Georg Jakob Best

Georg Jakob Best (born October 21, 1903 in Kaiserslautern ; † October 28, 2003 in Götzenhain ) was a German painter , graphic artist and sculptor .

life and work

Georg Jakob Best gained his first experience at the age of 12 in a portrait school in Mannheim . The youngest of three children was encouraged to engage in art through the example of their uncle, the painter Hans Best . From 1917 to 1921 he was trained at the Mannheim trade school. Best then attended the Badische Landeskunstschule in Karlsruhe and took the subject "Decorative Painting" in August Babberger's master class . After graduating, he started his own business as a freelance artist in Frankfurt am Main .

Georg Jakob Best was married to Gertrude Anne Heinsheimer (1904 Karlsruhe - 1943 Tel Aviv, Israel) from Karlsruhe from 1928. The marriage ended in divorce in 1931.

From 1928 to 1930, Georg Jakob Best made extensive trips to Dalmatia and Brittany . In 1932, at the 1st International Printmaking Exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago, besides works by Max Beckmann , Max Pechstein , Emil Orlik and Wassily Kandinsky , the sheet Die Badenden von Best was shown. In the same year he was accepted into Paul Klee's master class at the Düsseldorf Art Academy . With Eugen Batz , Hubert Berke , Emil Bert Hartwig , Walter Erben , Petra Petitpierre and August Preuße , Georg Jakob Best was one of those students who Klee taught in his last year as a lecturer in the master class before exile in Switzerland. After the teacher and role model was expelled in 1933, Best first tried to continue his artistic career in Frankfurt. From 1936 he lived and worked in Lovis Corinth's former studio in Berlin .

Drafted into the war in 1941, Best returned from prisoner-of-war camp in 1945, first living in Berlin, and from 1953 in the Frankfurt area. In 1946 the art historian Richard Hamann won it for the exhibition of contemporary post-expressionist painting in Marburg . In 1948 he designed an exhibition in Hanna Bekker vom Rath's art cabinet . In 1953 he presented colored graphics at the Kestner Society in Hanover . In 1956 his work was shown at the exhibition the new darmstädter secession in Wiesbaden. In Frankfurt and in southern Germany he is still represented today in the streets and in public buildings with art in architecture . While only a few early works have survived due to the destruction of the war, post-war works in public spaces are now also at great risk of destruction as a result of construction activity.

literature

Clemens Jöckle: Best, Georg Jakob . In: General Artist Lexicon . The visual artists of all times and peoples (AKL). Volume 10, Saur, Munich a. a. 1994, ISBN 3-598-22750-7 , p. 219.
Best, Georg Jakob . In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General Lexicon of Fine Artists of the XX. Century. tape 5 : V-Z. Supplements: A-G . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1961, p. 303 .
Christoph Wagner (ed.): Georg Jakob Best. Klee student, "Degenerate artist", painter of the Informel ( Regensburg studies on art history. Volume 24). 1st edition. Schnell & Steiner Verlag, Regensburg 2015, ISBN 978-3-7954-3001-6 .

Web links

Individual evidence

^ Catalog of the First International Exhibition of Etching and Engraving, the Art Institute of Chicago in Cooperation with the Chicago Society of Etchers, March 24 to May 15, 1932 . Chicago 1932. PDF provided by The Art Institute of Chicago . Retrieved October 27, 2014.
↑ Donation Georg Jakob Best: 18 works by Klee student Georg Jakob Best document the far-reaching artistic influence of Paul Klee. Media release from Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern, August 27, 2008, accessed on October 23, 2014.
↑ Uta Gerlach-Laxner: Learn from Hokusai. Klee's pupil - Georg Jakob Best for his hundredth birthday . Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, October 21, 2003, No. 244, p. 40.
^ Catalog exhibition of contemporary post-expressionist painting: Ernst Kelle, Alo Altripp, Jakob Best, Wilhelm Inkamp . Edited by Richard Hamann. Marburg 1946, digitized version of the Philipps University of Marburg, university library, accessed on October 23, 2014.

personal data
SURNAME	Best, Georg Jakob
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German painter, graphic artist and sculptor
DATE OF BIRTH	October 21, 1903
PLACE OF BIRTH	Kaiserslautern
DATE OF DEATH	October 28, 2003
Place of death	Götzenhain

[1] Catalog of the First International Exhibition of Etching and Engraving, the Art Institute of Chicago in Cooperation with the Chicago Society of Etchers, March 24 to May 15, 1932 . Chicago 1932. PDF provided by The Art Institute of Chicago . Retrieved October 27, 2014.

[2] Donation Georg Jakob Best: 18 works by Klee student Georg Jakob Best document the far-reaching artistic influence of Paul Klee. Media release from Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern, August 27, 2008, accessed on October 23, 2014.

[3] Uta Gerlach-Laxner: Learn from Hokusai. Klee's pupil - Georg Jakob Best for his hundredth birthday . Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, October 21, 2003, No. 244, p. 40.

[4] Catalog exhibition of contemporary post-expressionist painting: Ernst Kelle, Alo Altripp, Jakob Best, Wilhelm Inkamp . Edited by Richard Hamann. Marburg 1946, digitized version of the Philipps University of Marburg, university library, accessed on October 23, 2014.