Friedrich Preller the Elder

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Friedrich Preller

Johann Christian Ernst Friedrich Preller the Elder (born April 25, 1804 in Eisenach , † April 23, 1878 in Weimar ) was a painter , etcher and, from 1844, a professor at the Princely Free Drawing School in Weimar.

Life

The Atelier Friedr. Preller's the Elder (first work by his son Friedrich Preller the Younger , 1858)
Grave site in the New Cemetery in Weimar

Preller was born in Eisenach, at Karlstrasse 2, as the second of five children of an artistically gifted confectioner. In October 1804 the family moved to Weimar to live with his mother's family in Teichgasse. His father worked there in the courtyard pastry shop. Preller attended grammar school in Weimar from Quarta to Obersekunda.

After training at the Weimar drawing school (1814–1821), where he later worked as a teacher and director, the young artist was entrusted with the task of bringing Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's cloud drawings into order. Goethe sent him to Dresden for further studies and ensured that he received several scholarships from the Weimar Grand Duke Karl August . In 1824 Friedrich Preller accompanied the Grand Duke from Dresden on his trip to the Netherlands. As a student at the Academy in Antwerp , he was able to further improve his knowledge and skills.

From 1827 to 1831 he went on an extensive study trip to Italy. On March 23, 1832, the day after Goethe's death, he was allowed to draw the poet on the death bed. In 1840 he traveled to Norway, during which a series of works were created that can still be seen in Weimar today. After his return in 1844 he was given a teaching position at the Princely Free Drawing School in Weimar and was appointed professor and court painter. With the exception of a second, three-year stay in Italy from 1859, he worked at this school, which he took over as its director in 1868, for about 30 years. During this time Preller undertook other smaller study trips, such as B. in the summer of 1855 to Jever in Friesland, the home of his student Ernst Hemken , to do nature studies in the nearby Neuchâtel jungle . Friedrich Preller's nephew Julius Preller , who lived in the Frisian town of Varel from 1859 to 1914 , later became known as a landscape painter through paintings and drawings with motifs from the Neuchâtel jungle.

Friedrich Preller had married the Flensburg captain's daughter Marie Erichsen (1811–1862) in 1834. The marriage resulted in three sons: Ernst (1835–1925), Emil (1836–1893) and Friedrich (the Younger) (1838–1901), who entered his father's studio at the age of 13 and joined the Father prevailed as a painter. In spring 1864 he married Jenny Ventzky (1834–1906), widowed warrior. The house that Preller had built for himself and his family in 1868 is located at Belvederer Allee 8.

Friedrich Preller the Elder died in Weimar in 1878 two days before he was 74 years old. He was buried in the New Cemetery in Weimar, the grave site of Friedrich and his wife Marie is on the eastern cemetery wall of the New Cemetery (this is the western side of the western wall of the historical cemetery ). The bronze relief on the grave was created by Adolf Donndorf .

Honors

  • 1868 diploma as a full member of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna

On the occasion of the opening of the Grand Ducal Museum in Weimar

  • 1869 Commander's Cross of the Grand Ducal House of Saxony-Weimar
  • 1869 member of the Prussian Academy of the Arts
  • 1869 Maximilian Order of the King of Bavaria
  • 1869 honorary citizen of the city of Weimar

Further honors

  • 1875 Admission of a self-portrait by Preller to the “great collection of portraits of famous artists of all nations” in the Museum of Florence
  • 1877/1878 honorary doctorate to Dr. phil. hc by the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Jena

The following streets were named after Preller:

student

Works

  • Ice trip on the Schwanseewiesen (1824), museum in the Weimar City Palace

  • Storm on the Coast (1856)

  • Goethe on his death bed (1832)

  • Preller Hall in the Roman House (Leipzig)

Between 1834 and 1836 he created six paintings in tempera, the motifs of which came from his cycle of odyssey frescoes in the Roman House in Leipzig.

From 1836 to 1837 he designed the landscape paintings with scenes from Christoph Martin Wieland's Oberon in the Wieland area of ​​the Grand Ducal Palace. From 1836 to 1848 he executed six frescoes in various buildings in Thuringia on behalf of the Grand Duke. On his trip to Norway in 1840 he made numerous works on the easel.

After his return from Italy in 1861, he completed the fresco work he had begun with scenes from the Odyssey, which are considered his most important work and made him famous.

In addition to these odyssey frescoes, “heroic landscapes” with a classicist-romantic character are among his works. Towards the end of his life he preferred mythological subjects.

Friedrich Preller was also a successful eraser.

In a catalog raisonné from 1996, 1,300 individual drawings, 25 sketchbooks and 220 oil paintings were attributed to Preller.

Illustrations (selection)

literature

Web links

Commons : Friedrich Preller the Elder  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ According to information from the city archives of Eisenach, the house where he was born was destroyed by bombs in 1944. A memorial plaque for Friedrich Preller is attached to the building that stands at this point today (Sparkasse building) .
  2. ^ Adolf Rosenberg: History of modern art . tape 2 , 1889, p. 140 ( archive.org ).
  3. ↑ The Grand Duke Royal. Your Highness has graciously deigned to grant: 1. Friedrich Preller, a teacher at the Free Art Institute in Weimar, was a professor and court painter. Weimar newspaper. No. 36, May 4, 1844, quoted by Ina Weinrautner, p. 65.
  4. ↑ Cf. Friedrich Preller the Younger, Diaries of the Artist, edited and biographically completed by Max Jordan , Munich 1904, pp. 28ff.
  5. ^ Hugo Preller: The family table of the painter of the Weimar Odyssey, Friedrich Preller . In: The Thuringian clan. Messages from the Thuringian Society for Kinship Studies . 3rd year, 1937, p. 73 .
  6. ↑ Julius Gensel: Friedrich Preller the Elder . In: Artist Monographs . tape LXIX . Velhagen & Klasing, 1904 ( archive.org ).
  7. ^ Hermann Francke: Weimar and surroundings . In: Alexander Huschke's illustrated city guide of Thuringia . Alexander Huschkes Hofbuchhandlung, Weimar, p. 58 ( archive.org ).
  8. ↑ Weimar . A guide through the classic city. Sutton Verlag GmbH, Erfurt 2011, ISBN 978-3-86680-829-4 .
  9. ^ Jena University Archives, holdings M. (PDF) 455 deanery files (1877/78), vol. 2 April 1, 2014, p. 157 , archived from the original on August 18, 2017 ; accessed on August 7, 2018 .
  10. ↑ Prellerweg. In: Street name lexicon of the Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein (near  Kaupert )
  11. ↑ According to information from the city archives of the city of Eisenach: It used to be Schafgasse, presumably after the man who lived in the Kartausgarten above the current entrance from Waisenstrasse around the middle of the 18th century. H. Ducal sheep farm.
  12. ↑ Streets that are named after people - explanations. (PDF) City of Eisenach, accessed on August 17, 2017 .
  13. ↑ Gina Klank, Gernoth Griebsch: Encyclopedia Leipziger street names . Ed .: City Archives Leipzig. 1st edition. Verlag im Wissenschaftszentrum Leipzig, Leipzig 1995, ISBN 3-930433-09-5 , p. 171 .
  14. ↑ Thuringian Museum receives part of Friedrich Preller's estate. Ä. - In cooperation with Erfurt, Weimar and Siemens-Stiftung. City of Eisenach, accessed on August 17, 2017 .
personal data
SURNAME Preller, Friedrich, the elder
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German art teacher
DATE OF BIRTH April 25, 1804
PLACE OF BIRTH Eisenach
DATE OF DEATH April 23, 1878
Place of death Weimar