Eugene Batz

Eugen Batz (born February 7, 1905 in Velbert ; † October 12, 1986 in Wuppertal ) was a German painter and photographer . Batz was a student of the Bauhaus and an important representative of the abstract art of painting in Germany in the post-war period and an important artistic photographer.

biography

youth

Batz became a member of the Sonnenwinkel Wandervogel group and traveled with them in 1923 and 1924 to the Giant Mountains , Bremen , Hamburg , Lübeck , Travemünde and Worpswede .

From 1925 to 1927 he attended the arts and crafts school in Elberfeld . He traveled to Paderborn , Corvey , Holzminden , Hildesheim , Goslar , Halberstadt , Braunschweig , Berlin and Frankfurt (Oder) and painted the first landscape paintings and portraits . In 1928 he took his first artistic photos of industrial landscapes and factories, which were clearly influenced by the photo aesthetics of the New Objectivity .

Studies and 1930s

In 1929 Batz began studying at the Bauhaus in Dessau . There he attended the preliminary course with Josef Albers and from 1930 the advertising lessons with Joost Schmidt , the photography lessons with Walter Peterhans , the analytical drawing lessons with Wassily Kandinsky and the free painting class with Paul Klee , whose art impressed him very much. During this time he painted his first abstract pictures and had his first solo exhibition at the Bauhaus. In 1930 he took part in the Kunstblatt exhibition Artists in the Reich in the Reckendorfhaus in Berlin.

In 1931 Batz moved to the Düsseldorf Art Academy , where he became a master student of Paul Klee. He made friends with Jankel Adler . In 1932 he made trips to Berlin and the Baltic Sea (to Rügen and Hiddensee ). Here emerged watercolors and abstract etchings . His photographic oeuvre of the early 1930s oscillates between new objective "objectivity" and the subjective views of the so-called new vision , as it was at the Bauhaus a. a. was practiced by László Moholy-Nagy .

In 1932 Batz took part in the exhibition The young Rhineland in the villa on Königsallee in Düsseldorf . In 1933 he traveled to Collioure in southern France for half a year . In 1934 he visited Paul Klee in exile in Bern . He dealt with constructive picture compositions with and with abstract figure representations. In 1935 he visited Bern for three months and then toured Switzerland and Italy .

post war period

After the Second World War , in 1946 he took part in the exhibitions New Graphics from West and South Germany in Berlin and Existent Art in Cologne .

In 1947 Batz became a member of the Thursday Society in Alfter near Bonn , which set itself the task of promoting a revitalization of cultural events in the Rhineland after the Nazi oppression. (Together with Hubert Berke , Joseph Fassbender , Georg Meistermann and Hann Trier , Wilhelm Hack , Josef Haubrich , Hermann Schnitzler and Toni Feldenkirchen ).

In 1953 he toured Collioure again. From 1954 to 1962 Batz painted in the Informel style . In 1957 and 1958 he toured Italy again. In 1959 he took part in the II. Documenta in Kassel.

In the 1960s Batz traveled several times to Italy and France, in the 1970s to Greece and Turkey, and from the late 1970s to a year before his death, repeatedly to Tunisia . In addition to oil paintings, he created countless watercolors and an extensive body of photographic works, some of which are committed to the image conception of Informel.

Exhibitions

(Selection)

• 1948 solo exhibitions in Münster , Witten , Cologne ; on the day of abstract art at Alfter Castle near Bonn / Rheinische Kunst, yesterday and today in the Kunstverein Braunschweig / modern German art since 1933 in the Kunsthalle Bern / group 1945 in the Märkisches Museum in Witten / Ruhr / progressive painting and contemporary graphics and sculpture in the Hella Nebelung Gallery in Düsseldorf
• 1948 Solo exhibitions at the Otto Ralf gallery in Braunschweig (together with Hubert Berke, Joseph Fassbender and Hann Trier), Dr. Werner Rusche in Cologne (together with Willi Baumeister, Hubert Berke, Joseph Fassbender, Georg Meistermann and Hann Trier) / Exhibition of West German Artists Association in the Karl Ernst Osthaus Museum Hagen / New Rhenish Secession in the Ehrenhof in Düsseldorf
• 1949 Solo exhibition in Wuppertal / West German Artists Association in the Karl Ernst Osthaus Museum in Hagen / German painting and sculpture of the present in Cologne / West German graphic of the present in Soest / Rhenish painters and sculptors in Dortmund
• 1950 The ancient myth in the new art in the Kestner Society Hanover / New Rhenish Secession in the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf and Munich
• 1951 German graphics in the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam / Art Cabinet KH Horemans, Augurium in Antwerp / New Rhenish Secession Art Association in the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf / West German and Berlin painters in Berlin
• 1952 New Rhenish Secession in Cologne
• 1953 Art on the Rhine in Wiesbaden
• 1954 International secession in Leverkusen and Baden-Baden
• 1955 New Rhenish Secession with a special show on his 50th birthday in Krefeld / solo exhibition of etchings in Kranenburg
• 1958 Solo exhibition in Wuppertal / From Dürer to Picasso. Master graphics in the Kunsthalle Bremen / Modern German graphics in Duisburg
• 1959 Solo exhibition in the Günther Franke Gallery in Munich / German Art 1959 / I in Baden-Baden / Participant in the documenta II in Kassel
• 1960 Solo exhibition in the Studio for New Art, Art and Museum Association, Städtisches Museum, Wuppertal and in the Städtische Galerie, Haus Coburg, Delmenhorst / Annual show of Bergischer Künstler in Wuppertal / Arte alemã desde 1945 in the Museu de Arte Moderne in Rio de Janeiro / The question of the future at the Wittenborn Gallery in New York
• 1961 Solo exhibitions watercolors, paintings, drawings: Kölnischer Kunstverein, Cologne / Oil paintings, watercolors, drawings in the Günther Franke Gallery in Munich / Bauhaus II. Generation in the Suzanne Bollag Gallery in Zurich / 21st International Watercolor Biennial in the Brooklyn Museum, New York / Grosse Düsseldorf art exhibition in the Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf
• 1962 Annual Show of Bergischer Künstler : Von der Heydt Museum, Wuppertal.
• 1964 Solo exhibition changes in pictorial form elements. Development series from the work of Eugen Batz and Fritz Levedag , Bauhaus Archive, Ernst Ludwig House, Darmstadt / 1st International of the Mathildenhöhe drawing in Darmstadt
• 1965 Solo exhibition “Paintings, watercolors, drawings, etchings” : Art and Museum Association, Wuppertal
• 1966 Art on the Wupper 1919–1933 : Art and Museum Association, Wuppertal; West German Artists Association : Karl Ernst Osthaus Museum, Hagen; and annual show Bergischer Künstler : Von der Heydt Museum, Wuppertal
• 1968 50 years of Bauhaus in Stuttgart in Württemberg (also in London , Amsterdam , Paris , Pasadena , Chicago , Toronto , Buenos Aires , Tokyo ) / West German Artists' Association in the Karl Ernst Osthaus Museum and Hagen Town Hall
• 1969 New Rhenish Secession in the Städtische Kunsthalle Düsseldorf
• 1973 alternatives. Painting around 1945–1950 in the Von der Heydt Museum in Wuppertal
• 1974 Solo exhibition of photos 1928–1972 in the Von der Heydt Museum in Wuppertal
• 1975 Solo exhibition of paintings and watercolors in the Von der Heydt Museum in Wuppertal.
• 1976 Solo exhibition of watercolors and etchings 1932–1935 in the Günter Fuchs gallery in Düsseldorf.
• 1977 Solo exhibitions of photographs in the gallery 61 in Velbert and watercolors and photos from Tunisia in the gallery Günther Fuchs in Düsseldorf.
• 1978 Solo exhibition retrospective 1928–1978 in Velbert-Neviges / The experimental photo in Germany 1918–1940 in the Galleria del Levante in Munich / Between resistance and adaptation. Art in Germany 1933–1945 Academy of Arts Berlin / Lyrical Abstraction in Germany 1934–1960 in the Günter Fuchs Gallery in Düsseldorf / 30 years ago in the Cologne Art Association
• 1979 Solo exhibition of complete works in Ravensburg / Young painters at the Bauhaus , Galleria del Levante in Munich.
• 1980 Solo exhibitions of paintings and drawings in Delmenhorst / photographs: Architectures from Tunisia in Velbert-Neviges / watercolors from Greece (1977) and gouaches from Switzerland (1963) in the Günter Fuchs gallery in Düsseldorf / watercolors : in the Kunstverein Heidenheim an der Brenz , " Photographs ” in the Wuppertal City Library / watercolors in the Marburg art association / watercolors and gouaches 1932–1980 in the district museum Zons / painting from 1929 to 1980 in the Apfelbaum gallery in Karlsruhe / Bauhaus - 2nd generation in the Claus Lincke gallery in Düsseldorf.
• 1981 Solo exhibitions of photographs 1970–1981 in the Bauhaus Archive, Berlin and watercolors in the Kunstforum Heilbronn
• 1982 Solo exhibitions "Watercolors & Etchings" in the Gallery Jutta Radicke, McLean , Virginia / Oil paintings and watercolors in the Gallery W, Wuppertal / "Art Society of the International Monetary Fund" in Washington, DC / Watercolors in the Galerie Günter Fuchs in Düsseldorf. / “Kandinsky lessons at the Bauhaus” in the gallery at the Kunstverlag in Weingarten
• 1983 Solo exhibitions of etchings in the Klingspor Museum in Offenbach am Main and paintings in the Zons district museum / "Bauhaus photography" in the Musée Réattu Arles / "Bauhaus artists" in the gallery of the Weingarten art publisher / "Kandinsky: Russian and Bauhaus Years 1915–1933" at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum New York City
• 1984 Solo exhibition in the Galerie Döbele Ravensburg and in the Kunsthalle Bremerhaven / Bauhaus-Photography in the Musée d'Art Moderne de la ville de Paris; / From here - two months of new German art in Düsseldorf
• 1985 Solo exhibitions in the Döbele gallery in Stuttgart and in the Scheffel gallery in Bad Homburg vor der Höhe
• 1990 Solinger Kunstverein exhibition
• 2005 Work exhibition for the 100th birthday, Von der Heydt-Museum Wuppertal, Kunsthalle Barmen
• 2007 Exhibition of the Sparda-Bank West Foundation at WGZ BANK, Düsseldorf
• 2008 Eugen Batz. A Bauhaus artist photographs , Galerie Epikur Wuppertal, Wuppertal
• 2008 Photographs 1928-1978 / From the Bauhaus to Tunisia , galerie molitoris, Hamburg

Web links

• Literature by and about Eugen Batz in the catalog of the German National Library
• Eugen Batz website
• Materials by and about Eugen Batz in the documenta archive

Individual evidence

1. ^ Rainer K. Wick: Eugen Batz. A Bauhaus artist photographs., Wuppertal and Cologne 2008, context. Series of publications for art, art education and cultural education at the Bergische Universität Wuppertal, vol. 6.