Gustav Schaffer

Gustav Adolf Schaffer (born November 14, 1881 in Niederhäslich , † June 28, 1937 in Chemnitz ) was a German painter and graphic artist .

Life

Gustav Schaffer was born the son of a mountain official in a small village near Dresden. From 1896 he attended the arts and crafts school in Dresden to be trained as a draftsman for the textile industry. The subsequent activity as a draftsman was interrupted in 1903 by a short study with Ermenegildo Antonio Donadini at the Dresden Academy of Applied Arts. From 1905 onwards Schaffer tried his hand at working as a freelance artist in Chemnitz, where he had since moved. Prints in lithography , woodcut and linocut first determined his artistic activity. In the same year Schaffer made personal acquaintance with the art-loving Chemnitz doctor Adolf E. Thiele , which earned him his lifelong promotion and support. In 1907, Schaffer was one of the founding members of the Chemnitz artist group together with Rose Friedrich , Georg Gelbke , Alfred Kunze and Martha Schrag . Schaffer had been a member of the Kunsthütte Chemnitz association since 1908 and immediately became a permanent assistant to the exhibition director. Among other things, he was responsible for designing both the exhibition posters and the associated catalogs for the art association. From March to December 1909 he received support from the Chemnitz industrialist and art patron Hans Vogel, which enabled him to study in Munich. Gustav Schaffer was a member of the German Association of Artists from 1910 . At the Bugra 1914 in Leipzig, one of his works was awarded the Saxon State Medal.

During the First World War, Schaffer was a soldier from 1916 to 1917. A catalog of works edited by Karl Josef Friedrich contained his graphic works that had been published until 1920 and was published on the occasion of an exhibition at the Gerstenberger art exhibition in Chemnitz .

In the 1920s, new objective tendencies found their way into his artistic work. As a result, it was prominently represented in the Neue Sachlichkeit exhibition , which received widespread attention in Germany and which stopped in Chemnitz from December 1925 to January 1926. Commercial graphic and handicraft skills brought Schaffer orders to design villas for industrialists and bankers. In 1927, for example, he designed the living quarters of the banker Eduard von Nicolai in Mannheim. Together with the Chemnitz architect Max W. Feistel , Schaffer designed the golf club in Oberrabenstein near Chemnitz. The outer shape of this building corresponded to the Bauhaus concept . Schaffer had been known with Theodor Däubler since 1919 and later with Bruno Paul .

On the occasion of his 50th birthday, the Kunstverein Kunsthütte Chemnitz organized a major solo exhibition for him in 1931. The same art association honored his memory after his death in 1937 with a memorial exhibition.

literature

• Gustav Schaffer - Das grafische Werk, 1905–1920, directory of parts of works and catalog of an exhibition in the art dealership Gerstenberger, Chemnitz, 1920
• Exhibition Gustav Schaffer on his 50th birthday, exhibition catalog of the Kunsthütte Chemnitz , 1931
• Memorial exhibition Gustav Schaffer, exhibition catalog of the Kunsthütte Chemnitz , 1937
• Artist group Chemnitz 1907–1933, Ralf W. Müller, Verlag Heimatland Sachsen, 2003

Web links

• Literature by and about Gustav Schaffer in the catalog of the German National Library
• Literature by and about Gustav Schaffer in the Saxon Bibliography