Erich Wegener

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Erich Wegener (born 1904 ; died 1956 ) was a German painter and draftsman of the 20th century.

Life

It is not known what school and professional training Erich Wegener went through. He earned his living with various wage jobs, including as a cleaner, coal loader, punch and bookbinder. Since 1923 he stayed several longer periods for artistic work stays in the USSR . In 1927 he joined the KPD and in the following year he became a member of the Association of Revolutionary Visual Artists (ASSO), in which he founded the "group of workers' illustrators", of which he became spokesman. Wegener was active in the International Workers Aid (IAH).

In the preliminary phase of the transfer of power to the National Socialists and their allies, he was arrested and imprisoned in 1932 for violating the “ emergency ordinances ”. In 1933 he was attacked by the Gestapo , which searched his studio. During the war he worked as a designer at AEG and was classified as " indispensable " from there . During the fighting in Berlin in April 1945, Wegener hid about 30 drawings from his studio in the sewer system, which were able to survive the war in this way, because the studio burned out a little later. After the end of the Nazi regime, he lived in the west of Berlin , but worked in the east in the Elektro-Apparate-Werke in Treptow .

Wegener's artistic work emerged alongside his respective bread-making activity. Preferred motifs were industrial and urban landscapes, mostly pastels . He drew numerous portraits with charcoal. He justified his fondness for drawing factories, houses and streets by pointing out that it was about “the landscape of the working people ”, that “the place of birth and death of the proletariat , [the] playground of the youth”.

Works

  • At the Rostock harbor, 1930
  • "God does not abandon an old German!", 1930
  • At the old port, 1931
  • My wife, 1947
  • Am Gleisdreieck, 1947
  • Soda factory in Würselen, undated
  • Brickworks, undated

literature

  • Erich Steingräber (Eds.) / Erika Billeter (Editing), German Art of the Twenties and Thirties, Munich 1979
  • Klaus Kellers / Helga Karolewski / Ilse Siebert, Berlin encounters. Foreign artists in Berlin 1918 to 1933. Articles - pictures - documents, Berlin (GDR) 1987
  • Jürgen Kleindienst, Who Owns the World? Art and Society in the Weimar Republic (published by the New Society for Fine Art ), West Berlin 1977
  • Christa Murken-Altrogge / Axel Hinrich Murken , "Processes of Freedom". From expressionism to soul and body art. Modern painting for beginners, Cologne 1985
  • Harald Olbrich, Proletarian Art in Development, Berlin (GDR) 1986

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Harald Olbrich, Proletarian Art in Becoming, Berlin (GDR) 1986, p. 318.
  2. ↑ Unless otherwise stated: Michael Mäde, Kostbarkeiten in Pastell, in: Junge Welt, July 2nd / 3rd, 2016.
  3. ^ After: Durus (= Alfred Kemeny) in: Die Rote Fahne, February 8th, 1930, see: [1] .
personal data
SURNAME Wegener, Erich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter
DATE OF BIRTH 1904
DATE OF DEATH 1956