Gerhard Gollwitzer
Gerhard Gollwitzer (born June 7, 1906 in Pappenheim , Middle Franconia ; † April 13, 1973 in Mühlheim (Mörnsheim) ) was a German art educator , writer and political activist.
Life
Gerhard Gollwitzer, the brother of the theologian Helmut Gollwitzer , came from a Lutheran-Protestant parish household in Bavaria . As a student he was a member of the youth movement ( Wandervogel ). After graduating from high school in Augsburg , he studied from 1925 to 1929 at the Starnberg School of Fine Arts, then at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts and finally at the State Art School and TH Berlin. Then he worked as a freelance painter and sculptor . 1930–1931 Gollwitzer took part in the "seminar for drawing subject" at the Luitpold secondary school in Munich . He completed his training with the "State Examination for Drawing and Art Class".
1931–1937 Gollwitzer was employed as an art teacher in the South German state educational home Schondorf am Ammersee . The combination of teaching and upbringing there, the supervision of the young adults in the theater and at home festivities shaped the later typical complex approach of his teaching. The “special lessons for the gifted” in the upper classes gave him a lot of inspiration.
November 1933 Gollwitzer joined the party under pressure from the NSDAP - in the hope of being able to positively influence the level of the ideological aesthetic debate. He soon recognized the hopelessness of the attempt and resigned in 1934. In 1937, at the instigation of the NSDAP, Gollwitzer had to leave the Landerziehungsheim and Bavaria. Günther von Pechmann , director of the Staatliche Porzellanmanufaktur Berlin (KPM) , appointed him as an artistic assistant.
Services
From 1941 Gollwitzer became the artistic director of the porcelain factory. During these years, table and tea sets, vases, wall plates and tables were created according to designs and models by Gollwitzer with landscape, figurative and plant motifs. The training of lathe operators, molders and painters as well as the supervision of the porcelain painters were under his direction. From 1941 he also worked for the State Glass Manufactory Karlsbad. Vases and drinking glasses were made according to his designs. In November 1943, both the porcelain factory and Gollwitzer's apartment were destroyed by bombing. The manufacture was relocated to Selb . Gollwitzer managed the relocation of painting with an apprentice department and the rebuilding of the workshops in Karlsbad , which he led until it was closed in May 1945.
In October 1945 he was denazified after a short trial due to his continued opposition to the NSDAP despite the NSDAP interlude . In 1946, Minister of Culture Theodor Heuss appointed Gollwitzer as head of the department for general artistic training at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart . In 1947 his wife, Lalita Gollwitzer, followed with their three children.
In the following 22 years of teaching at the Stuttgart Academy of Fine Arts, Gollwitzer developed a wide-ranging field of activity. In addition to his university work, which also included the management of the art education course, he initiated many art seminars, such as the “Young Art Work Week”, “Artistic Games” for the engineers at Bosch , for the “ Bund der Köngener ”, the “ Free German Circle” "And the" CJD ". In cooperation with the Otto-Maier-Verlag Ravensburg several drawing and “visual” schools as well as painter and sculptor quartets were published.
In 1968 Gollwitzer prematurely ended his teaching activities for health reasons and retired with his wife to his Franconian homeland , to Mühlheim (Mörnsheim) in the Eichstätt district . He died here after a stroke.
student
Modern artists received impulses through participation in Gollwitzer's basic academy class, e.g. B. Sigrid Baumann-Senn, Alfred Bast , Gerlinde Beck , Heribert Bücking, Robert Förch, Eberhard Linke , Georg Karl Pfahler and Malte Sartorius .
politics
Gollwitzer was an active part of the Easter march movement for years . He is one of the co-founders of DFU . But Gollwitzer was also deeply religious, shaped and a. by Emanuel Swedenborg .
Quotes
( from "Art as a Sign", Chr. Kaiser-Verlag Munich)
When leafing through an art history, we mostly forget that the illustrated masterpieces of earlier times represent the top layer of a deeply tiered artistic culture that extends down to the farmhouse parlors. They are the magnificent giant trees that protrude from a thick forest with lush undergrowth. The works from our time, on the other hand, are comparable to the few greasy eyes on a water soup, at the bottom of which lies the sediment of mindless kitsch and the soulless machine.
Our concern is a new, intimate connection between life and art. It is really not just about helping to organize leisure time and brightening up everyday life, nor is it a popular educational or even school task, but also a political issue, and ultimately a religious problem and every question of the existence of Western mankind .
The best standard training is and remains your own cooperation. It is not the acquisition of concepts and ready-made judgments, but only our own groping actions that bring us closer to the valid standards for which we are on the lookout.
Never draw schematically, but consistently put form after form into a living whole with concentrated participation ... The same basic rhythm must sound through everything ... Your awakened eyes will in future [...] take hold of the space.
Fonts
- Art as a sign ; Munich: Chr. Kaiser, 1958
- Joy from drawing ; Ravensburg: Otto Maier, 1959
- Drawing school for talented people ; Ravensburg: Otto Maier, 1959
- The circle speaks ; Tübingen: Ernst Wasmuth, 1962
- Indian picture book ; Stuttgart: J. Fink, 1963
- Gollwitzer-Kowalski. Paths to fine arts ; Stuttgart: Ernst Klett, 1965
- School of sight ; Ravensburg: Otto Maier, 1966
- Figurative drawing ; Ravensburg: Otto Maier, 1967
- The human figure ; Stuttgart: Ernst Klett, 1967
- The workshop visit I / II ; Ratingen: Aloys Henn
- Rembrandt Hundertguldenblatt ; Stuttgart: Evangelisches Verlagswerk, 1969
- Open your eyes to architecture ; Ratingen: Aloys Henn, 1973
- The Transparent World - A Swedenborg Breviary ; Zurich: Swedenborg, 1966
- The spirit world is not closed ; Zurich: Swedenborg
- Letters of Friendship - Karl Scheffler and Gerhard Gollwitzer 1933–1951 ; Stuttgart, Dresden: 2002 (private print)
(The written estate of Gollwitzer is largely kept in the German Art Archive in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum , Nuremberg.)
literature
- Birgit Jooss: Gerhard Gollwitzer: graphic collage for the book "Schule des Sehens". In: Anzeiger des Germanisches Nationalmuseum. Edited by G. Ulrich Großmann, Nürnberg 2013, pp. 308–311.
Web links
- Literature by and about Gerhard Gollwitzer in the catalog of the German National Library
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Gollwitzer, Gerhard |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German art educator, artist and writer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | June 7, 1906 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Pappenheim |
| DATE OF DEATH | April 13, 1973 |
| Place of death | Mühlheim (Mörnsheim) |