Gerhard Ahnfeldt
Gerhard Ernst Erich Ahnfeldt (born March 16, 1916 in Rostock , † September 24, 1964 in Cairo ) was a German draftsman and painter .
life and work
Ahnfeldt lived in Davos (Switzerland) from 1939 to 1956 and then in Cairo until his death. He had been seriously ill with tuberculosis since he was 19 and therefore lived a very withdrawn life . After 1971, practically none of his works were on public display, his pictures were forgotten and apart from himself and his wife (Mathilde Ahnfeldt-Caldelari, 1910–1995) no one ever had an overview of his complete works. Since 2010 this has been brought to light again in a research project.
Ahnfeldt was primarily a draftsman and watercolorist in the 1940s, and from around 1950 also tried his hand at oil painting (in the style of the Munich School ), but only found his style after further training with Albert Pfister (1884–1978) and then painted large and colorful. Influences of the Fauves ( Henri Matisse , André Derain , Kees van Dongen , Maurice de Vlaminck , Raoul Dufy ) have been noticed in his work, and he also admired Paul Gauguin , August Macke , Franz Marc and Lyonel Feininger . His talent for drawing was also present in his oil paintings. He consciously strived for harmony in his compositions. Despite strong abstraction, he never went to non-representational painting. He chose his motifs almost exclusively in everyday life, especially in Egypt. A compassionate soul speaks out of his works, which despite its own suffering knows how to see and show the good in the world and tries to make the problematic bearable with a fine sense of humor.
Ahnfeldt's graphic work mainly includes illustrations for literary texts (especially CF Meyer , Der Heilige , Pedro Antonio de Alarcón , Der Dreispitz , Joseph von Eichendorff , From the life of a good-for-nothing , Werner Bergengruen , Der Spanish Rosenstock , Goethe , Faust I and others). Sketches and studies have also been preserved, some of which were used to prepare large pictures. Many drawings are carefully worked out, mostly in Indian ink, and are therefore fully-fledged small works of art. The same is true of most of the surviving watercolors and gouaches . Working out larger pictures meant a great deal of effort for Ahnfeldt, who was often bedridden. Nevertheless, in the ten years after 1953, he left behind over 200 oil paintings with 30 cm or more and over 100 with 50 cm or more sides.
Ahnfeldt's works were shown in collective exhibitions in Davos, Zurich and Germany in the 1950s. In November / December 1960 and November / December 1963, from Cairo, his wife organized a large exhibition dedicated only to him in the Villa Vecchia in Davos-Dorf, where numerous pictures were sold. Finally, in the autumn of 1971, she carried out two large exhibitions posthumously in Zurich, also with considerable success, before retiring to a senior citizens' home in Germany and devoting her old age to documenting the work of her husband, who died prematurely.
Despite their careful work, well over a hundred pictures by Gerhard Ahnfeldt have been lost. One goal of the project is to find them again in order to be able to document them and appreciate them as part of the overall work.
literature
- Rudolf Wachter : The painter Gerhard Ahnfeldt - torn from oblivion. Somedia, Glarus / Chur 2016, 252 pp., 419 figs., ISBN 978-3-906064-61-1 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Rudolf Wachter : Light into the Dark! The painter Gerhard Ahnfeldt rediscovered. In: Davos Revue. Vol. 88, No. 1, March 2013, pp. 30-46; The way as goal. Gerhard Ahnfeldt in his drawings and sketches. In: Davos Revue. Vol. 89, No. 2, June 2014, pp. 8–24.
- ↑ a b website for Gerhard Ahnfeldt .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Ahnfeldt, Gerhard |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Ahnfeldt, Gerhard Ernst Erich (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German draftsman and painter |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 16, 1916 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Rostock |
| DATE OF DEATH | September 24, 1964 |
| Place of death | Cairo |