times. Emmy Gotzmann. A painter for the Berlin Secession 1881–1950. Kiel 2015. p. 152ff.
  10. ^ Greetje Andresen: The dancer and sculptor and Nazi opponent Oda Schottmüller 1905–1943. Berlin 2005. p. 294.
  11. ^ Nancy Macdonald: Homage To The Spanish Exils. New York 1987, p. 63.
  12. ↑ Extract from the publisher's website, accessed on January 16, 2016.
personal data
SURNAME Gotzmann, Emmy
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gotzmann, Emmy Auguste Elisabeth (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German post-impressionist painter
DATE OF BIRTH March 19, 1881
PLACE OF BIRTH Frankfurt / Main
DATE OF DEATH September 27, 1950
Place of death Berlin