Gustav Jourdan

Gustav Jourdan (born February 20, 1884 in Schwäbisch Gmünd , † August 31, 1950 in Hayingen ) was a visual artist and university professor.

Life

Jourdan was born in Schwäbisch Gmünd as the last of four children, attended elementary school there and later the Gmünder Gewerbeschule . In 1909 he became a student at the Stuttgart Art Academy . After graduating in 1911, Jourdan immediately switched to teaching decorative painting at the Royal School of Applied Arts in Stuttgart , to which he was called by Bernhard Pankok . There he was appointed director in 1913 before he was drafted into military service and participated in the First World War, and in 1923 he was appointed professor of the textile printing class . He held his professorship until his retirement in 1946, meanwhile as a university professor at the State Academy of Fine Arts Stuttgart, which was created in 1941 from the merger of the art academy and the applied arts school .

After Stuttgart had been bombed out, Jourdan and his wife withdrew ever further to Hayingen in 1944, where he co-founded the local nature theater and helped design the first natural stage in 1949. In 1950 he was made an honorary citizen by the city of Hayingen and a street in the city was named after him. He died in Hayingen as a result of a serious illness.

plant

Even before his studies and teaching, he is recognized in the relevant specialist journals. In the supplement to the specialist journal Der Maler, born in 1903, his “vault decorations, designed by Gustav Jourdan, Stuttgart” are published. Later, in the same magazine published by JF Steinkopf , various wall and stairwell friezes from his pen followed. The Munich publisher Georg DW Callwey published a “special issue G. Jourdan in Stuttgart”.

In addition to portraits and nudes, his artistic work includes postcard drafts, advertising posters (e.g. for salamander shoes ) and product designs. The latter are now part of the design department . He remained connected to his hometown until the end and created, among other things, drafts for local industry and crafts.

literature

• Hermann Kissling : Gustav Jourdan (1884-1950), a forgotten Gmünder artist in Gmünder Studien 3 (1989), pp. 67–92 ( online edition with extensive picture material ), accessed January 15, 2013.
• Johannes Schwendele: Ortschronik Hayingen: History of the city and the parish of Hayingen , Schwabenverlag 1958, p. 88 f.