Hanover Secession

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The Hannoversche Secession (also: Hannoversche Secession ) was a loosely organized group of artists in Hanover in the first third of the 20th century . “Unlike the first Secession groups in Germany”, the group did not strive for a specific, common art direction, but rather wanted to break away from a conventional art policy prescribed by the city of Hanover .

history

prehistory

In many ways, with the end of the Kingdom of Hanover, art life in Hanover flattened out. Performances in the opera house kept "an acceptable level", but the standards were set by Berlin , "which attracted the most capable artists like a magnet." In the field of fine arts , cultural workers were still primarily oriented towards "styles" at the beginning of the 20th century the past". Artists such as Friedrich Kaulbach , Wilhelm Engelhard , Carl Oesterley , Karl Gundelach and Ernst von Bandel had found recognition , but “traces of avant-gardism and indications of a new will to express or create” were not to be found in their technically sometimes excellent works. Occasionally, therefore, foreign artists received commissions, such as Arnold Böcklin , who painted the villa of Consul Wedekind, or Ferdinand Hodler , who created the painting “Unity” in the New Town Hall .

The Kunstverein Hannover also oriented itself more towards the conventional, but showed at least 300 works by Wilhelm Busch in its autumn exhibition in 1908 .

"The all- dominating city ​​director Heinrich Tramm " had a great influence on the city's art policy . The art lover sat on the one hand for the expansion of the urban gallery one, especially after the from Ricklingen originating brick factory owner Heinrich tribe of the city in 1905 his art collection in his will had left. But on the other hand, Tramm personally determined the purchasing policy: In the contemporary art of the time, he valued impressionism , but rejected expressionism . And so the city did not buy any works of this style - new trends were reserved for the public.

Commissions for modern art, however, were at least partially awarded through private initiatives, particularly entrepreneurs. The biscuit manufacturer Hermann Bahlsen, for example, commissioned visual artists to design its product packaging for advertising purposes, but also to design and decorate its business premises.

In 1911 and 1913, the entrepreneur Fritz Beindorff announced an artist competition in which the paints he had produced had to be used. The works produced in this way then formed the basis for the art collection of the Pelikan works .

Before the First World War , Herbert von Garvens assembled a private collection of contemporary art with which he later opened a gallery .

But in 1914 Curt Habicht , professor of art history, wrote about Hanover:

“Hanover has not become an art city with local forces. According to your story, it cannot be expected otherwise. "

However, among the ranks of the wealthy, educated middle class, there were “men who did not shy away from confrontation with contemporary art.” In June 1916 they founded the Kestner Society with the aim of exclusively promoting modern art. In November of the same year, the society in Hanover showed an exhibition of works by Max Liebermann for the first time , but soon turned to more progressive art.

The Hanover Secession

In 1917, supported by the Kestner Society and sponsored by Paul Erich Küppers , the Hanover Secession was formed with the aim of breaking away from the previous urban cultural policy. Driving forces were the professors of the Hanover School of Applied Arts Fritz Burger-Mühlfeld and Ludwig Vierthaler , but also Georg Herting , August Heitmüller and Richard Seiffert-Wattenberg , who was elected chairman of the group.

Later, artists such as Max Burchartz (from 1917), Otto Gleichmann (from 1920), Kurt Schwitters , Bernhard Dörries and Friedrich Vordemberge-Gildewart joined them.

The artistic spectrum of the group now ranged from late impressionism to expressionism, which was excluded from the previous urban purchasing policy.

But the Hanover Secession was only a prelude to the avant-garde in Hanover: On March 12, 1927, Schwitters founded the abstract hannover artist group in his house at Waldhausenstrasse 5 , through which works of Cubism and Constructivism, among others, now also found their origin in Hanover .

The Hanover Secession existed until the early 1930s and then dissolved.

literature

  • Henning Rischbieter : The twenties in Hanover. Fine arts, literature, theater, dance, architecture, 1916–1933, (partly in English) catalog for the exhibition of the Kunstverein Hannover from August 12 to September 30, 1962, Hannover: Kunstverein eV , 1962, pp. 40–59
  • Dieter Brosius : Schools and universities, art and culture. In: History of the City of Hanover , Vol. 2 .: From the beginning of the 19th century to the present , ed. by Klaus Mlynek and Waldemar R. Röhrbein, Hanover: Schlüter, 1994, ISBN 3-87706-364-0 , pp. 386-391; here: 389f. u.ö .; online through google books
  • Ines Katenhusen : Art and Politics. Hanover's confrontations with modernity in the Weimar Republic , at the same time a dissertation at the University of Hanover under the title Understanding a time is perhaps best gained from her art , in the series Hanoverian Studies , series of the City Archives Hanover, Volume 5, Hanover: Hahn , 1998, ISBN 3-7752-4955-9 , pp. 275ff.
  • Ines Katenhusen: Hannoversche Sezession. In: Klaus Mlynek, Waldemar R. Röhrbein (eds.) U. a .: City Lexicon Hanover . From the beginning to the present. Schlütersche, Hannover 2009, ISBN 978-3-89993-662-9 , p. 262.

References and comments

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g Ines Katenhusen: Hannoversche Sezession (see literature)
  2. ↑ Compare this information from the German National Library
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l Dieter Brosius: Schools and universities, art and culture (see literature)
  4. ↑ Compare this information from the German National Library
  5. ↑ a b Klaus Mlynek : Kurt Schwitters, Alexander Dorner and many others. In: History of the City of Hanover Volume 2 ..., pp. 461–467; here: p. 465; online through google books
  6. ↑ Thomas Hunkeler, Edith Anna Kunz (eds.): Metropolen der Avantgarde / Métropoles des avant-gardes , Bern; Berlin; Bruxelles; Frankfurt, M .; New York, NY; Oxford; Vienna: Lang, 2011, ISBN 978-3-0343-0347-7 , here: p. 118; online through google books
  7. ↑ Note: The information in the Stadtlexikon Hannover about the artists who "later" joined the Hanover Secession obviously does not agree with the information from Dieter Brosius (see literature).