Gottfried Graf

Gottfried Graf (born January 17, 1881 in Mengen ; † September 20, 1938 in Stuttgart ) was a German painter and wood cutter . From the time of the First World War until the mid-1920s, he was one of the pioneers of modern art in southwest Germany.

Life

Gottfried Graf was born on January 17, 1881 as the son of a craftsman in Mengen. Graf first joined the Württemberg postal service in 1897, but turned to art from 1904 onwards.

From 1904 to 1908 he studied at the Royal Württemberg Academy and School of Applied Arts in Stuttgart , which he completed with the state examination as a drawing teacher. After a period in Florence and Rome, Graf began studying in 1909 as a student of professors Christian Landenberger , Adolf Hölzel and Heinrich Altherr . In 1913 he traveled to the south of France, where he met Jacques Villon and Albert Gleizes . From this encounter grew a friendship with Gleizes, which turned into a dependency. The intensive examination of the cubist design language began for Gottfried Graf in 1913. As a result, he developed his own unmistakable and unmistakable art.

Due to the war, his studies were interrupted between 1914 and 1918 and he was employed as a drawing teacher until the end of the war. In 1919 the Üecht Group was founded . He took part in their I. Herbstschau New Art with the participation of the Berlin “Sturm” and important French and Italian artists in Stuttgart. In 1921 he was appointed professor (successor to Heine Rath, who died in 1920 ) and head of the woodcut school (and most recently of the entire graphic department) at the Württemberg Art Academy. A year earlier, the II. Autumn Show New Art, mainly organized by Graf, had taken place in Stuttgart. In 1924 the Üecht group was dissolved. In 1927 Graf published the book “The new woodcut and the problem of artistic design” with his own work and contributions from the woodcut school. Two years later the group was founded in 1929 and its First Autumn Show exhibition in Stuttgart. At the end of the twenties he returned to completely representational art. In 1931, on the occasion of his 50th birthday, Julius Baum set up a large overall exhibition in the Ulm Museum . It was largely taken over by the Kunstverein Stuttgart. This is followed by an exhibition participation in the Vienna Secession .

In 1937, during the National Socialist dictatorship in Germany, many of his works were declared “ degenerate art ”, removed from museums and destroyed. He was discharged from teaching in 1938. Broken physically and mentally, the artist died on September 20, 1938 in Stuttgart. Two days later, after he was transferred to Mengen, he was buried there on September 24, 1938 (Heinrich Altherr - the only representative of the Academy - gave the funeral speech). He lies in a grave of honor, since 1974 together with his wife Karin. The grave is adorned with a "menhir" with a bronze relief based on a woodcut by himself. The cemetery is accessible at all times.

Works

As a member of the avant-garde art scene around Hölzel, Graf was one of the pioneers of the new art in Stuttgart. He is known as the pioneer of modern woodcut. As a graphic artist, he mainly worked as a landscape eraser. He then approaches cubism . As a painter he was influenced by Georges Braque . His works include paintings, drawings, prints (primarily woodcuts, but also etchings) and colored designs. Many private collections, but only a few museums in southern Germany own them. The city of Mengen has the largest collection with 50 paintings in a specially created museum behind the town hall.

literature

• Peter Bronner: Gottfried Graf 1881–1938. Painting. colored designs. Drawings. Printmaking. On the occasion of an exhibition from September 3 to October 1, 2006 by the city of Mengen in cooperation with the trade association Mengen e. V. and the Association for Local History and Museums in Mengen e. V.
• Werner P. Heyd : Gottfried Graf and the "degenerate art" in Stuttgart . Preliminary remark by Wolfgang Kermer . Stuttgart: State Academy of Fine Arts Stuttgart, 1987 ( contributions to the history of the State Academy of Fine Arts Stuttgart / edited by Wolfgang Kermer; 6)
• Norbert Hüll: Gottfried Graf (1881–1938). Painter and graphic artist. Member of the Hölzel Circle . Thorbecke Verlag, Sigmaringen 1985. ISBN 3-7995-4087-3 .
• Bert Schlichtenmaier, Kuno Schlichtenmaier: Gottfried Graf (1881–1938): woodcuts, lithographs . Edition Schlichtenmaier, Grafenau 1989. ISBN 3-89298-042-X

Web links

• Literature by and about Gottfried Graf in the catalog of the German National Library