Friedrich Adler (artist)

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Friedrich Adler's birthplace in Laupheim (today a restaurant)
Art Nouveau table lamp (1900)
Bebrit bowl (1935)

Friedrich Adler (born April 29, 1878 in Laupheim ; died 1942 in Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp ), a representative of Art Nouveau and Art Deco , was known as an architect, furniture designer, ceramist and above all for his designs for metalwork and textile printing processes . Later (from around 1929/30), as one of the early plastic and industrial designers, he designed household items made of phenolic resins ( phenoplasts ) and urea resins ( aminoplasts ).

In 1907 Adler married Bertha Haymann. The marriage had five children. Bertha Adler died of the Spanish flu in 1918 . In 1920 Friedrich Adler married his student, the textile artist Frieda Erika Fabisch, known as Fef. With Frieda Adler, who also looked after the children from his first marriage, he had two more children. While some of the older children emigrated to the USA during the Weimar Republic, Frieda Adler emigrated to Cyprus with two daughters in 1934. In 1935 Jakob Adler, Friedrich's eldest brother, a merchant and a respected citizen of Laupheim until the start of the Nazi policy of exclusion and persecution, committed suicide. In 1936 Friedrich Adler visited his family in Cyprus during a trip to Palestine and saw them for the last time. In 1937 the youngest son of Friedrich and Frieda Adler was born in Nicosia . Like his son, the ceramist and musician Paul Wilhelm Adler, who lived in Berlin, Friedrich Adler was no longer able to escape the murderous Nazi state. Both were murdered in Auschwitz, Friedrich Adler in 1942, his son in 1944. Edmund Adler, Friedrich Adler's two years older brother, was murdered in Treblinka in autumn 1942.

Life

Friedrich Adler grew up as the son of a Jewish family in Laupheim in Upper Swabia. His birthplace in Kapellenstrasse - built in the neo-renaissance style - now houses a restaurant with a Friedrich Adler room . The father Isidor Adler, master confectioner who later ran a grocery wholesaler, encouraged the son's artistic talent, which was recognized early on.

Friedrich Adler studied from 1894 to 1898 at the Kunstgewerbeschule (from 1928 Landeskunstschule) in Munich . In 1902 he completed another year of study at the newly founded teaching and experimental studios for applied and free art ( Debschitz School ) with Hermann Obrist and Wilhelm von Debschitz . There he took up his first teaching activity from 1903 to 1907. He continued this from 1907 to 1933 at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Hamburg . At the same time, from 1910 to 1913, he led four masterclasses at what was then the Bavarian Trade Museum in Nuremberg and exhibited a synagogue room in the Cologne Werkbund exhibition in 1914. His work in Hamburg was interrupted from 1914 to 1918 by military service as an officer's deputy during the First World War. Returned to the Hamburg School of Applied Arts in 1918, he was appointed professor there in 1927 . Numerous developments in Art Deco and handicrafts took place during this period . He was the initiator of the Hamburg artist festivals in the Curiohaus , which he organized with his wife Frieda, known as Fef, and several artist friends.

The synagogue windows of Friedrich Adler, "12 Tribes of Israel", Tel Aviv Museum of Art (courtesy of Ruben Frankenstein)

After Konrad Goldmann acquired the Markenhof in 1919 , he set up a small synagogue there and had the windows, which symbolize the Twelve Tribes of Israel , built by Eduard Stritt based on a design by Friedrich Adler . Although Goldmann had to sell the Markenhof to the Freiburg Evangelical Abbey in 1925 , the subsequent owners allowed him to expand the synagogue windows in 1931. In the same year he gave it to Meir Dizengoff , who then handed it over to the Tel Aviv Museum of Art , which he founded in 1932 . This museum, which at that time still bore the name of Meir's late wife Zina, was located in their shared home, the later Independence Hall . Friedrich Adler traveled to Palestine in 1936 and saw his Markenhof window again in the Art Museum in Tel Aviv . Copies of the windows can be seen today in the Museum of the History of Christians and Jews in Laupheim . The columns that originally framed the windows are in the Beit Haemek kibbutz near Naharija .

From around 1929/30, Adler designed numerous household items, including for the Bebrit works in Bebra. He was one of the first to use plastics for this purpose, which at the time were known as molded materials (phenoplast, aminoplast).

After his dismissal or compulsory retirement by the National Socialists in 1933 , he was forced to earn his living through private work. Since he was not allowed to become a member of the Reich Chamber of Culture, income was limited to individual orders. From 1934 to 1941 he was able to teach individual students as a private arts and crafts teacher within the framework of the Jewish Cultural Association. Here he gave lectures, organized exhibitions and published articles on art theory in the monthly newspapers of the Jüdischer Kulturbund.

On July 11, 1942, he was deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp , classified as unfit for work during the selection process and murdered a short time later.

Friedrich Adler's extraordinarily diverse work includes design activities for architecture (sacred buildings), sculpture (architectural ornamentation, tombs), glass windows, furniture and interior design, metalwork (household items, jewelry, sacred art), ceramics, textiles (knotted and embroidered patterns, textile printing), work in Wood, ivory and serpentine and flashed glasses. He provided design work for over 50 arts and crafts companies, including the silver goods factory P. Bruckmann & Sons in Heilbronn , the metal goods factory for cabaret "Osiris" by Walter Scherf and the arts and crafts metal goods factory "Orion" by Georg Friedrich Schmitt , both in Nuremberg.

From 1994 onwards, Friedrich Adler's art became accessible to a wide audience with the exhibition "Friedrich Adler - Between Art Nouveau and Art Déco" with the stations Munich City Museum , Germanic National Museum in Nuremberg , Grassi Museum Leipzig , Museum of Art and Industry in Hamburg, Museum Zons- Friedestrom Castle , Maurice Spertus Museum of Judaica in Chicago and Schranne Municipal Gallery in Laupheim.

Honors

  • In his hometown of Laupheim a bronze plaque has been pointing to the house where he was born since 1989. The secondary school there bears his name: Friedrich-Adler-Realschule (FARS).
Stumbling block in front of the University of Fine Arts in Hamburg
  • At the University of Fine Arts in Hamburg, the former State School of Applied Arts , a commemorative plaque was placed in 1989 with the text: “Here - in the current building of the University of Fine Arts - taught from 1913 (right 1907!) - 1933 Friedrich Adler, née. 1878 in Laupheim. In 1922 he was appointed professor here. He was artistically active in a variety of ways. He was unusually popular as a teacher. In 1933 he was forced into retirement by the Nazis. He was only allowed to teach Jewish students. On July 11th, 1942 he was deported to Auschwitz. ” And underneath the quote: “ ... our life would be poor if we weren't born with imagination. ”(From an essay by Friedrich Adler from 1937).
  • Furthermore, a stumbling block in the sidewalk in front of the main staircase of the University of Fine Arts in Hamburg reminds of Friedrich Adler.

literature

Web links

Commons : Friedrich Adler  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 06 ADLER Jakob. Accessed December 1, 2019 .
  2. ↑ a b Stolpersteine ​​in Hamburg | Find names, places and biographies. Accessed December 1, 2019 .
  3. ^ Stumbling blocks in Hamburg | Find names, places and biographies. Accessed December 1, 2019 .
  4. ↑ 04 ADLER Edmund. Accessed December 1, 2019 .
  5. ↑ 03 ADLER Isidore. Accessed December 1, 2019 .
  6. ^ Peter Jessen: German form in the war year, The Cologne exhibition . In: Deutscher Werkbund (Hrsg.): Yearbook of the German Werkbund . tape 1915 . F.Bruckmann A.-G., Munich 1915, p. 64-65 .
  7. ↑ a b c For a detailed description of the windows see: Ernst Schäll: Glass painting drafts by Friedrich Adler and the executing glass art establishments
  8. ^ Adler Friedrich - detail page - LEO-BW. Accessed December 1, 2019 .
  9. ^ Friedrich Adler | Sign of remembrance. Accessed December 1, 2019 (German).
personal data
SURNAME Adler, Friedrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German designer, building sculptor and professor
DATE OF BIRTH April 29, 1878
PLACE OF BIRTH Laupheim
DATE OF DEATH 1942
Place of death Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp