Fernand Semma

Fernand Semma (until 1984 Horst Ferdinand Semma ; born May 16, 1944 in Rastatt ; † October 27, 1999 in Heidelberg ) was a German artist and sculptor. He was a student of Philipp Mendler, who had studied with Hans Wimmer , the former professor of sculpture at the Nuremberg Art Academy . Between 1987 and 1993, Fernand Semma developed a clear artistic language of form. Up to 1999 he mainly created sculptures, figures and reliefs with reduced and slim silhouette, as well as thematically accompanying drawings and lyrical works. The oeuvre of Fernand Semma is the concept art associate and in the custom mythology anchored. He realized sculptor symposia and exhibitions and received awards for his works.

Life

Fernand Semma was the son of Anna Rosa Semma and Henry Maylard. He did not get to know his father, as he returned to France after the chaos of war. His mother Anna Rosa Semma let him grow up believing that he was of a noble family, as the assumption suggests that his ancestral line can be traced back to the family branch of Franz Hubert von Tiele-Winckler . These two aspects shaped his later artistic content immensely.

Born in the Hotel Schwert in Rastatt, he spent the first two years of his life in a foster family near his relatives in Plieningen. Anna Rosa Semma was able to recover financially and built a life for herself with her son in the north Baden Odenwald in the Neckar-Odenwald district , where she married Ferdinand Köppen in 1956. Fernand Semma started school in Hardheimer Schloss and first learned the baker's trade in Hardheim in the Bödigheimer bakery. He then did military service and then spent several years as a journeyman in Alsace , where he trained as a pastry chef.

In 1971 Fernand Semma married Elisabeth Semma (née Bauer) from Königheim and started a family. On August 17, 1972, after the birth of his first daughter Nicole-Isabelle Semma, Fernand Semma suffered a flour dust allergy from which he could no longer recover. He changed his job and worked from then on as a paramedic for the Red Cross in Bad Mergentheim . His first son, André Semma, was born in this city on February 6, 1975.

From 1976 to 1979 Fernand Semma completed retraining to become a wood sculptor and thus turned his hobby into a profession. He realized his first vernissage entitled Castles as an autodidact in 1973 at the Volksbank in Bad Mergentheim. With the miniature castles created for this exhibition, which were originally intended as toys for his children, he applied to Philipp Mendler at the State Vocational School for Sculptors in Bischofsheim an der Rhön , where, at the age of 35, he was the oldest student of his year and trained as a wood sculptor and graduated barrel painter .

For organizational and spatial reasons, the young Semma family decided to move to Hardheim. Fernand Semma founded his first Atelier Chateauneuf in Inselgasse 8 . He based the name of his place of work on his French roots and the beginnings of his art.

On January 6, 1979 the family was again enlarged by Caroliné Josefa Inna Semma, who was born in Hardheim. On February 8, 1984, the youngest son, Philippé-Fernand Semma, was born in Hardheim.

In 1980, Fernand Semma accepted the invitation from Josef Frank, the mayor of Buchen , and restored one of the oldest half-timbered houses. In 1982 the Semma family moved into the historic building that still shapes the cityscape today. Fernand Semma set up his studio Chateauneuf I in the new extension with a view of the moat and worked there until the end of his life. In 1984 he received an award for exemplary building from the Chamber of Architects. In 1984 the ZDF program Freizeit reported on Fernand Semma. He organized sculpture symposiums, national and international exhibitions and frequent commissions were the result. In 1985 he was commissioned by the American author Erika Hartmann to create the death mask for Johannes Gall, the illegitimate son of the Austrian composer Gustav Mahler . In 1985 and 1986 his work Objekt Wasser caused discussions in Buchen and in the national press as well as in the art scene. In 1987 after the polemics surrounding the object of water and a related nervous breakdown, Fernand Semma faced the sudden death of his mother. During the liquidation of his mother's apartment, Fernand Semma accidentally discovered his family's pedigree and Aryan records , which could be traced back to 1756, as well as his East Prussian roots. The artist began his genealogy research and addressed this influence in his subsequent works. Originally the little house at Mühltalstrasse 10 in Buchen was intended to accommodate his students, whom he taught from 1983 to 1985, but in 1988 he set up his second studio there, Chateauneuf II . A relief with the inscription "The silence is master of the unrest" can still be found at the entrance portal.

Fernand Semma devoted himself exclusively to his free art from 1987 and for the rest of his life. His first marriage ended in divorce in 1991, and he suffered a stroke from which he largely recovered by 1993. In 1991 and 1992 Fernand Semma carried out a commission for the Liberal Jewish Community of Giesen , where he designed the Torah shrine. His partner at the time, Juliane Lensch, who accompanied him from 1991 to 1994, devoted herself to klezmer music in the humanities . This influence encouraged Fernand Semma to trace his Jewish ancestors and ultimately convert to Judaism .

In 1995 Fernand Semma entered into a second marriage with Claudia Assimus. He was diagnosed with lung cancer in August 1999 and died the following October in the head clinic at Heidelberg University Hospital . On February 23, 1999, his third daughter, Naomi Elena Fernette Semma, was born in Buchen.

During his lifetime, the sculptor designed his house in Buchener Mühltal into a total work of art and left behind a broad oeuvre, which today is mainly to be found in private ownership. Many of his works can also be found in public ownership. In addition to the Buchen district museum, the Ritter Museum , the state of Baden-Württemberg and Kirchberg an der Jagst should be mentioned here. A spectrum of his works is anchored in the Fernand Semma-Parcours of the city of Buchen. The log house at Buchener Waldschwimmbad, which Fernand Semma completed in 1999 for his donkey Caruso and which is his last work, as well as the historic house of the Semma family at Hofstrasse 5 in Buchen and the little house in Buchener Mühltalstrasse are worth mentioning.

literature

• Juliane Lensch: Klezmer: From the roots of Eastern Europe to patchwork in the USA , Wolke, Hofheim 2010, ISBN 978-3936000450
• Claudia Assimus: Fire strikes under my hands , retrospective 2002, Bezirksmuseum Buchen, 2002 (catalog)
• Sculptures Summer in Seegarten Amorbach , Galerie Kreuzer and City of Amorbach, 1998 (catalog)
• Berwartstreppe , Hochschloss Bad Mergentheim, 1996 (catalog)
• Earth-Sign-Earth , Kunstverein Neckar Odenwald, 1992 (catalog)

Web links

• Biography of Fernand Semma on the website of the District Museum Book
• Atelier Chateauneuf , website of Fernand Semma's daughter Isabelle Semma

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Tanja Radan: Documentary film about the Buchen sculptor Fernand Semma in: Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung , February 11, 2014
2. ↑ Biography of Fernand Semma on the website of the District Museum Book