Erich Franke (painter)

Erich Franke (born August 13, 1911 in Offenbach am Main ; † August 5, 2008 in Bielefeld ) was a German painter and set designer .

Life

Franke's father, who died in 1920, was a doctor, his mother came from the German actor and artist family Raupp. In 1912 his family moved to Wiesbaden. Franke grew up in a humanistic and artistic environment; Many Wiesbaden artists of the 1920s and 1930s frequented his parents' house, a. a. the painter Alexej von Jawlensky . There was also close contact with his grandfather, who lived in Offenbach am Main, a theater writer and Meiningen court actor.

After boarding school, he switched to the humanistic grammar school in Wiesbaden in 1926. The first abstract collages were created, which were later submitted with the application documents for the Kunstgewerbeschule in Wiesbaden. After graduating from high school and entering the arts and crafts school in Wiesbaden, he began studying with Otto Fischer-Trachau in 1930 . He took the subjects of painting, interior design, advertising graphics and fashion. His first costume designs were implemented and received various prizes.

In 1934 he began training as a stage and costume designer at the State Theater in Wiesbaden and then set up a studio in Wiesbaden. Lothar Schenck von Trapp later made Franke his assistant. In 1939 Franke was hired as a set designer in Heidelberg. He kept the studio in Wiesbaden; there were further designs for the productions in Heidelberg.

In a bombing raid on Wiesbaden in 1944, the studio was destroyed and a large part of his early painterly works and his productions were lost. Until the theater closed, he continued to commute between Heidelberg and Offenbach am Main, where some of his new designs were created. A year later he was called up for military service and was taken prisoner by the Soviets, from which he was released in 1946. He then resumed his artistic activity with abstract post-war pictures and collages.

As part of the “Musika Viva Days” in Heidelberg in 1949 , the first exhibition of his abstract works was opened parallel to the premiere of the works by Hans Werner Henze , with whom Franke was friends. Franke resumed his work as a set designer and in the following years he created stage sets and costume designs a. a. for the theaters in Karlsruhe , Baden-Baden , Mannheim , Heidelberg and Bruchsal .

Franke was accepted into the State Academy of Fine Arts in Karlsruhe in 1954 and studied with Karl Hubbuch and Otto Laible .

In 1958 he married his wife Anneliese and gave up his work as a set designer. Up to this point in time, the stage sets and several hundred costume designs had been created for over 200 productions. He was now working as a freelance artist. The couple moved to Uelzen . In 1959 Franke became a member of the “Priessecker Kreis”. Various solo and group exhibitions in Hamburg , Hanover and in northern Germany followed.

The Berlin Wall was built on his 50th birthday . Based on the impressions of this event and its consequences, a series of black and white works was created that dealt with the border and the border area .

In 1963 Franke founded the group "G", an association of artists whose aim it was to deal artistically with the construction of the wall and the division of Germany. Various exhibitions of the group "G" in northern Germany followed.

Franke traveled to Cyprus in 1972 , where he witnessed the division of the country. From these impressions the cycle of Cyprus pictures was created. In 1981 the company moved to Bielefeld and set up a new studio. In 1982 he made his last stage design for Udo Zimmermann , for his opera “Die Wundersame Schusterfrau”. In 1983 he met the Wiesbaden-based gallery owner Christa Moering , who honored him with a retrospective in her gallery.

A large part of his personal stage archive was handed over to the "Theater Studies Institute" in Cologne in 1992 .

Franke died on August 5, 2008 in his studio in Bielefeld.

Exhibitions

• 1949: Musica Viva Heidelberg
• 1960: Kunstverein Hannover
• 1961: Kunstverein Hannover
• 1962: Uelzen Art Association
• 1963: Lichtwarkhaus Hamburg
• 1963: Hitzacker Music Days
• 1963: Uelzen Art Association
• 1965: Roemer-Pelizaeus-Museum Hildesheim
• 1966: Kunstforum Görde - Göhrde hunting lodge
• 1967: Kunstforum Göhrde - Jagdschloss Göhrde
• 1968: Lichtwarkhaus in Hamburg
• 1968: Orangery Hannover-Herrenhausen
• 1970: Kunstforum Göhrde - group exhibition of German and Dutch artists
• 1970: State. Engineer Academy Suderburg
• 1970: BBK Uelzen
• 1971: Orangery Hannover-Herrenhausen
• 1973: BBK - NW Bois-Guillaume
• 1973: Hamburg House Eimsbüttel
• 1976: Group exhibition at the Kunstverein Hannover
• 1979: Showcase at the art association Gütersloh
• 1985: Exhibition in Wiesbaden - Galerie Christa Moering
• 1991: Factory exhibition in Münster / Westphalia - adult education center
• 2017: House of City History (Offenbach am Main) : Retrospective Erich Franke
• 2019 Kunstraum Bernusstrasse Frankfurt am Main with works from 1945

literature

• Bernd Vogelsang (arrangement): University of Cologne, Institute for Theater, Film and Television Studies, theater collection, finding aid for scenic graphics. Saur, Munich 1993, ISBN 3-59811148-7 .
• Klaus Welzel: The whole world is a stage. The Heidelberg Citizens' Theater in a new look. Rhein-Necker-Zeitung, Heidelberg 2012, ISBN 978-3-941850-43-9 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Erich Franke retrospective . ( Memento from September 28, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) In: offenbach.de. September 11, 2017. Retrieved September 28, 2017.
2. ↑ Petra Kammann: Rediscovered: The artist Erich Franke in the Bernusstrasse art space. In: feuilletonfrankfurt.de. FeuilletonFrankfurt, accessed on March 20, 2019 .