Georg Mendelssohn

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Georg Mendelssohn (born Georg von Mendelssohn; * 1886 in Dorpat , † 1955 in Baden-Baden ) was a German artisan .

Live and act

Georg Mendelssohn in his Hellerau workshop, presumably 1911–1913, source: Monacensia , Literature Archive and Library Munich
Georg Mendelssohn in his Hellerau workshop, presumably 1911–1913, source: Monacensia , Literature
Archive and Library Munich

Georg Mendelssohn was born in Dorpat (today Tartu, Estonia) in 1886 as the second eldest son of the classical philologist and professor Ludwig Mendelssohn (1852-1896) and the Baltic landowner's daughter Alexandrine von Cramer (1849-1922) and, like his father, was baptized Evangelical Lutheran. He belongs to the Mendelssohn family of German-Jewish merchants, scholars and artists from Jever , which goes back to Moses Mendelssohn (not identical to the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn ). His siblings were the graphologist and writer Ania Teillard (1889–1978), the writer Erich von Mendelssohn (1887–1913) and the senior teacher Walter von Mendelssohn (1883–1955).

After his father's death in 1896, the mother moved with Georg and his three siblings to Jena , where he went to school and passed his Abitur. During his subsequent history studies in Kiel and Jena, he began to make necklaces and jewelry on an autodidactic basis. The Jena professor of classical archeology and art history, Botho Graef , to whom his uncle Erich von Mendelssohn was already in close contact, advised him to take a professional craft apprenticeship, but Georg Mendelssohn “always wanted to invent straight away and not work out the bad patterns that his teacher did gave up on him. "

At the age of almost twenty he went to Italy and formed an artists' colony with the writer Theodor Däubler and the later publisher Jakob Hegner in Forte dei Marmi (Tuscany). While the friends were writing novellas and poems, Georg Mendelssohn designed a system of ornamentation that has disappeared, as well as jewelry chains made of iron wire. In 1907 he left Italy to study at Wilhelm von Debschitz's teaching and experimental studio for applied and fine arts , the Debschitz School . There he met fellow student Gerta Maria Meta Clason and married her a little later. With her he had a total of four children: the firstborn Peter (1908–1982), the twins Margot (1910–1982) and Thomas (1910–1945) and the late-born Felix (1918–2008).

Under the influence of the Munich arts and crafts group around Richard Riemerschmid , Georg Mendelssohn switched to brass forging and became a member of the German Werkbund . Participation in the exhibition "Munich 1908", a forerunner of the later trade show, gave the young artist his first success. Two years later, at the age of twenty-four, he won a Grand Prix at the Brussels World's Fair .

In the spring of 1910, Georg Mendelssohn - motivated by Wolf Dohrn - relocated with his family to the artists' colony Hellerau near Dresden . As an avant-garde microcosm, Hellerau cast a spell over numerous artists and intellectuals. So frequented the Mendelssohn house on Pillnitz-Moritzburger Weg 3, where the family lived in a semi-detached house built by Richard Riemerschmid's Munich friend with Karl Schmidt . a. Paul Adler , Else Lasker-Schüler , Franz Kafka , Rainer Maria Rilke , Franz Werfel and Oskar Kokoschka . The publisher Jakob Hegner and the painter Conrad Felixmüller were among Georg Mendelssohn's closest friends . Felixmüller created a family portrait of the Mendelssohn family in 1919, which was later destroyed and of which only a watercolor sketch of the daughter Margot has survived. Franz Kafka characterized Georg Mendelssohn in a letter from autumn 1921 as follows:

“I know Georg von Mendelssohn fleetingly, he certainly doesn't remember me, but you can't forget him, a huge, long, northern-looking person with a small, terribly energetic bird's face, one is shocked by his nature, his briefly clipped speech, his apparently for negative attitude in every possible case, but you don't have to be alarmed, he doesn't mean it badly, at least not in the average of his behavior and is absolutely reliable. He is at the center of the German arts and crafts, has a blacksmith's shop in Hellerau and is probably one of the 'knowing' of the arts and crafts in every respect. "

Mendelssohn was called "the raven" by his family and friends. At a young age he was operated on on the neck, and in order to hide the large scar that remained, he always wore particularly high collars which, in combination with his distinctive nose, gave him the physiognomy of a raven. Georg Mendelssohn was considered to be by leaps and bounds and artistically diverse and acquired a reputation as a talented metal artist and goldsmith. In 1913, four employees in his Hellerau workshop created several copies of his designs. Despite the interim success, the Mendelssohn family's life was largely financed from the wife's family assets.

In keeping with the objectives of the Deutscher Werkbund, Georg Mendelssohn sought to counter the rich ornamentation of the fading Art Nouveau in his metalwork with a great simplicity in design, combined with almost expressive ornaments. For example, he used bronze or brass as materials for bowls, plates, trays and belt clasps, which he studded and decorated sparingly. This "primitive style" caused a sensation with the audience at the time and Georg Mendelssohn's way of working found numerous imitators, including a. with Karl Wildhagen, who worked with wrought iron, or Albert Kahlenbrandt with his roughly hammered brass brooches.

Georg Mendelssohn was rather indifferent to his title of nobility. While he was still performing as Georg von Mendelssohn in his time in Munich , in Hellerau he switched to signing his works and correspondence without the “from” sign. In 1914 Mendelssohn volunteered for military service and only returned to Hellerau after the war. In 1918, in a “revolutionary attack”, he demonstratively gave up the title of nobility for himself and his family. While his newborn son Felix was entered in the birth certificate without the title of nobility, he had exceeded his competencies with his three other children. When they came of age, they could decide on the continuation of their nobility and retained it. Going back to the contact of his mother Alexandrine, Georg Mendelssohn was close friends with the reform pedagogue Paul Geheeb and sent his son Felix to his Odenwald school for four years .

Back in Hellerau, Georg Mendelssohn, together with the architect Heinrich Tessenow and the publisher Jakob Hegner, ran the craftsmen's community founded in 1919 and continued work on his metalwork. At the urging of his friend Hegner, he developed the expressionist Mendelssohn type in 1921/1922 , the stamp of which he cut himself. The Mendelssohn type came among others. a. for the printing of an edition of Schiller's Robbers for Avalun-Verlag and for Melchior Vischer's “Teemeister”.

With his sister Anja Mendelssohn (later Ania Adamkiewicz-Mendelssohn, then Ania Teillard, 1889–1978), the versatile man published the book "Man in handwriting."

In 1922, the Mendelssohns' marriage ended in divorce. Georg Mendelssohn married the Hellerau artist Eva von Stössel and had their daughter Eva-Maria with her in 1924. His ex-wife Gerta Maria Meta Clason married the radio commentator Walter von Cube in 1929 and settled with him in Nonnenhorn on Lake Constance. The couple later separated and Gerta Clason went with her son Felix to Austria, later to Switzerland and in 1945 to the USA, where she first lived with her daughter Margot and then with her youngest son Felix and died in 1961.

In 1933 Georg Mendelssohn emigrated to France before the National Socialists, where he met his third wife Claude. His eldest son Peter emigrated to Vienna and Paris in the same year and then to England in 1936. His son Thomas went to Turkey to do his doctorate there, his daughter Margot emigrated to the USA. The youngest son Felix spent the war years in neutral Switzerland and later also went to the USA. As a German, Georg Mendelssohn was interned in Maisons-Laffitte for a few months when the war broke out , until his French wife obtained his release.

Even after the end of the war, Georg Mendelssohn stayed in France, where he a. a. lived in Nice and made necklaces out of wire again. He died in 1955 after a stroke during a stay at the Bühlerhöhe in Baden-Baden and was buried in Paris .

Most of his handicrafts were destroyed or lost during the war, some are in private ownership and in the collection of the Dresden Museum of Applied Arts at Pillnitz Castle .

Today a signposted tour through the garden city of Hellerau reminds of Georg von Mendelssohn .

Web links

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  1. a b Robert Corwegh : Georg Mendelssohn and his embossed works . In: Decorative Art - illustrated magazine for applied arts . No. 28 , 1913, pp. 126–128 ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).
  2. ^ Thomas Nitschke: History of the city of Hellerau. 2009, p. 27; Peter de Mendelssohn: Marianne. The novel of a film and the film of a novel. 1955, p. 47.
  3. Hilde Spiel: Which world is my world? Memoirs 1946–1989. P. 116.
  4. Peter de Mendelssohn: Marianne. The novel of a film and the film of a novel. 1955, p. 42.
  5. Peter de Mendelssohn: My personal, very own, captive Europe . In: Hellerau shone. Contemporary witness reports and memories , edited by Ehrhardt Heinold and Günther Großer. Verlag der Kunst Dresden, Husum 2007, p. 101; Peter de Mendelssohn: Marianne. The novel of a film and the film of a novel. 1955, p. 42 f.
  6. Marcus Payk: The spirit of democracy. 2008, p. 56 f.
  7. Peter de Mendelssohn: Hellerau. My captive Europe. 1993, p. 20; Out and about with travel shadow. 1977, p. 55.
  8. Quotation from: Franz Kafka: Briefe 1902–1924. 1990, p. 355.
  9. Hilde Spiel: Which world is my world? Memoirs 1946–1989. 1990, p. 47.
  10. Michael Fasshauer: The Hellerau phenomenon. The history of the garden city. 1997, pp. 188-192.
  11. Jo-Anne Birnie-Danzker: Art Nouveau belt buckles. Kreuzer Collection, 2000, p. 45.
  12. Peter de Mendelssohn: All the way back. Records from Germany 1945–1949. Unpublished manuscript, Monacensia, Peter de Mendelssohn estate, M226, p. 86.
  13. Peter de Mendelssohn: Marianne. The novel of a film and the film of a novel. 1955, p. 42.
  14. Peter de Mendelssohn: All the way back. Records from Germany 1945–1949 . Unpublished manuscript, Monacensia, Peter de Mendelssohn estate, M226, p. 86.
  15. Peter de Mendelssohn: Hellerau. My captive Europe. 1993, p. 12.
  16. ^ Thomas Nitschke: History of the city of Hellerau. 2009, p. 27.
  17. Written example (PDF; 212 kB)
  18. Peter de Mendelssohn: On the way with travel shadow. P. 57; also my personal, very own, captive Europe . In: Hellerau shone. Contemporary witness reports and memories , edited by Ehrhardt Heinold and Günther Großer, Verlag der Kunst Dresden, Husum 2007
  19. Marcus Payk: The spirit of democracy. 2008, p. 73.
  20. Peter de Mendelssohn: Marianne. The novel of a film and the film of a novel. 1955, p. 43.
  21. Tour in the footsteps of famous Hellerau people. In: Sächsische Zeitung of May 19, 2009 ( online article for a fee ).