Günter Schmitz (painter)

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Günter Schmitz (born September 16, 1909 in Chemnitz , † August 23, 2002 in Radebeul ) was a German painter and graphic artist .

Live and act

Günter Schmitz's tomb in the Radebeul-West cemetery

Schmitz went to school in Kötzschenbroda and Dresden , then he graduated from 1926 to 1930 trained as a commercial artist in Dresden Niedersedlitz , on the occasion of which he probably Gerhard Schiffel (1913-2002) met, with whom he should join a life painter friendship. Between 1930 and 1937 he studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Dresden with Richard Müller and Max Feldbauer , most recently as a master student of Ferdinand Dorsch and Rudolf Schramm-Zittau . At that time he was already painting many pictures of the still undestroyed Dresden, a document of the times of the city that was later destroyed.

During his time as a freelance painter in Dresden between 1937 and 1939, he traveled to Italy, Tunisia, Yugoslavia, Austria and Greece to study.

In 1940 he was called up for military service, among other things he was stationed at Kallmünz in Upper Palatinate . Schmitz fell into Soviet captivity, from which he returned in 1950 (or 1949). From then on he lived in Radebeul, most recently in Serkowitz in a villa on Augustusweg 18 .

Günter Schmitz worked as a freelance painter and graphic artist, mainly in the applied field as an advertising draftsman and illustrator. He became a member of trade union 17 of the FDGB (art and literature). During the 1950s and 1960s he developed into an old master of advertising posters in the GDR , for example for Konsum , Elbe Chemie Dresden and Textima , until it was decided in the early 1970s that product advertising as a capitalist act did not fit into state doctrine. There are also some murals by him, for example for the Drugs Factory Dresden or the former Sächsische Serumwerk Dresden .

From 1970 onwards, Schmitz increasingly turned to free artistic work, mainly large-format watercolors with motifs from the Elbe and Loessnitz , and he was allowed to travel several times to Switzerland, Italy, Denmark, Bulgaria, France and Austria. He also regularly went to Kallmünz for study and painting visits. Günter Schmitz made the city, which he visited again and again, an honorary citizen . In 2000 Schmitz became a member of the Saxon Artists Association.

In 1998 Günter Schmitz was awarded the art prize of the great district town of Radebeul .

Schmitz's grave is in the Radebeul-West cemetery .

literature

  • Frank Andert (Red.): Radebeul City Lexicon . Historical manual for the Loessnitz . Published by the Radebeul City Archives. 2nd, slightly changed edition. City archive, Radebeul 2006, ISBN 3-938460-05-9 .
  • Karin Gerhardt: Günter Schmitz and Gerhard Schiffel - a friendship between painters . In: Radebeuler Monatshefte eV (Ed.): Preview & Review; Monthly magazine for Radebeul and the surrounding area . December 2009 ( vorschau-rueckblick.de [accessed March 11, 2020] with an early photo of Schiffel and Schmitz).
  • Thomas Gubig, Sebastian Köpcke: Tried and tested - youthful: advertising graphics by Günter Schmitz . Industrial design collection, Berlin 1997.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Eberhard Taupitz: Hidden Pictures - Memory of a Dresden Youth 1910-1932 . ISBN 3-934141-14-5
  2. ↑ a b Günter Schmitz ( Memento from July 19, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ↑ Award of the Art Prize 2003 (PDF; 30 kB)
personal data
SURNAME Schmitz, Günter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter and graphic artist
DATE OF BIRTH September 16, 1909
PLACE OF BIRTH Chemnitz
DATE OF DEATH August 23, 2002
Place of death Radebeul