Friedrich Karl Ströher

Friedrich Karl Ströher - Self-Portrait (1916)

Friedrich Karl Ströher (born September 3, 1876 in Irmenach / Hunsrück , † December 14, 1925 there ) was a German painter , graphic artist and sculptor .

Today he is considered one of the most important and well-known artists in the Hunsrück .

biography

Ströher was born on September 3, 1876 in Irmenach. After attending elementary school there, he trained as a painter, first with his older brother, then in a painting company in Bernkastel-Kues . During his apprenticeship years, he developed a heart condition that has been a lifelong problem. After completing his apprenticeship, he went on a journey as a room painter from 1894, mainly in south-west Germany. During a stay in Frankfurt am Main he came into contact with socialist ideas for the first time. In the winter of 1894/95, as in the following winter, he attended the Zander painting school in Halle an der Saale , and in the summer of 1895 he was on a wandering tour in northern and central Germany. In 1896 he finally left Halle with the goal of Munich , but in the end he reached Zurich . There he attended the Zurich School of Applied Arts during the winter months , while he went hiking in the summer months. In 1897 and 1898 he traveled to Bucharest . The time in Zurich particularly shaped his political attitudes. In liberal Switzerland he came into contact with both social democratic and anarchist ideas, which ultimately led to his becoming an anarchist himself.

Finally, the planned world exhibition Ströher moved to Paris in 1899 . Here he was able to study at the Colarossi Academy , and Ströher increasingly transformed himself into an "artist" - although he had actually wanted to remain a "painter" (room painter) himself. In 1901 he traveled to Berlin for the first time, where, through Walter Leistikow , he succeeded in having his first painting exhibited by the Berlin Secession . In the following years Ströher moved back and forth between Paris and Berlin several times until he was finally accepted as a master student of Arthur Kampf at the Berlin Academy of Arts from 1905 . Between 1910 and 1912 he made three trips to southern France and Spain.

In 1917 Ströher was called up as a recruit for the Landsturm and assigned to Strasbourg as a groom. After the end of the war, he initially returned to Berlin, until after some back and forth he finally decided to settle permanently in his hometown Irmenach. In 1921 he was co-founder and board member of the Künstlerbund Westmark . At the edge of the forest he built a small house, which he shared with his wife Charlotte, nee in 1922. Geisler, whom he married in May 1922, related. In 1923, the couple's only child, their son Peter, was born.

In November 1925, Ströher's heart condition suddenly worsened and he died on December 14, 1925 in his hometown. In the Irmenach cemetery, there is now a memorial stone where his grave was. His wife Charlotte survived him by 66 years - she died in 1991.

His life as a craftsman and as an artist was always characterized by poverty, illness and privation. In addition, he often felt that his art was misunderstood. By studying Tolstoy he had come to believe that art must belong to the people. Especially in the last years of his life, he tried to implement this by increasingly switching to the woodcut technique, which enabled the inexpensive reproduction of works of art. However, with his (then!) Unusual colors and tones, he found little recognition among the population, and he was occasionally even met with hostility - which was certainly also due to his political convictions. Overall, his works show a tremendous variety of styles and forms, he "tried" in many styles (such as Art Nouveau, Impressionism, Expressionism).

After his death, his wife Charlotte looked after most of his works, and in some cases she even bought back works that Ströher had previously sold. After the death of their son Peter in 2007, most of the collection was transferred to the Hunsrück Museum Simmern , where a permanent exhibition is shown.

From literature

“There, high up behind the village , after seeing the big world in Paris, Spain, Berlin, Master Ströher separates himself from the loud crowd in the silence of the ears and the forest, in his own home. His pithy heads tremble with inner passion. The glow of the summer and the harvesting billow through his small, colorful woodcuts. "( Ludwig Mathar )

Selected Works

• 

  Portrait of the mother (charcoal drawing, around 1898)

• 

  Olga on a green meadow (oil paint on linen, 1908)

• 

  Swans in the Park (oil paint on linen, 1910)

• 

  Spanish girl (oil paint on linen, 1911)

• 

  Spanish street scene (oil paint on cardboard, 1911)

• 

  Spanish woman sewing (oil paint on linen, 1912)

• 

  Father in a blue jacket (oil paint on linen, 1920)

• 

  Mower and binder (watercolor, 1922)

• 

  Market square with Gasthaus Fuchss in Irmenach (postcard, around 1925)

• 

  Memorial at the Irmenach cemetery

• 

  Memorial at the Protestant church in Büchenbeuren

literature

• Dieter Ahrens: Friedrich Karl Ströher. 1876-1925. In search of the absolute in art. Görres-Verl., Koblenz 1984, ( Mittelrheinische Hefte. 10)
• Circle of friends of the work of Friedrich Karl Ströher (ed.): Memoirs of the painter Friedrich Karl Ströher. 1876-1925 . Edited by Dieter Merten ... Hunsrück Museum, Simmern 2004, ISBN 3-00-014811-6 .
• Albert Schug (Ed.): Friedrich Karl Ströher. 1876-1925. Landesbildstelle Rheinland-Pfalz, Mainz 1978, ( Art and artists in Rhineland-Palatinate. 7)

swell

1. ^ Ludwig Mathar : The Moselle . Bachem, Cologne [1924], p. 305.

Web links

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

• Hunsrück Museum in Simmern, permanent exhibition of Ströher's works
• Art collection Friedrich Karl Ströher