Friedrich Ahlers-Hestermann

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Arthur Siebelist : The Painter Friedrich Ahlers-Hestemann (1900)
Friedrich Ahlers-Hestermann 1906 , pen drawing by Jules Pascin

Friedrich Ahlers-Hestermann (born July 17, 1883 in Hamburg , † December 11, 1973 in Berlin ) was a German painter and art writer . He was a member of the Hamburg Artists 'Club from 1897 and the Hamburg Artists' Association from 1832 and a student at the Académie Matisse in Paris. After the First World War he was a co-founder of the Hamburg Secession . He lived with his wife, the Russian-German artist Alexandra Povòrina (1885–1963), in Hamburg, Munich, Cologne and Berlin. During the time of National Socialism, he withdrew into internal emigration . After the Second World War he was appointed founding director of the Hamburg State Art School .

Life

Arthur Siebelist: My students and I (1902), Ahlers-Hestermann on the right

Friedrich Ahlers-Hestermann came from a Hamburg merchant family who traditionally had planned a career other than an artistic one for the offspring. His father was the businessman Hugo Ahlers-Hestermann. Nevertheless, the family supported his self-chosen professional ambitions. He received his basic artistic training between 1899 and 1903 from the Hamburg nature painter Arthur Siebelist , on the recommendation of the Hamburg art hall director Alfred Lichtwark . In contrast to the art academies, which mainly worked after plaster casts in the studio, classes at Siebelist took place outdoors, at least in summer. Only in winter did they meet in a rented studio.

from left: Franz Nölken, Walter Voltmer and Friedrich Ahlers-Hestermann around 1902 in Hittfeld

Siebelist's appreciation for the painter Wilhelm Leibl initially also had an impact on Ahlers-Hestermann's painting style. Around 1900 he painted cozy domestic family scenes inspired by Leibl. The paintings that were created on the summer excursions in the country soon show an airy style of painting that stems from a love of colors and a light brushstroke.

Ahlers-Hestermann had his first exhibition participation in 1903 on the occasion of the spring exhibition at the Hamburger Kunsthalle. In the same year he finished his apprenticeship at Siebelist and together with Franz Nölken he set up his own studio. Although he soon found recognition as a painter in Hamburg, he looked for further development opportunities that the Hanseatic city, which at the time did not have an art academy, could not offer him.

Paris

Between 1907 and 1914 he stayed for a few months in Paris, the center of the artistic avant-garde. There he made contact with the German group of artists at the Café du Dôme . In 1909 he studied together at the Académie Matisse with the painter friends of the Hamburg Art Club Franz Nölken, Walter Alfred Rosam and Gretchen Wohlwill . Under the impressions of modern Parisian painting, especially from Matisse and Cézanne , Ahlers-Hestermann developed more and more his own style, which was to remain fundamentally connected to the representational. In Paris he also met his future wife in 1912, the St. Petersburg painter Alexandra Povòrina (actually Alexandra von Povorinskaya).

First World War

Ahlers-Hestermann returned to Hamburg in 1914, and Alexandra Povòrina followed him to his hometown after the outbreak of the First World War in the summer of the same year. He was not called up for military service because of a lung disease. With his partner he traveled to Limburg an der Lahn in 1915 in order to escape the anti-Russian atmosphere that was fueled by nationalism. In 1916, during a short stay in Munich, Povòrina gave birth to a son who died shortly after the birth.

Despite the war, his first artistic successes were achieved: the Hamburger Kunsthalle bought three of his paintings. In 1918 he became a teacher at the Gerda Koppel art school .

Hamburg and Cologne

Shortly after the end of the war, in 1919, Ahlers-Hestermann was instrumental in founding the Hamburg Secession together with Povòrina, Alma del Banco and Gretchen Wohlwill and Heinrich Steinhagen . This secession was not a split off, but was intended to embody an elite group of modern artists in the Hanseatic city who had set out to improve the general level of the fine arts and the overall cultural atmosphere of the city. In the twenties and twenties of the 20th century he went on numerous painting trips with Povòrina - especially to southern Germany. They met colleagues like Otto Modersohn in the New World artists' colony of the Würzburg painter Gertraud Rostosky . In the following years, Ahlers-Hestermann's level of awareness rose considerably, so that he received offers for teaching positions from other cities, for example from the academy in Breslau . From April 1924 to 1930 he was first chairman of the Hamburg Art Association .

In 1928 he accepted the position of professor for "picture painting, nude and nature drawing" at the Cologne factory schools , where u. a. Joseph Mader became his master student. The geographical proximity to Paris stimulated his engagement with French art again. He also co-founded the artist group “Gruppe '32”.

He frequented the house of the wealthy shipowner Bernhard Blumenfeld and taught his daughter Clara painting.

time of the nationalsocialism

With the takeover of the Nazis ended for Ahlers-Hestermann a professionally and socially fulfilling time. In March 1933, his professorship in Cologne was terminated under the Professional Civil Service Act as “civil servant who, after his previous political activities, does not guarantee that he will stand up for the national state without reservation”. He switched to art writing and gave private lessons for a living.

In 1939 he fled with his wife and daughter, who later became textile and glass artist Tatiana Ahlers-Hestermann , to the protective anonymity of the city of Berlin, where the family survived the Second World War.

1945 to 1973

After the end of National Socialism and the war, he was again called to Hamburg to rebuild the Landeskunstschule am Lerchenfeld, of which he remained director until 1951. My own artistic work thus took a back seat.

Only after his retirement and his return to Berlin, where Povòrina was still a lecturer at the Berlin-Weißensee School of Art , was he able to devote more of his energy to painting. From 1956 to 1973 he finally worked as director of the visual arts department at the Academy of the Arts in Berlin.

Honors

tomb

Works (selection)

  • River landscape near Bardowick (1901), oil / cardboard, 65 × 72 cm, North Frisian Museum. Nissenhaus Husum
  • Portrait of the painter Anita Rée (1915), oil / canvas, 90 × 70 cm, Hamburger Sparkasse
  • Felsen an der Lahn (1915), oil / canvas, 60 × 73 cm, Hamburger Kunsthalle
  • Alexandra Povòrina writing (1919), oil / canvas, 60 × 73 cm, MM Warburg & Co.
  • Early Spring in Blankenese (1921), oil / canvas, 70 × 59 cm, Altonaer Museum , Hamburg
  • Still Life with Cat and Flowers (1931), oil / wood, 90 × 75 cm, Hamburger Kunsthalle
  • Portrait Bruno Kuske (1935), oil / canvas, 90.5 × 70.5 cm, University of Cologne
  • Tristan (1951), oil / canvas, 70 × 80 cm, private collection

Exhibitions

  • 1970: Prisma '70. 18th exhibition of the German Association of Artists , Rheinisches Landesmuseum Bonn
  • 1992: The Hamburg Secession 1919–1933 , Galerie Herold, Hamburg
  • 2003: Friedrich Ahlers-Hestermann (1883–1973). Painter, teacher, writer , Hamburger Sparkasse, Hamburg
  • 2005: Exhibition premiere. Forum for bequests from artists e. V. , Künstlerhaus Sootbörn , Hamburg
  • 2007: Artistic tendencies after 1945 in Hamburg , Haspa-Galerie, Hamburg
  • 2010: A family of artists from Hamburg. Friedrich Ahlers-Hestermann - Alexandra Povòrina - Tatiana Ahlers-Hestermann , Forum for the bequests of artists e. V. Sootbörn Artists' House, Hamburg

estate

The estate is owned by the Forum for Estates of Artists e. V., Hamburg .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Fig. In: Deutscher Künstlerbund 1950. First exhibition Aug. 1 - Oct. 1, 1951 , Berlin 1951. (Catalog without page numbers)
  2. ↑ Exhibition catalog 1970: Fig. 2 (Friedrich Ahlers-Hestermann: Pik-As , 1969, oil on canvas, 30 × 65 cm)

Primary literature

  • Friedrich Ahlers-Hestermann: Change of style - departure of the youth around 1900 . Berlin 1941
  • Friedrich Ahlers-Hestermann: Pause before the third act . Berlin 1949
  • Friedrich Ahlers-Hestermann: Pictures and writings , series of publications by the Academy of Fine Arts, Vol. 2. Berlin 1968

Secondary literature

  • Exhibition catalog The Hamburg Secession. 1919-1933 . Herold Gallery, Hamburg 1992
  • Ina Ewers-Schultz: Ahlers-Hestermann, Friedrich . In: Franklin Kopitzsch, Dirk Brietzke (Hrsg.): Hamburgische Biographie . tape 5 . Wallstein, Göttingen 2010, ISBN 978-3-8353-0640-0 , p. 14-16 .
  • Ina Ewers-Schultz: Friedrich Ahlers-Hestermann, 1883–1973, painter, teacher, writer . Published by Hamburger Sparkasse, Hamburg 2003
  • Peter Kropmanns, Carina Schäfer: Private academies and studios in Paris at the turn of the century . In: The great inspiration. German artists in the Académie Matisse, vol. 3 . Art Museum Ahlen / Westf. 2004, ISBN 3-89946-041-3 (catalog of the exhibition of the same name, February 27 to May 1, 2000).
  • Anke Manigold: The Hamburg painter Friedrich Ahlers-Hestermann, 1883–1973, life and work . Hamburg 1986 (Diss.)
  • Pure source of art . In: Die Zeit , No. 10/1949
  • Carsten Meyer-Tönnesmann : Ahlers-Hestermann, Friedrich . in: The new rump. Lexicon of fine artists in Hamburg, Altona and the surrounding area . Wachholtz, Neumünster 2005, ISBN 978-3-529-02792-5 . Pp. 8-9.
  • Ahlers-Hestermann, Friedrich . In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General Lexicon of Fine Artists of the XX. Century. tape 1 : A-D . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1953, p. 16-17 .

Web links

Commons : Friedrich Ahlers-Hestermann  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Ahlers-Hestermann, Friedrich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ahlers-Hestermann, Fritz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter
DATE OF BIRTH July 17, 1883
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamburg
DATE OF DEATH December 11, 1973
Place of death Berlin