Fritz Flebbe

Self-Portrait (1916)

Fritz Flebbe (born August 4, 1893 in Harburg (Elbe) , † May 27, 1929 in Müden (Örtze) ) was a German painter and graphic artist .

biography

Fritz Flebbe at the easel

Fritz Flebbe was born as the son of a railway official in Harburg / Elbe. After attending elementary and middle school , he first began a business apprenticeship. In 1912/13 he made the decision to train as a painter against his parents' wishes. On May 1, 1915 he became a conscientious drafted and fought in the First World War at the front in northern France and Russia . After a serious head wound on June 20, 1916, after recovering , he was transferred to a map office in March 1917 and to a surveying department of the 1st Army on May 15, 1917 . On November 13, 1918, he was released from the German Army . In addition to his head injury, Flebbe returned from the war with a serious lung disease to Harburg, to a small apartment at Wilhelmstrasse 6. The illness often forced him to interrupt his work for months , also as a result of the necessary visits to sanatoriums . In February 1920 his first wife (Ina), with whom he has a daughter (Isolde), died of flu. From mid-1923 to spring 1926 Flebbe lived and worked mainly in Goslar and Braunschweig. Through his former teacher Arthur Illies he was able to make contacts here. Among other things, to the manufacturer and art patron Friedrich Borchers and to his friend the geographer Ewald Banse , whom he had already met during the war. During that time he lived with Margarethe Wesenick, whom he married in 1926. In the same year his second daughter Mechthild was born. Fritz Flebbe was a member of the Hamburg Artists' Association from 1832 .

Flebbe's grave in the old cemetery in Müden (Örtze)

In May 1926 Flebbe moved to the Lüneburg Heath , to Müden (Örtze). Here the climate offered good conditions for his lung disease. This change of location was arranged by a spa guest in Bad Rehburg . Flebbe cured there from autumn 1925 to spring 1926. In Müden he first lived in the house of the roofer Friedrich Stelter and in 1927 he moved to August Cassier's house (today Unterlüßer Str. 24). There he was able to work in a more spacious studio for the first time. As a result of his war injuries, Flebbe died at the age of 35 in the evening hours of May 27, 1929. He was buried on May 30, 1929 in the old cemetery in Müden. His friend Ewald Banse gave the funeral speech.

education

From 1914 to May 1, 1915, attended the State School of Applied Arts in Hamburg . He was a student of Arthur Illies , the co-founder of the Hamburg Artists' Club . He has to drop out of training when he is called up for military service.

Work

First of all, his work is shaped by the influence of his teacher Illies. During the war, he got to know the graphic technique of lithography in the surveying center of the 1st Army . He then applied this technique to drawing portraits and figures. In the spring of 1918 he published a newspaper “ Die Insel ” with a print run of 60 copies, which was also produced lithographically. After the end of the war, he took up religious themes in his paintings, also influenced by his own illness. Examples include The Return of the Prodigal Son (1914 and 1927), Flagellation (1922) and Lamentation (1928). But he was also a sought-after portrait painter . But mainly he was concerned with landscape paintings . Flebbe painted both the surrounding area and the landscape that he got to know during his travels and stays in sanatoriums. He called himself an expressionist . After moving to Müden, a new artistic phase began for Flebbe. His pictures brighten and he takes up themes from rural life. The pictures of the southern heath show this in a characteristic way, with heather, birch and juniper, but also meadows, forests and fields at different times of the year. He created a total of around 220 paintings, 250 drawings and watercolors as well as 50 lithographs.

Works by Fritz Flebbe
Three Friends (1915)
Self-Portrait (1919)
Sunset (1920)
Heideweg (1926)
The way in Müden (1927)
Mother and child (1927)

Awards

Memorial stone with bench for the tired

A street in Hamburg-Wilstorf was named after him.
In Müden (Örtze) there is a path named “Fritz-Flebbe-Twiete” after him.

Exhibitions

In 1930, after his death, his painter friends Hugo Friedrich Hartmann and Friedrich Wilhelm (Frido) Witte organized a memorial exhibition in Lüneburg . In the same year an exhibition in his memory is shown in Hamburg-Harburg. This is followed by exhibitions in Lüneburg (May 1949), Hamburg-Harburg (1951), Braunschweig (1983), Müden (1984) and Unterlüß (1992 and 2013/14). Works by the artist are owned by the Hamburger Kunsthalle , the Braunschweigisches Landesmuseum , the Städtisches Museum (Braunschweig) , the Bomann Museum in Celle, the Museum for the Principality of Lüneburg and the Albert König Museum in Unterlüß .

Works in museums and collections (selection)

Various works by Flebbe in the archive of the Albert König Museum

River landscape (1911), Albert-König-Museum Unterlüß
Hand grenade launcher (1917), lithograph, Albert-König-Museum Unterlüß
Small study head (1917), lithograph, Albert-König-Museum Unterlüß
Two friends - two heads (1917), Albert-König-Museum Unterlüß
Two friends - two heads (1917) Hamburger Kunsthalle
Sehnsucht (1918), lithograph, Hamburger Kunsthalle
Self-portrait study (1918), chalk drawing, Hamburger Kunsthalle
Prayer (1918), lithograph, Albert-König-Museum Unterlüß
Pain (1918), lithograph, Albert-König-Museum Unterlüß
Sturm (1918), lithograph, Albert-König-Museum Unterlüß
Clenched hand (1918), lithograph, Albert-König-Museum Unterlüß
Visionary portrait (around 1919), lithograph, Albert-König-Museum Unterlüß
Portrait of Georg Hölscher (1919), lithograph, Albert-König-Museum Unterlüß
Double portrait of Fritz Flebbe and Ewald Banse (1921), Landesmuseum Braunschweig
Ewald Banse at his desk (1922), Braunschweig State Museum
Works council (1922), Helms-Museum Hamburg-Harburg
Flagellation (1922), Helms-Museum Hamburg-Harburg
Ewald Banse with hat (1923), Braunschweig Municipal Museum
Portrait of Bernhard Günther (1924), City of Goslar
Light Blessing (1925), oil on canvas, Albert-König-Museum Unterlüß
Heideweg in autumn (around 1925), Helms-Museum Hamburg-Harburg
Autumn evening (after 1925), oil on canvas, 50.5 × 65.5 cm, Helms-Museum Hamburg-Harburg
Weg durch die Heide (after 1925), oil on canvas, 52 × 40 cm, Albert-König-Museum Unterlüß
Vision at Braunschweig Cathedral (before 1926), lithograph, Frido Witte Foundation Lüneburg
Portrait of August Helms (1926), Helms-Museum Hamburg-Harburg
Portrait of Hermann Maul (1926), Helms-Museum Hamburg-Harburg
Heideweg (around 1926), oil on canvas, 51 × 66 cm, Celle district
Summer Heideweg (after 1926), Helms-Museum Hamburg-Harburg
Alter Bauer (1927), Helms Museum Hamburg-Harburg
Heideweg near Müden (around 1927), Bomann Museum Celle
Self-portrait (1928), Helms-Museum Hamburg-Harburg
Portrait of Ewald Banse (1928), Braunschweig State Museum
Old farmer's wife (1928), Museum for the Principality of Lüneburg
Self-Portrait with Palette (1928), City of Lüneburg
Isolde Flebbe (1929), pencil drawing, Celle district
Landscape photo (undated), Helms-Museum Hamburg-Harburg
River landscape in the heather (undated), Helms-Museum Hamburg-Harburg

literature

Klaus Homann: Painters see the Lüneburg Heath. Albert-König-Museum, Unterlüß 2008, ISBN 978-3-927399-39-6 .
Antonio Caprano, Sabine Pinkepank-Appel (ed.), Volker Probst (arrangement): Fritz Flebbe painter and graphic artist 1893–1929–1993. Atelier Diptychon, Groß Lafferde 1993, ISBN 3-930146-01-0 .

Individual evidence

^ Fritz Flebbe in the Albert König Museum, Unterlüß

Web links

Commons : Fritz Flebbe - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

personal data
SURNAME	Flebbe, Fritz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German painter and graphic artist
DATE OF BIRTH	4th August 1893
PLACE OF BIRTH	Hamburg-Harburg
DATE OF DEATH	May 27, 1929
Place of death	Müden (Örtze) , Lower Saxony

[1] Fritz Flebbe in the Albert König Museum, Unterlüß