Georg Seyler

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In the Pankower Atelier 1994, photo: Michael Sohn

Georg Heinrich Robert Seyler (born May 19, 1915 in Berlin-Wedding ; † March 19, 1998 in Berlin-Pankow ) was a German painter and graphic artist . He created an extensive body of work in the field of commercial graphics , painting and pen drawing , with a particular focus of his work on maritime topics such as coastal landscapes, ships and boats.

Life

Seyler was born as the second child of Robert and Ernestine Seyler. At the time, his father was a foreman at Borsig , while his mother first worked as a maid and later also at Borsig as a motor winder. His brother Alfred was two years older.

From 1921 to 1929 Georg attended elementary school in Berlin and in 1930 he began an apprenticeship as a chromolithograph . The young person's first drawings have come down to us from this time. From 1934 to 1936 Seyler attended evening courses at the Higher Graphic Technical School in Berlin in order to perfect himself in writing, chromolithography, chalk lithography and cartographic drawing.

In 1936 he switched from his training company to work as a cartographic-geographic draftsman at the Prussian Geological State Institute . In the same year he married Gertrud Kleinsteuber. In 1937 he worked for a few months as a cartographic draftsman before he was called up for military service in November 1937. This was followed by six years of military service with the armored forces on the Eastern Front (Romania, Ukraine) when the war began in September 1939 . During his time in the Wehrmacht and during the war, Georg Seyler repeatedly picked up pencils and captured scenes such as portraits . The young family in particular was a recurring motif during the short vacations at the front. During the war his children were Karin, born April 1, 1938; Ingrid was born on January 15, 1940 and Edward was born on June 13, 1941. He experienced the end of the war in captivity with the American troops in Austria.

After his release in July 1945, he initially stayed in Bayreuth and worked as a sign and decoration painter. At the insistence of his wife, he returned to Berlin in March 1946 and worked for a year as a transport worker for the Russian occupation authorities. From May to October 1947 he was an artistic clerk at the Büttner art dealer in Berlin. This was followed by a phase as a freelance painter and graphic artist until June 1949 and from June 1949 he began to work as a draftsman for statistics at the German Economic Commission (DWK) . From November 1949 on, he worked as a graphic designer in the GDR Information Office under Klaus Wittkugel in the Peace and Plan Propaganda Department. From February 1952 until his death he worked as a freelancer for various institutions, publishers and magazines in the GDR. In 1955 she was accepted into the Association of Visual Artists of the GDR .

During regular stays of several weeks in the 1960s and 1970s on Usedom / Bansin with the Wittkugel family, many sketches and pictures of the Baltic coast were created. His six voyages in particular were the starting point for a wealth of paintings and drawings from the 1960s to 1980s.

In the 1960s and 1970s he was a freelance graphic artist for the popular science magazine Urania . In doing so, he shaped the style of scientific graphics in this publication and produced hundreds of print templates for articles and contributions. This also resulted in the company's own series of back titles on the history of sailing (1970/71) and flags and coats of arms.

In the 1970s he was a co-founder of the Working Group for Shipping and Navy History of the GDR (AKSM). The meeting with many different experts and lovers of maritime history resulted in additional fields of activity and activities. He was significantly involved in the design and furnishing of exhibitions at the AKSM and supplied a large number of publishers and publications, whose editors and representatives were members, with illustrations and works. The signet he designed is still in use today at the DGSM ( German Society for Shipping and Marine History ), in which the AKSM was incorporated after the fall of the Wall in 1991.

In 1973 his son fled by swimming across the Baltic Sea to West Germany. In 1975 Edward Seyler moved to Cornwall , and the subsequent visits by his father when he reached retirement age resulted in extensive series of oil paintings and drawings. Around 1985 Georg Seyler discovered drawing with the pen, which shaped his work until his death.

In 1996 he suffered a stroke that made oil painting impossible and Georg Seyler died on March 19, 1998 in Pankow.

Work overview

During his lifetime, Georg Seyler had not determined where his work would go. The majority of his paintings (over 300) came into the possession of a Berlin antiques company after the death of his wife. The children and grandchildren kept a smaller proportion. In order not to let the extensive work fall into oblivion, a digital archive was set up.

painting

  • Motif of the trip to the north of the country from 1966, oil on cardboard

  • Oil on cardboard, 1976

Commercial Art / Scientific Illustration

  • URANIA illustration from issue 12/1972

  • Back cover graphic from URANIA 12/1970

Free graphics / pen drawings

  • Motif from Cornwall, format of the original A4

literature

  • Michael Sohn: Maritime Landscapes . Books on Demand Verlag, Norderstedt 2011, ISBN 978-3-8448-0938-1 .
  • Günther Meyer: His subject: the ship and its landscape. In: Marinekalender der DDR 1985. pp. 130–134.
  • Michael Sohn: Georg Seyler 1915–1998, painting of the ship and its landscape. Self-published by Sohn-Art, Hennigsdorf 2015, ISBN 978-3-00-049526-7 .

Web links
personal data
SURNAME Seyler, Georg
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Seyler, Georg Heinrich Robert (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter and graphic artist
DATE OF BIRTH May 19, 1915
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin-Wedding
DATE OF DEATH March 19, 1998
Place of death Berlin-Pankow