Friedrich Zundel

Georg Friedrich Zundel (born October 13, 1875 in Iptingen near Wiernsheim , † June 7, 1948 in Stuttgart ) was a German painter , farmer and patron . As a painter, he achieved a certain fame, especially for his portraits .

Career

Strike (1903)

Paula Bosch (1907)

Zundel was the son of a wine grower and innkeeper and lost his mother at the age of six. Since he got along very badly with his father's second wife, he left his parents' house at the age of fourteen and began an apprenticeship with a master painter in Pforzheim , which he finished as a journeyman in 1891 . Then he worked for six years in Frankfurt am Main in the workshop of a decorative painter , where he got to know the conditions of the simple working-class world. In 1897, Zundel decided to study art first at the Karlsruhe School of Applied Arts and later at the Stuttgart Art School . The studies found Zundels a premature end in 1898 when he from school for participating in the organization of a strike by art students expelled was.

During the years of his studies, Zundel had come into contact with socialist ideas and began to identify increasingly with the "fight against oppression and exploitation". This was first expressed in his relationship with eighteen years older socialist politician and women's rights activist Clara Zetkin , who at the time was working in Stuttgart as editor of the SPD women's newspaper Die Gleichheit . They married in 1899 and lived from 1903 until their separation, which ended with the divorce in 1926, in a country house in Sillenbuch near Stuttgart, which became a popular place to stay for international leaders of socialist organizations. Even Lenin made there in 1907 station.

Zundel's ideological conviction was reflected in portraits of workers that were created during these years. Zundel put the main focus on the focus of people by removing them from their environment (hardly any reference to the milieu or exaggerated symbolism) and almost life-size depictions.

Art patrons, including Count Casanova on Lake Maggiore in Italy, who provided him with a studio, made for a good living, with which he could finance the above-mentioned country house and afford a car. Since he also had contacts with Karl Kautsky , who lived in the same house as Robert Bosch , he was commissioned in 1907 to portray Bosch's daughters Paula and Margarete . At the same time, Zundel was also involved in party politics through poster designs and the design of homes, in particular through the discussion about the role of artistic creation in the socialist movement.

In the years before and after the First World War , Zundel turned away from realistic painting and discovered mythical and religious motifs that focused in particular on the idea of ​​redemption. During these years he became increasingly estranged from Clara Zetkin.

Gravestone of Friedrich and Paula Zundel in the Tübingen city cemetery

After divorcing Zetkin, he married Paula Bosch in 1927 , whom he had already painted when she was a child. With her he retired to an estate, the "Berghof" near Tübingen , which he designed himself in 1921 and built for his daughters by Robert Bosch , where he turned to agricultural work in addition to his artistic work. In his later work he turned again to idealistic motifs, but now Christian elements increasingly played a role. From the marriage with Paula Bosch, the son Georg Zundel was the only child . Friedrich Zundel received a grave of honor in the Tübingen city cemetery .

In 1971 Paula Zundel and her sister Margarete Fischer-Bosch donated the Kunsthalle Tübingen to create a permanent home for Zundel's works. For her services to the city of Tübingen, Paula Zundel, like her mother Anna Bosch , was made an honorary citizen of the city of Tübingen .

Web links

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

• Literature by and about Friedrich Zundel in the catalog of the German National Library
• Website about Friedrich Zundel