Erwin Hahs

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Erwin Hahs (born July 27, 1887 in Berlin ; † March 31, 1970 in Zernsdorf ) was a German painter and graphic artist and professor at the University of Art and Design Burg Giebichenstein in Halle.

life and work

Erwin Hahs comes from a Berlin cloth merchant family. After completing secondary school in Berlin-Charlottenburg , he began an apprenticeship as a decorative painter in 1905 . Until 1907 he was a student of Hans Seliger under the artistic direction of César Klein . Hahs learned in volunteering to Expressionism know. From 1908 he studied in by Bruno Paul led the Royal Museum of Decorative Arts educational institution in Berlin with E. R. White. Hahs was fascinated by the style of Hans von Marées - he remained true to this model throughout his life.

Hahs was friends with Gustav Weidanz and Karl Müller , who, like him, later became professors at the Burg Giebichenstein art school in Halle. It is also worth mentioning the contact made through Georg Kolbe to the Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius , who commissioned Hahs and Georg Kolbe to contribute a mural in the German pavilion that was shown at the 1914 Werkbund exhibition in Cologne .

In the war years 1915 to 1918, Hahs volunteered for war in France . At the end of 1918, Paul Thiersch appointed him to the Burg Giebichenstein art school in Halle (Saale) on the recommendation of Bruno Paul . In the following year, Hahs was co-signer of the first manifesto of the Labor Council for Art and put together a painting class in Halle as a professor. He continued to maintain contacts with the Bauhaus and became a member of the “ November Group ”. Since 1926 he and Hans Finsler headed the advertising workshop at Giebichenstein Castle.

In the years that followed, the expressionist style slowly changed to more abstract forms.

Gropius' basic idea in the Bauhaus was also important for Hahs. That is, to combine handicrafts, applied arts, architecture and art styles into a total work of art, but he did not understand his doctrine as a mere copy of the Bauhaus idea for the Halle school. The style deviated from the exact geometric forms of the Bauhaus, because the painterly abstractions were given amorphous and figurative elements in addition to clear geometric forms .

In 1933 Hahs was dismissed as professor at Burg Giebichenstein and in 1934 his art was classified as " degenerate ". In 1935 his wall paintings were destroyed. From 1938 to 1940 he worked as a restorer in Linz . In 1942 he became a teacher at the Winckelmann Gymnasium in Stendal . There he taught and inspired a. a. the later painter Werner Zöhl . It was there that Hahs created the Great Requiem, inspired by the ancient Ildefonso group , in 1944/45 . To do this, he painted over a critical commissioned work he had made for the school auditorium, which was soon to be removed : a “ghostly” picture of Hitler - “in the background houses in red flames” (Iris Hahs-Hoffstetter).

After the Second World War he received the Winckelmann Medal from the Stendal City Council in 1946 .

He returned to Halle and took over his former professorship for a few years until he was pushed out of office by new political developments.

In addition to the Hahs class, there was a painting class held by Charles Crodel in the 1950s at Burg Giebichenstein; they represented both directions, but were looking for new ways of expressing the formal with their students. That was a reason to see this art school as a "center of formalism". It reached its climax in the so-called " formalism dispute ". In his diary in 1954, he interpreted the painting “Dispute about Christ's Rock”, which he created at the time, as a parable of the destruction of the spirit of the art college.

Due to the censorship, the further development of the classical modern style of Erwin Hah in the GDR did not materialize . He withdrew and died in Zernsdorf in 1970 . In 1972 and 1987 there were two posthumous exhibitions in Eisenach and in Halle (Saale) and Potsdam . But even the late reception was degraded by the cultural officials of the GDR.

The students in the painting class were Werner Büttner , Otto Damm, Lilo Deisenroth, Christa Dürk, Rudolf Heinrich , Ulrich Knispel , Herbert Lange, Otto Möhwald , Heinz Mutterlose, Karl-Erich Müller, Werner Rataiczyk , Wolfgang Speer, Meinolf Splett, Fritz Stehwien, Hilde Strauss and Hilla Wuttge.

Erwin Hahs was married to the painter and graphic artist Iris Hahs-Hoffstetter († 1986) since 1932. The marriage has two daughters, born in 1935 and 1940.

Works (selection)

The catalog raisonné created by Angela Dolgner (in the process of being published) includes around 1700 works so far.

  • Erwin Hahs painted with industrial paints in particular, not only for the large wall and stage sets, many small formats are also designed in this way.
  • In 1913 he designed a mural in the German Pavilion together with Georg Kolbe for the Werkbund exhibition in Cologne.
  • In 1924 he created colored murals for the hospital in Halle's police headquarters and in the children's home on Gimritz .
  • In 1948 he painted sets for the city theater in Cottbus for the following productions: Wagner's Tannhäuser , for the Goethe play Iphigenie auf Tauris and Meier Helmbrechts Herrmann Mostar .
  • In 1949, with the support of students, a mural was created for the dining room in the Buna chemical works , and then in other public buildings.
  • In 1950 designs for Puccini's Gianni Schicchi followed in the Hallesches Stadttheater .
  • 1954-56 "dispute over Christ Rock" ( Sun ).
  • In 1958 the triptych for the chapel of the historical cemetery in Zernsdorf was created.
  • In 1961 he contributed woodblock prints and colored woodcuts to a Christmas book .
  • In 1961 he designed a mural in the former Zernsdorf parish hall of the Protestant church (Hahs' last mural).
  • Leaves on Wolfgang Borchert's Outside the Door (rediscovered 2017).

literary:

  • The book of my soul. Excerpts from diaries 1945–1952. Edited by Dorit Litt, Gabriele Winter. Book design: Ingrid Schultheiß, text selection: Gunda Graewe. Edition Burg Giebichenstein, [Halle] 1995, OCLC 258612072 . (limited edition)

Exhibitions

posthumously:

literature

  • Erwin Hahs (1887–1970). Catalog of the exhibition in Halle and Potsdam; Halle / Moritzburg 1987.
  • Erwin Hahs - lacquer pictures (1929–1939). Catalog for the exhibition of the same name, October 14 to November 14, 1999. Edited by Dorit Litt and Matthias Rataiczyk for the Kunstverein “Talstraße” e. V., Halle (Saale) 1999, ISBN 3-932962-06-0 .
  • Erwin Hahs (1887–1970). Exhibitions Halle and Potsdam 1987.
  • Burg Giebichenstein: The Halle Art School from the beginning to the present. State Gallery Moritzburg Halle, Badisches Landesmuseum Karlsruhe 1992.
  • Angela Dolgner : Erwin Hahs and Doris Keetman - The early years. Art Association "Talstrasse" e. V., Halle 2005, ISBN 3-932962-26-5 .
  • Katharina Heider: From applied arts to industrial design. The Burg Giebichenstein art college in Halle (Saale) from 1945 to 1958. Publishing house and database for the humanities, Weimar 2010, ISBN 978-3-89739-672-2 .
  • Joachim Lehmann: Erwin Hahs. From his life and work. Evangelical Publishing House, Berlin 1968.
  • Dorit Litt (ed.): Ostracized formalists. Art from Halle 1945 to 1963. Kunstverein Talstraße, Halle 1998, ISBN 3-932962-03-6 .
  • Peter Noss:  Erwin Hahs. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 18, Bautz, Herzberg 2001, ISBN 3-88309-086-7 , Sp. 563-576.  ( Article / beginning of article in Internet archive )
  • Guenter Roese (Ed.): Erwin Hahs, Tektonik des Geistes. Selected works on paper on life stations and self-testimonies in the diaries. On the occasion of the exhibition Erwin Hahs (1887–1970), works on paper in the Kunstkaten Ahrenshoop, from November 23, 2008 to January 18, 2009 and the planned follow-up exhibitions in Halle and Berlin in 2009/10 (= roese edition ). MCM Art Verlag, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-9811946-4-7 .
  • Joerg Wunderlich, Sven Grosskreutz: Erwin Hahs (= painter and work. No. 5). Edited by Kulturbund Dahme - Spreewald e. V. on the occasion of the exhibition “In der Landschaft. Erwin Hahs - Painting and Graphics from 1908–1960 ”from April 24 to June 14, 2015 in the community center in Königs Wusterhausen. Hasenverlag, Halle (Saale) 2015, ISBN 978-3-945377-14-7 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ For conceptualization "amorphous" see amorphous material .
  2. ↑ Since 2017 in the Regensburg Art Forum Ostdeutsche Galerie (KOG).
  3. ↑ The suspected overpainting was confirmed by an X-ray in 2016. Karen Grunow: The Unknown Great. The artist Erwein Hahs, born 130 years ago, is gradually being rediscovered. In: The Church . No. 30, July 23, 2017, p. 15.
  4. ↑ a b c d e Karen Grunow: The unknown great. The artist Erwin Hahs, born 130 years ago, is gradually being rediscovered. In: The Church . No. 30, July 23, 2017, p. 15.
  5. ↑ a b c Professor ERWIN HAHS. Painter, graphic artist, teacher and set designer (1887–1970). In: zernsdorf.de, Margit Mach, January 15, 2016, accessed on September 3, 2017 (with literature list).
  6. ↑ a b Monument altar wall. Altar wall of the former Protestant parish room. In: zernsdorf.de, Margit Mach, October 23, 2012, accessed on September 4, 2017 (photography).
  7. ↑ Dorit Litt: Image dossiers on "Streit um Christi Rock" (1956) by Erwin Hahs. In: Bildatlas Art in the GDR . October 2012, accessed September 4, 2017.
  8. ↑ See also the 10th station of the cross .
  9. ↑ Monument to the historical cemetery. 2019 - anniversary "202 years". The old village cemetery becomes the "historical cemetery". In: zernsdorf.de, Margit Mach, accessed on November 1, 2019 (Section 1958 - Three -winged altar in the chapel. Status: September 1, 2019).
  10. ↑ Gerhard Rostin (Ed.): A star is drawn. A Christmas book. Illustrators: Werner Juza, Meinolf Splett, Erwin Hahs, Iris Hoffstetter, Karl Holfeld, Joachim Seidel Lehmann. VOB Union Verlag, Berlin 1961, DNB 451169921 ; 3rd edition, ibid. 1965, DNB 451169956 .
personal data
SURNAME Hahs, Erwin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter and graphic artist
DATE OF BIRTH July 27, 1887
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH March 31, 1970
Place of death Zernsdorf