Friedrich Popp
Friedrich Popp (born January 23, 1905 in Bamberg , † July 28, 1998 in Ebersdorf ) was a German sculptor. He mainly created wooden sculptures and reliefs, but also worked in stone and metal. Numerous batiks were also created. As a devout Christian, Popp mainly designed biblical themes. Works by Popp can be found in numerous places in Thuringia and Saxony, but also in other parts of Germany. Some pieces can be found in England and some other European countries, as well as Vietnam and India. Popps sculptures, reliefs and batiks adorn memorials, churches and prayer rooms. Many pieces are also privately owned.
Life
Friedrich Popp was born on January 23, 1905 in Bamberg. He had an older sister Emilie and a younger sister Elisabeth. In 1913 the family moved to Lemnitzhammer , where Popps father leased a property and ran agriculture. After leaving school, he attended the agricultural school in Triesdorf and attended lectures at the University of Würzburg (1923). He worked as a volunteer on farms in Rubitz, Behringen and Oberkotzau. In 1927 he married Helene Witte. The couple leased an estate in Köthnitz for a short time . In 1928 the daughter Christiane was born, in 1931 the daughter Maria and in 1937 the son Martin.
In Lemnitzhammer, Popp met the Frössen pastor Friedrich Behr . When Behr became head of the Marienstift in Arnstadt in 1929 , he encouraged Popp to complete training as a physiotherapist at the Jena University Clinic and to take up a job in Arnstadt. The Arnstadt Marienstift, founded in 1905, was a remedial, nursing and educational institution for the physically handicapped, including an orthopedic clinic. Popp soon became a senior physiotherapist at the clinic. In 1958 he wrote the book "Orthopedic Physiotherapy" with numerous drawings of his own. He worked until 1968.
Popps work was interrupted by the war. At first he was released from military service because he was indispensable, but was drafted as a medic in 1944. Popp was in Italy most of the time and was taken prisoner by the Americans at the end of the war. After that, Popp resumed his work at the Marienstift. In his free time he was now more and more engaged in carving and artistic design.
Popp was a devout Christian all his life and took an active part in community life. In Arnstadt he was a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Parish Council from 1946 until his departure in 1968. Parish. From 1954 he was also deputy chairman of this body. In 1960 and 1966 he was appointed as a representative of the superintendents Arnstadt, Ilmenau and Ohrdruff in the Synod of Ev. Luth. Regional Church of Thuringia elected.
In 1968 Popp finished his work at the Marienstift and left Arnstadt after almost 40 years of medical and artistic activity. He left a number of works on Arnstadt that are still part of the cityscape today. From then on he devoted himself entirely to intensive creative work as a freelance artist. He moved with his wife to Ebersdorf in the little house at Oberen Gasse 14. Friedrich Popp also took an active part in church life in Ebersdorf.
In 1981 his first wife, Helene, died. Two years later he married the biologist Brigitte Weckend. Friedrich Popp died on July 28, 1998 in Ebersdorf at the age of 93.
Artistic development
Friedrich Popp was interested in art from an early age. His great role model was Tilman Riemenschneider .
In 1945, while an American prisoner of war, Popp carved a crucifix for the prayer room of the prison camp. After his release, he resumed his work at the Marienstift. But he used his free time more and more to perfect himself in carving. He went public in 1946/47 with a crucifix on a wall of the Marienstift in memory of some sisters who were killed in a bomb attack in the spring of 1945. The original old Martinsstift house was destroyed, and with it the asylum chapel inside. In 1951, Friedrich Popp created a wood-carved winged altar for the emergency church that has now been set up in a barrack. In the following year, a work in shell limestone was created: a frieze "The Good Shepherd" that adorned a house wall for many years.
Friedrich Popp now wanted to have the skills he had acquired confirmed and a professional qualification as a wood sculptor. In 1953 he went for a few weeks to the wood carving school in Empfertshausen , which still exists today , where he successfully passed the journeyman's examination. His journeyman piece was "The Agitator". The following year he took the master's examination at the same facility. For this he carved a girl with a rabbit in her lap.
Further work for the Marienstift, the Evangelical Church and the city of Arnstadt followed. Popp achieved national recognition with his works. Photos and reports appeared again and again in various newspapers, e. B. in “Church” and “Faith and Home”.
Initially Popp used a large part of his free time and vacation trips to study works of art. When he made his first attempts at design, the impressions he received from the works of old and new masters were both a stimulus and an obstacle to his own style development. Looking back, he explains: "I had to get rid of all these influences after I had processed them in order to be able to make my own statements - statements made in the second half of the twentieth century."
In 1968 Popp ended his career in Arnstadt and moved to Ebersdorf. He left a number of works for the city of Arnstadt that are part of the cityscape today. For example the fountain figure on the Holzmarkt, the memorial in Jonastal, the altar and a prayer desk in the parish hall, the winged altar in the Marienstift and several figures at the entrance to the pheasantry.
Numerous churches and parish halls in the surrounding area were also furnished with crucifixes and other works designed by Popp. When Popp moved to Ebersdorf, an intense creative period began that lasted three decades.
Works
Popp had made a crucifix for the St. Christophorus Church in Ebersdorf in 1953 and a commemorative plaque for the fallen in 1954. After 1968 numerous other plants were added in Ebersdorf:
- Altar with encaustic reliefs (1977)
- "Bornkinnel" (Jesus boy)
- Small nativity scene (Holy Family)
- Sculpture "Saint Christopher" (1982)
- Relief "Glimmender Wick" (1984)
- Lectern with encaustic relief "Seraphim" (1986)
- Two relief panels for the Emmaus retirement home
- Relief "Protective coat saint" for the Sunshine Children's Home
- Sculpture "The Family" for Ebersdorfer Park (1987)
- For the Marienkirche in neighboring Saalburg:
- 12 encaustic reliefs for the Creed (1972)
- Crucifix in the side chapel
- Big nativity scene
For the St. Michaeliskirche in Bad Lobenstein, Friedrich Popp designed a large winged altar in encaustic technology (1977). The chapel of the mountain cemetery received an altar panel with encaustic reliefs.
Sculptures of St. Christopher were created for the churches of the Ebersdorf partner parishes in Rutesheim near Stuttgart and Camberley / England.
Other works:
- Crucifix for the church interior at Burgk Castle.
- Altar and pulpit relief in beaver finish
- A Madonna for a catholic church in Chemnitz
- Murals and a stand cross in Köckritz near Weida
- Altar crucifix in Künsdorf
- Altar wall in Lausnitz near Neustadt / Orla
- Large reliefs in flour dikes
- Relief in Molsdorf near Greiz
- Reliefs and crucifix for St. Mark's Church and Plauen community center
- Big nativity scene for Rositz
- Prayer wall in See bei Niesky
- Big nativity scene for Tanna
- Large Joseph sculpture in Wurzbach
- Gem cross for the mountain church Schleiz
- Large crucifix in the St.Johannes-Kirche in Zwickau
- Altar wall in Weimar
- "Bornkinnel" figures for the churches in Monstab, Raila and Jerichow
- Fallen memorials in Leisnitz / Saxony and Möschlitz near Schleiz.
Even today you can find signposts carved by Friedrich Popp in Ebersdorf.
Exhibitions and honors
Friedrich Popps' artistic work has been recognized in numerous exhibitions and presented to the public. There were exhibitions in Arnstadt, Erfurt, Weimar, Eisenach, Jena, Leipzig, Dresden, Saalburg, Bad Lobenstein and Ebersdorf.
The oratorio “Der Lobensteiner Altar” was performed as a tribute to Friedrich Popp's 85th birthday. Church music director Wolfgang Schumann was inspired for this oratorio by the work of the Ebersdorf artist.
Permanent exhibition in the Comniuszentrum Ebersdorf
Most of the works shown in the exhibition were created during Popp's Ebersdorf time. He has taken up some topics again and again and mostly implemented them with different techniques, as wooden sculpture, relief, batik. Popp often grappled with a topic again after years or even decades. The changes in Popp's artistic style can be clearly seen in the resulting works. A vivid example is the figure of Christophorus, with which Popp dealt again and again. There are 4 sculptures of Christophorus in the exhibition - in different abstractions. Christophorus is an early Christian martyr and saint of the Catholic Church. According to tradition, he carried a child through a river. This child became heavier and heavier as they crossed the river and finally revealed himself to be Christ who "bears the burden of the world".
The wooden sculpture “Angel's Fall” is an attempt to answer the question of the origin of evil and its overcoming in the language of the Bible (Revelation 12: 7). In a completely different way, but also based on biblical statements (inter alia. Col. 3,2), the idiosyncratic portrayal "The entwined thoughts of the heart" answers this question. Most of them are confusingly intertwined and curled up in themselves. But then there are also three instincts that fight their way up to the light.
The two sculptures in Isaiah 42: 3 speak of God's mercy: “He will not extinguish the smoldering wick” and “He will not break the broken pipe”. Christ carefully keeps the light and carefully pushes the reeds apart in the second sculpture. This second work in particular is also an example of Popp's great craftsmanship. This sculpture was carved out of a single piece of wood.
With all this seriousness, the “Harlequins” betray something of the artist's humor and his realization that everything is fleeting. According to biblical knowledge, what remains is love. She speaks of “affection”, a theme that recurs in the artist's work. A large wooden sculpture is entitled “Man. God created him male and female ”. Popp dedicated several sculptures and batiks to the topic of family.
In addition to batik, Popp used another technique to design textiles: printing with self-carved models. (Model here means "printing form in textile printing", it is practically a wooden stamp.) Some of such models and fabrics printed in this way can be viewed in the exhibition. Friedrich Popp delighted friends and acquaintances every year with such individually made greetings, e.g. B. at Christmas.
literature
- Melitta Ruge: I've lived three lives . Ostthüringer Zeitung , January 23, 1995
- Melitta Ruge: Carved from good wood . Ostthüringer Zeitung, August 17, 1991
- Reinhard Specht: Art as a commitment . Faith and Home, February 23, 1875
- Robby Knörnschild: Served many in Christian faith . Ostthüringer Zeitung, January 25, 1995
- Weihs: Sculptor honored for the 90th . Thuringian General, January 24, 1995
- Stewe: A person with emotional treasures and experience . Thuringia Post, January 24, 1995
- Herbert von Hintzenstern: Wachsenburgallee 12a - Visit to the wood sculptor Friedrich Popp in Arnstadt . In: Marienstift Arnstadt, 60 years of rehabilitation for the physically handicapped , Ev. Verlagsanstalt, Berlin 1965, pp. 97-101
- Constanze Henkel, Patricia Soboth, Katja Trommer: Friedrich Popp - artist and Christian . In: Heimatjahrbuch 2015 des Saale-Orla-Kreis , pp. 143–148
- Eva-Maria Kasimir: Batik in the bathtub . Ostthüringer Zeitung, May 18, 2010
- Ilvana Will: Friedrich Popp . In: Profiles from the Saale-Orla district - citizens of our time . 1997, p. 277
- Martina Rott: Humanity and a deep Christian faith . Thuringian General, August 1, 2018
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Friedrich Popp: Orthopedic physiotherapy . VEB Gustav Fischer Verlag, Jena 1961, p. 154 .
- ^ Friedrich Popp: My childhood years . handwritten, to be found in the exhibition and meeting center Johann Amos Comenius, Ebersdorf February 11, 1991.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Popp, Friedrich |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German sculptor |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 23, 1905 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Bamberg |
| DATE OF DEATH | July 28, 1998 |
| Place of death | Ebersdorf |