Georg Greve-Lindau

Georg Greve , mostly Georg Greve-Lindau (born May 1, 1876 in Lindau im Eichsfeld , † July 16, 1963 in Duderstadt ) was a German impressionist painter . Greve was a well-known artist during his early years, but has largely been forgotten today.

Life

Childhood and school days

Greve's birthplace (demolished 1974)

Georg Greve was born on May 1, 1876 as the second son of the factory owner August Greve and his second wife Elsbeth, née. Uhl was born in the Eichsfeld town of Lindau, which is now part of the Northeim district . Greve had eight other siblings, three of whom died early. Greve was interested in historical buildings in his hometown from an early age and less, as his father had hoped, in his factory. From 1888 Greve went to the Andreanum-Gymnasium in Hildesheim , where he passed his Abitur. The time in Hildesheim had a lasting influence on him, so it was there that he first came into contact with works by great masters in the Roemer and Pelizaeus Museum there . Greve, whose passion for painting was very pronounced, was supported by his mother at an early age, and she helped ensure that the first works were presented at the art academy in Munich, where Greve wanted to study. The academy's reaction was extremely positive, and Greve's father finally agreed to train as a painter.

Early stage of development

In April 1896, Greve went to Professor Ludwig Schmid-Reutte's drawing school , whom he still held in high regard in later life. In the following years he went on study trips with classmates, including Alfred Kubin , on which the first notable pictures were taken. Greve achieved a first success in 1899 when he won first prize in a competition entitled “The Three Kings” with a painting depicting the landscape of the Seeburg Lake . His studies were interrupted by military service in 1896 and 1897. In 1900 he succeeded Professor Schmid-Reutte, who was called to Karlsruhe and made friends there with the painter Karl Hofer . There he also met his future wife Lisel Ambos.

He spent the following years 1901 and 1902 in his parents' house in Lindau. By his own admission, this time was perhaps the happiest of his life; here he could work artistically in familiar surroundings. In 1902 he went to Stuttgart to become a student of Leopold von Kalckreuth . Greve became his master student. Von Kalckreuth was particularly interested in the pictures made in Lindau in 1901 and 1902 and had a strong influence on Greve's painting style in the years that followed. Trips to Spain, Holland and Paris also meant that Greve's pictures became lighter and tended more and more towards impressionism.

In 1906 he married Lisel Ambos, with whom he settled in Schallershof near Erlangen. At this point his academic time was over and he started working as a freelance painter. In 1907 he moved to Tennenlohe near Nuremberg , where he also dealt with the works of Albrecht Dürer and was inspired by them. During this time Greve's children Eva and Peter were born. While his daughter, like Greve's wife, became a musician, his son worked as a painter and sculptor.

Artistic breakthrough

The seclusion and distance from the art scene that characterized Tennenlohe prompted him to move to Weimar , the then stronghold of art, in 1910 . There he worked with painters such as Max Klinger , Max Beckmann and Fritz Mackensen . Here he achieved his artistic breakthrough and Max Liebermann also noticed him and said that one had to keep an eye on his works. In 1912 Greve applied for the important Villa Romana Prize with the picture “People passing by”, which he won. This was combined with a subsequent one-year stay in Florence free of charge , which was also endowed with a large amount of money. Consequently, the time in Florence was free of material worries and carefree. His most beautiful impressionistic pictures were also taken there.

After returning from Florence, Greve moved to Berlin in 1914 , whose art scene attracted him, while he disliked the hustle and bustle of the big city. However, the outbreak of the First World War and the associated drafting into the military prevented him from joining the local art scene. After the war he moved with his family to Wentorf near Hamburg , where he bought an old farmhouse. His youngest daughter Rosemarie was born here. Greve was a member of the Hamburg Artists' Association from 1832 .

The First World War had also changed the art world significantly. Impressionism, to which Greve still felt obliged, was no longer the dominant factor. Instead, there was a triumphant advance of expressionism and abstract painting. Greve's works were well received at art exhibitions in Hamburg, but they are "yesterday's art".

Withdrawal and later years of life

War memorial based on Greve's designs

In the following years Greve suffered from severe depression, which stayed with him until the end of his life. He now stayed away from the official art scene. He suffered from the fact that he was no longer known and officially recognized by important artists. Nevertheless, he continued his work. At that time his pictures were shown in exhibitions in Munich, Weimar, Hamburg and later in Göttingen . After the war, Greve also had a difficult time economically. While his wife kept the family afloat with music lessons, Greve inevitably had to take on artistically less demanding jobs such as making coats of arms, maps, company heads and advertising material, which he did not like. In order to escape these constraints, Greve increasingly traveled to pursue his own artistic ambitions. Nevertheless, he still had to carry out commissioned work that could not always be based on his artistic standards. At the beginning of the 1920s he designed a war memorial for his home town of Lindau.

In 1935, after his first wife Lisel died, he married his cousin Zoila , who was also an artist. When his old farmhouse had to give way to a barracks in 1936, he left Hamburg and moved to Duderstadt after a short stay in Kassel in order to be close to Lindau. He set up a studio in Duderstadt and was alone a lot. But he did not find the desired participation in his art there. In the later years of his life, Greve mainly performed public contracts. So he painted pictures for the meeting room of the tax office in Northeim . He also carried out orders in Einbeck and Hardegsen . At the age of over 80, he was commissioned to create the town hall of the Duderstadt town hall with a cycle of murals about the town's history in frescoes, which he could no longer physically manage due to his old age. Some frescoes were made anyway, but have not survived.

Greve's final years were marked by considerable personal doubts about his art. However, the artist's records indicate that he eventually found peace with his works.

Georg Greve died on July 16, 1963. His grave is in the Katlenburg cemetery. He had chosen this tomb while he was still alive.

Others

Honors

• 1912: Villa Romana Prize

A street in his hometown Lindau is named after Greve, the Georg-Greve-Weg.

Works

• Düsel, Friedrich (Hrsg.): Commemorative book for Storm's centenary September 14, 1917. Westermann Braunschweig 1916. The book contains numerous illustrations by Greve to Storm's poems.
• You my Germany. Home pictures of German artists. German poems. New, expanded edition. Publisher Fritz Heyder / Berlin-Zehlendorf. 1921. Greve is also represented here with drawings.
• Art and Life 1923. A calendar. Berlin-Zehlendorf Fritz Heyder, 15th year (1923). Greve can also be found here.

• War memorial (1920s) in Lindau. Today it is in the local cemetery.

Greve's works are now in various locations, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Museum Villa Freischütz in Merano .

Most of his works are privately owned.

literature

• Rudolf Brodhun: The painter Georg Greve , in: Lindau - history of a spot in northern Eichsfeld . ISBN 3-923453-67-1
• Wiltrud Eikenberg: The early years of the painter Georg Greve
• Georg Greve: Memories from my life (unpublished)
• Sandra Kästner: Georg Greve-Lindau 1876-1963. Realist, impressionist, expressionist. In: Eichsfeld-Jahrbuch 24th vol., Duderstadt 2016, pp. 289–309, ISBN 9-783869441-68-9.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Brodhun, Rudolf: The painter Georg Greve , in: Lindau - history of a spot in northern Eichsfeld
2. ↑ [1] (accessed June 24, 2011)