Erich Viehweger

Erich Viehweger (born January 29, 1907 in Bremerhaven , † January 20, 1992 in Wartenburg ) was a German painter and set designer .

Life

Viehweger grew up with three siblings. From 1913 he attended the local Pestalozzi School . From childhood he painted very intensely and talented. That's why he would have liked to go to an art school after finishing elementary school. However, the family's economic situation, due to the death of the father in the Skagerrak battle in 1916 , did not allow this. This forced Viehweger to start an apprenticeship as a decorative painter in 1921 , which he completed in 1925. In addition, he had taken weekly private lessons in painting from his teacher Wilhelm Lohaus.

At Viehweg's request, the city of Bremerhaven granted him a stipend of 100 marks per month for four years. This enabled him to start studying at the United State Schools in Berlin-Charlottenburg (which later became the College of Fine Arts ) from 1925 . His professors were Boehland , Fischer and Koch in the subjects of painting and graphics, Dannenberg in materials science and Kutschmann in wall painting . The latter had received an order in 1927 to restore the wall paintings in the Wittenberg town hall , whereby Viehweger also supported him in order to earn some additional money. In addition, he took part in exhibitions in the art gallery while studying in Bremerhaven.

In Berlin he met his future wife Rosa Hannemann, the daughter of an innkeeper in Wartenburg. In 1934 they got married (in which two daughters were born), but remained in Berlin. Since graduating in 1929, Viehweger has worked as a freelance painter. Getting to know the director of the Lessing Museum, Georg Richard Kruse , he gave him the task of designing a stage set for his small theater. Receiving a lot of approval for this, Viehweger received further commissions in this genre. Originally not interested in it, he now found great pleasure in this work.

In the 1920's and 1930's, Viehweger often visited his relatives in Bremerhaven. He used this to produce many watercolors and oil paintings of the city, but also for excursions into the surrounding area. In 1939 he went to Fischerhude , where he made the acquaintance of the painters Hans Buch and Otto Modersohn .

With the beginning of the Second World War , Viehweger was called up for military service in 1939; it was first used in Poland . As a result, the war led him across Europe from the Channel coast to Stalingrad . Of course, always his painting utensils with him, he was also artistically active during this time, creating many pictures with documentary value.

Since his apartment in Berlin was destroyed, he moved to his wife's hometown, Wartenburg , in 1945 . 1946 he was able in the near Wittenberg , where Luther Hall to show his first major exhibition. Its director Prof. Dr. Dr. Oskar Thulin , who taught art history at the University of Leipzig, not only influenced him artistically, but also commissioned him with the design of exhibitions and events. From 1947 Viehweger turned again to stage design for the Wittenberg Theater; In 1948 he was permanently employed, and from the following year as head of equipment. Until 1969, when he had to retire due to illness, he designed more than 200 stage sets.

During these years, however, he was also otherwise artistically active. This led to exhibitions in Dresden and Halle (Saale) , but also to his area of ​​activity, the Elbe-Elster-Theater . There were a total of 7 exhibitions of his works in Lutherstadt Wittenberg, the last on the occasion of his 100th birthday in 2007 in the city ​​church of Wittenberg . In the summer of 1990, for the first time in decades, paintings and graphics by Viehweger were shown in his native Bremerhaven, in the Morgenstern Museum . An exhibition was held in July 2010 in the place where he died, Wartenburg, on the initiative of his daughter Gabriele Viehweger.

Viehweger belonged to the Association of Visual Artists in Halle (Saale). This made it possible for him to go on study trips to Bulgaria , Hungary and the Soviet Union in the 1970s ; the result was many pictures with views of these countries.

In 1972 (again in 1982) Lutherstadt Wittenberg awarded him the Lucas Cranach Prize .

plant

Erich Viehweger documented his environment with his oil paintings, watercolors, drawings (colored pen, charcoal and pencil drawings) and graphics. Through a clear structure and often simplified pictorial objects as well as a mostly soft, delicate gradation of colors, his works show great harmony. From the 1950's his handwriting became more spirited. At the end of the 1980s he moved away from representational painting and created abstract works, the characteristics of which are shapes, lines and broken applications of paint.

Viehweg's extensive works are now mostly in private hands, but also in various public galleries. In 1990 he gave his native Bremerhaven as a gift all the pictures he had made of the city and its surrounding region. The works can be seen in the Historisches Museum Bremerhaven .

In 1967, on the occasion of the Reformation anniversary 1517-1967, a portfolio with 15 original lithographs with views of Lutherstadt Wittenberg was published.

In 2008 the Augustinuswerk eV, Wittenberg, published a "City Guide Lutherstadt Wittenberg" in German and English, which contains numerous lithographs and pictures by the artist.

The Stadtwerke Wittenberg issued a calendar with drawings and paintings by Erich Viehweger for the year 2011th With these publications there is a printed selection of his best works from Lutherstadt Wittenberg.

Exhibitions

• Painting, graphics, set design: Erich Viehweger , State Luther Hall, Lutherstadt Wittenberg from June 23 to September 30, 1973
• Erich Viehweger - Retrospective , Pretzsch Castle, Bad Schmiedeberg, OT Pretzsch, from: February 17, 2018.

literature

• Grapenthin, Elke: Erich Viehweger (born 1907), in: Artists in and around Bremerhaven 1827–1990 , Bremen 1991, pp. 267–271 , ISBN 3-926598-40-9 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Highlight in Pretzsch Castle: retrospective on the life's work of the painter Erich Viehweger , at www.salus-lsa.de, accessed on November 7, 2018
2. ↑ Kreis Wittenberg Pilgrim group get on their bike , at www.mz-web.de, accessed on November 7, 2018