Fritz Kuhr

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Fritz Kuhr (born May 10, 1899 in Liège , Belgium , † February 25, 1975 in Berlin , Germany ) was a German artist .

Life

At the age of eight, Fritz Kuhr discovered his passion for painting. In the following years mainly nature studies were created. In 1922 he met Otto Pankok and joined his group of amateur artists.

In 1923 he went to Weimar to study the works of Wassily Kandinsky and László Moholy-Nagy . In the same year he enrolled at the Bauhaus as a student. The decisive factor for his enrollment, however, was the encounter with works by Paul Klee , especially his watercolor Dream City . He took the preliminary course with László Moholy-Nagy and attended the free painting classes of Kandinsky and Klee. After the preliminary course, he went to the wall painting workshop. In 1927 he passed the assistant examination at the Chamber of Crafts in Dessau and was employed by Hinnerk Scheper in the workshop for wall painting in 1928 and 1929 . He also took an active part in the social life of the Bauhaus. Among other things, he played the bumbass in the second Bauhaus band and represented the student body in the master council.

In the controversy about the position of painting at the Bauhaus, Kuhr clearly positioned himself by advocating independent and free painting at the Bauhaus. With this he distanced himself from the unity of art and technology propagated by Walter Gropius , which gave art a more serving role.

From 1929 to 1930 he was a teacher for figurative drawing as well as for nude and portrait or figure at the Bauhaus. In 1930 Fritz Kuhr received the Bauhaus diploma No. 13 and went to Berlin as a freelance painter. There he exhibited in various galleries, including the Ferdinand Möller gallery , which also represented him internationally. By 1933 the art museums in Gdansk, Hamburg and Hanover as well as the "Society for Modern Art - Krefeld" acquired works by Fritz Kuhr. In 1932 he met Ernst Ludwig Kirchner , who, among other things, arranged an exhibition for him in Davos .

The transfer of power to the National Socialists changed Kuhr's situation permanently. In 1933 he was still in contact with Alois Schardt , the director of the Berlin National Gallery , who tried to maintain the collection of modern artists in the Kronprinzenpalais . In 1934 he was publicly defamed in the Völkischer Beobachter and referred to as a Jew because of his name. In 1937 his works were shown in the Degenerate Art exhibition. As a result of the reprisals, Fritz Kuhr went into internal emigration and no longer appeared in public.

He secured his material existence through restoration work for the Berlin museums and friendship with Reichsbank director Arnold Budczie , who bought graphics from him every month. At that time he had a studio community with Bettina Encke von Arnim . This long-standing friendship helped Fritz Kuhr through the Nazi era. So he found refuge at Wiepersdorf Castle and got an indispensable job in the sawmill through the von Arnim family .

In February 1945 Kuhr was drafted into the Volkssturm after all . According to his own statement, he deserted after an hour of combat. He experienced the end of the war as a Soviet prisoner of war .

In 1948 Fritz Kuhr was appointed professor at the pedagogical department of the Berlin School of Fine Arts .

Fritz Kuhr died on February 25, 1975 in West Berlin.

Exhibitions

Solo exhibitions:

Group exhibitions:

  • 1929: Jury-free art exhibition Berlin , Berlin
  • 1929: Young Bauhaus artists
  • 1929: Young Bauhaus members , Halle
  • 1930: Vision and Law of Form
  • 1933: Cassirer's traveling exhibition
  • 1937: Degenerate Art
  • 1946: Expressionism exhibition , Berlin
  • 1950–1952: Traveling exhibition of the Berlin new group through the USA .
  • 1950: 22 Bauhaus members from Berlin exhibit , Berlin
  • 1952: Great Berlin art exhibition
  • 1953 and 1954: Free Berlin Art Exhibition
  • 1956–1959: annual participation in the Great Berlin Art Exhibition

literature

  • Ute Famulla: Fritz Kuhr. An overview up to 1955 , in: Fritz Kuhr - Works on Paper , exhibition catalog of Galerie Nord, Halle an der Saale 2009. Pages 4–7.
  • Tempelhofer Kunst- und Kulturverein eV “Fritz Kuhr” working group and Artificia Gallery (ed.): Fritz Kuhr - From Bauhaus to Berlin Tempelhof , Berlin 1997.
  • Fritz Kuhr: Bauhauserinnerungen: Meine Meister , Frankfurt am Main 1993 posthumously.
  • Fritz Kuhr. Life dances. Works by a Bauhaus artist. Editors: Dorothea Böhland, Michael Schremmer. Böhland & Schremmer Verlag, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-943622-01-0 .
    • Hermann Famulla: Lantern light composition, photos by Fritz Kuhr , Team Kommunikation Verlag, Berlin 2015, ISBN 978-3-9803340-9-9

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Kuhr, Fritz
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kuhr, Friedrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter and graphic artist
DATE OF BIRTH May 10, 1899
PLACE OF BIRTH Liege , Belgium
DATE OF DEATH February 25, 1975
Place of death Berlin