Gottfried Beyer

Münster, Prinzipalmarkt with Lambertikirche

Warburg, Brüderkirchhof with grammar school Marianum

Lot on the Diemel with pollarded willows

Gottfried Beyer (born March 3, 1889 in Coesfeld , † April 17, 1968 in Warburg ) was a painter of German impressionism .

Life

He grew up in Coesfeld as the son of the local savings bank manager Aloys Joseph Beyer and his wife Anna Catharina Rosalie Steinkamp. After leaving school, he first studied art history at the University of Münster . He then moved to the Kassel Art Academy , where he became a student of Louis Kolitz , and was qualified to teach art at secondary schools there .

From 1915 he taught at schools in Hanover and Solingen . In 1920 he took up a position at the Warburg grammar school and later also worked at the middle school for girls . In addition to his teaching activities, he worked as a painter and created numerous works in the style of German impressionism , which had been shaped by the Hague School and Max Liebermann . He was also able to sell some pictures to the USA , where he was appointed professor by an American university in 1925.

In the same year Beyer acquired a plot of land in an exposed location on the then largely undeveloped Hüffert with a view of the old town of Warburg and the Diemel valley . He had a house built there, the door of which was adorned with a Madonna above it, plus the Low German inscription:

“ Moderguotts ​​in your favor, no min Hus and my art! "

In 1936, at the age of 47, Beyer took early retirement “for health reasons”. Now he could devote himself entirely to painting, which he carried out until shortly before his death. He died on April 17, 1968 in his home on the Hüffert.

plant

Beyer left behind an extensive work from the period from 1910 to shortly before his death in 1968. He mainly worked with oil paints on canvas or hardboard, but also with chalk, pastel , ink and pencil on paper.

The city of Warburg and its surrounding area offered him ideas for numerous works. He found further motifs in Münster and the Münsterland , the Bergisches Land , the Lüneburg Heath and Rothenburg ob der Tauber . He also made portraits , interiors and still lifes .

Publications

• Warburg in Westphalia , Carl Frye & Son, Münster 1922
• In home corridors , together with Heinrich Schauerte, Heimatverlag Dr. Wagener, Meschede, 1931, 2nd edition.

estate

In his will, Beyer had named the city of Warburg as the heir to his house on the condition that an art museum be set up there with an exhibition of his pictures. In addition, he had granted a lifelong right to live there for his long-time housekeeper and partner, Ms. Köbbing from Münster. After her death in 1978, however, it turned out that all of the paintings remaining in the house had been sold. Since it was no longer possible to set up its own art museum, the city also sold the house and used the proceeds to renovate the Stern house as a regional museum for history and art, in which some of Gottfried's paintings were bought and donated to the city Beyer kept and shown.

In 2018, a commemorative exhibition with over 100 works took place there on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of his death.

Awards

• 1925 title of professor at a US university
• 1988 Naming of an exhibition room in the Warburg Museum in Stern as "Beyer-Saal".

literature

• Westfalenblatt : A permanent memorial was erected: the artist's hermitage, Professor Gottfried Beyer died, Warburg, April 1968
• Helmut Ebert: Lexicon of the visual and creative artists in Westphalia-Lippe . Munster 2001
• Erwin Dickhoff: Coesfelder Biographien , Münster 2002
• Burkhard Battran: Warburger Museum presents 100 pictures by Gottfried Beyer , Neue Westfälische Warburg, April 11, 2018
• Ralf Benner: Exhibition on the 50th anniversary of the death of Warburg artist Gottfried Beyer in the "Stern", painter laid the foundation stone for the museum , Warburg, April 12, 2018
• Burkhard Battran: Warburg City Museum is reminiscent of the painter Gottfried Beyer, an impressionist in the best sense of the word . New Westphalian Warburg, April 16, 2018
• Ralf Benner: Painting should please the eye, exhibition commemorates the artist Gottfried Beyer , Westfalenblatt Warburg, April 16, 2018
• Dieter Scholz: Museum in the "Stern": Much more than a local museum for Warburg Neue Westfälische Warburg, May 5, 2018

Web links

• Local family register Coesfeld