Erna Roder

Erna Roder (born May 19, 1916 in Langhelwigsdorf, Silesia ; † November 29, 2007 in Letschin ) was a German painter who lived and worked in Kienitz / Oderbruch ( Brandenburg ).

Short biography

Church in Kienitz (2013)

In 1936 Erna Roder finished her training as a nurse. In the following 30 years she worked in hospitals, retirement homes and communities, most recently in Hoerstgen / Niederrhein. In 1965 she moved to Kienitz im Oderbruch, d. H. from the former FRG to the GDR to work as a pastor's wife. The church of Kienitz, built in 1831 and later partially rebuilt after being destroyed in the war in the spring of 1945, has the church service room on the upper floor and an apartment on the ground floor that Erna Roder lived in with her husband, the pastor of Kienitz. When her husband died in 1981, she kept the apartment. The church began to decline in the early 1980s. In order to raise money for the rescue of the church, which she privately initiated, she began to paint pictures with tempera paints on church slate from 1981 and to sell them. Work with pastel chalk was soon added. The sale of her pictures turned out to be very successful. She became known nationwide and received frequent visits to the Kienitz Church. From 1992 to 2002 she published an Oderbruch calendar in which one of her pictures was printed as a removable postcard every month. In summer 2007 she received the Federal Cross of Merit. On November 29, 2007, Erna Roder died at the age of 91 in a nursing home in Letschin.

plant

Erna Roder's work consists of early graphics such as a linocut of the Kienitz church bell, but above all of tempera paintings on church slate and pastels. The motifs come from the artist's immediate living environment. In addition to still lifes, she mainly painted landscapes and the buildings, people and animals integrated into them. A common motif is the Kienitz church itself, which was depicted from almost every perspective and in every season. Other motifs are churches from the area (Alttrebbin, Herzfelde, Alt Barnim, Wilhelmsaue, Wuschewier, Stetzing), the “Alter Fritz” inn in Altlewin , the post mill in Wilhelmsaue , the Oder port of Kienitz, dykes, farms, stork nests, sunflower fields, special ones Road sections with groups of trees (e.g. way to Sophiental). The Oder is shown again and again, in winter as an icy river in autumn as flood. More distant motifs can also be found, such as the Oder near Lebus and the famous Adonis roses there, which are rare for this northern region . She also represented the Polish town of Sierkierki (German Zackerick ) several times.

Erna Roder only painted motifs from her own perspective. In this respect, she did not refer to role models. The works created by her arose solely from her. Many motifs appear frequently in her pictures, but each picture is unmistakable. The people and animals depicted in the pictures were mostly known to her, so that she could also tell anecdotes about them. She recorded changes in her environment in this way. Due to this concrete reference and the veracity of the presentation, these unique pictures have the character of a chronicle.

Sayings

Two of her sayings show Erna Roder's relationship to the motifs she portrayed:

• To a couple from Berlin who had bought a Tempera picture with a horse and cart from her, she said: "I cannot paint this picture again because the horse has died."
• She once commented on the postcard calendar for the next year: "I have no pictures for January and February because there was no winter this year."

Postcard calendar

A postcard calendar was published annually from 1992 to 2002, edited and designed by Erna Roder. Total production : Zumm Druck & Satz KG Berlin

The calendars, including the cover, each contain 13 motifs, in the first years tempera paintings on church slate, from the mid-1990s increasingly pastel graphics. Erna Roder chose a suitable Bible verse for each motif .

Awards

• 2007: Medal of Merit of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany

literature

• Erwin Nippert: The Oderbruch. On the history of a German landscape , Brandenburgisches Verlagshaus 1995, ISBN 3-89488-077-5 , ISBN 978-3-89488-077-4

• Gesine Wolfinger: "Pastor's wife paints for the salvation of her church", Berliner Zeitung July 27, 1999
• Wolfgang Kohrt: "You have to keep order - after Kienitz to Erna Roder, the painting pastor's wife from the Oderbruch", Berliner Zeitung May 29, 1998
• Erna Roder - personal communication