Franz Mutzenbecher

Franz Mutzenbecher (born August 27, 1880 in Hamburg , † May 16, 1968 in Berlin-Wannsee ) was a German painter .

Franz Mutzenbecher with children in Dargun , on the occasion of a visit to his sister in 1959

biography

Mutzenbecher was born as the son of Johann August Fritz Mutzenbecher and Marie Mutzenbecher, nee. Bartels, born.

From 1898 he studied, supported by Alfred Lichtwark (1852–1914), at the Karlsruhe Art Academy with Ulrich Nitschke, with whom he remained in contact for life. 1904–1907 he was a master student of Leopold von Kalckreuth and 1907–1911 of Adolf Hölzel at the Stuttgart Art Academy. During his training he went on study trips to France, England, Belgium and Holland. He portrayed his sister Hilde for the exhibition of the Stuttgarter Künstlerbund in Dresden in 1904. In 1906 he belonged to the Pfullingen artists' colony "Erlenhof". In 1907 he took part with "splendid satirical sheets" at the first graphic exhibition of the German Association of Artists in the Book Trade Museum in Leipzig.

In 1908 he received his first orders for wall paintings and church pictures from Theodor Fischer, orders from Martin Elsässer and Bruno Taut followed.

In 1912 he moved to Berlin, where he mainly created pictures in connection with architecture. He became a permanent employee of the architects Bruno and Max Taut and Paul Mebes; At times he also worked with Walter Gropius, Paul Goesch, Paul and Karl Bonatz and the sculptor Gottlieb Elster. During this time, wall and ceiling paintings, colored glass windows and mosaics were created. Franz Mutzenbecher produced a. a. the legendary, moving images for the huge kaleidoscope that his friend Bruno Taut designed for his “glass house” at the Cologne Werkbund exhibition in 1914. For decades, Mutzenbecher was also an artistic consultant for coloring in some districts of Berlin. Since 1940 he has devoted himself exclusively to pure painting.

Mutzenbecher was a member of the Art Work Council , the German Association of Artists , the November Group and the Choriner Circle . Mutzenbecher owned a small piece of land on the island of Hiddensee and was acquainted with Gerhart Hauptmann .

From January 16 to February 13, 1965, Mutzenbecher was 85 years old, a retrospective of his works, organized by the painter Bertold Haag , took place in the art cabinet at the Schiller Theater in Berlin-Charlottenburg, in the presence of Max Taut ; the laudation was given by the musicologist Cornelia Schröder-Auerbach, sister of the painter and sculptor Johannes Ilmari Auerbach.

He was buried in the Ohlsdorf cemetery in the Mutzenbecher family grave in Hamburg-Ohlsdorf .

Works

• the painting of the Protestant church in Beutelsbach (two wall paintings "Adoration of the Shepherds" and "Ascension of Christ", created 1908–1909),
• four pictures from the life of Christ in the new church in Schwenningen in 1910,
• at the International Building Exhibition in Leipzig 1913 the painting, the majolica pictures and the mosaics in the vestibule, as well as all the ornaments in the "Monument of Iron" by Bruno Taut ,
• the painting of the village church in Unterriexingen near Ludwigsburg in 1906,
• Fresco painting in the Senate Hall of the Technical College for Design in Schwäbisch Gmünd 1909,
• the painting of the village church of Nieden in the Uckermark in 1911,
• Participation in the color design of the glass pavilion by Bruno Taut on the occasion of the Werkbund exhibition in Cologne in 1914
• the painting of the Nordsternhaus in Berlin-Schöneberg in 1913 and 1914,
• Reverse glass painting (?) Of a shop ceiling for the Kunstgewerbemuseum in Hagen (created in 1914 as part of the Cologne Werkbund exhibition , today in the Osthaus Museum Hagen ),
• the painting of the ballroom in the restaurant of the single home in Berlin-Schöneberg in 1922,
• the painting of Max Taut's houses in Vitte on Hiddensee in 1921 and 1922,
• the ceiling of the legendary coffee house "Café Nagler" on Moritzplatz in Berlin,
• the ceiling design company of the brothers Aron and Siegmund Hirsch "Kupfer- und Messingwerke" Berlin together with Paul Mebes,
• the color scheme for the design of the union building of the Allgemeiner_Deutscher_Gewerkschaftsbund ADGB in Berlin (today "Hermann-Schlimme-Haus") Inselstrasse / Wallstrasse in mid- 1923,
• the painting of the Gothic room in the town hall in Magdeburg ,
• the colored, mosaic window in the consecration tower of the Tannenberg monument around 1927,
• Fresco in a school in Pila (formerly Schneidemühl),
• Color glazing in the foyer of the Deutsche Länderbank AG in Berlin (Unter den Linden 80) in 1928,
• Colored glazing "The twelve-year-old Christ in the temple" in the garrison church in Ulm.

His early works have been preserved in the family, especially a portrait of his sister Hilde Mutzenbecher, which received good reviews at the 1904 art exhibition in Dresden.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ kuenstlerbund.de: Full members of the German Association of Artists since it was founded in 1903 / Mutzenbecher, Franz ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (accessed on November 19, 2015)  
2. ↑ Noam M. Elcott: "Kaleidoscope-Architecture": Scheerbart, Taut, and the Glass House. Columbia.edu , accessed December 18, 2017

literature

In 1907 Mutzenbecher was mentioned in the Illustrirte monthly magazine for modern painting, plastic, architecture, apartment art and artistic work for women next to Käthe Kollwitz , and one of his etchings was printed. The weekly newspaper Die Zeit paid tribute to his work in a note in 1950. Some of his work and some of his correspondence are in the archive of the Academy of Sciences in Berlin.

Web links

• Picture album for Franz Mutzenbecher
• Franz Mutzenbecher Collection in the archive of the Academy of Arts, Berlin