Hans Adamy

Hans Adamy: Self-portrait, around 1960, oil on hardboard, 42 × 32 cm, City Museum Simeonstift Trier

Hans Adamy, The Coliseum in Rome, ink drawing, undated, 23.1 × 31 cm, Stadtmuseum Simeonstift Trier

Hans Adamy, Old Customs Tower in Pfalzel, undated, oil on hardboard, 41.5 × 62 cm, City Museum Simeonstift Trier

Hans Adamy, worker with a tilting loft, undated, tempera on Japanese paper, 17 × 23 cm, Stadtmuseum Simeonstift Trier

Hans Adamy, cat, undated, oil on cardboard, 27.5 × 22.5 cm, City Museum Simeonstift Trier

Hans Adamy, Crown of Thorns and Tiara, around 1970, oil on cardboard, 56 × 40 cm, City Museum Simeonstift Trier

Johannes "Hans" Adamy (born March 7, 1890 in Trier-Pfalzel , † December 3, 1976 there ) was a German painter and graphic artist.

Origin and education

Johannes, called Hans Adamy, was the ninth child of the shopkeeper Johann Adamy and his wife Catharina (née Steinbach) and was born in the then still independent municipality of Pfalzel, Amt Ehrang, today Trier-Pfalzel . After attending elementary school and high school, he received his first artistic training at the craft and arts and crafts school in Trier. He continued his studies at the School of Applied Arts in Cologne and graduated from the Grand Ducal Saxon University of Fine Arts in Weimar with a final exam and a “state certificate”.

Artistic career

In the further course of Adamy's life, the conscription to the military in the First and Second World War, with two wounds and a prisoner of war, formed considerable turning points. In the inter-war period, however, the painter had a very successful artistic phase. He was intensively involved in artist associations. As a member of the Trier artists 'guild (founded in 1920), the major artists' association of the Rhine, Moselle and Nahe " Künstlerbund Westmark " (founded 1921), the Trier painter group "Die Freie Vereinigung" (founded 1926) and the society "Bildende Künstler und Kunstfreunde e . V. ”in Trier (founded in 1930) he exhibited regularly. On a hike to Venice and Rome in 1922 and on his numerous study trips to France, Greece and Italy, which he undertook into old age, he expanded his field of vision and processed his impressions and experiences in sketches on site and later in the studio in Pfalzel. For example, at the art exhibition of the society “Visual Artists and Art Friends e. V. “in 1930 no less than 19 views of Rome. In September 1933, Adamy was accepted into the Trier district group of the Reich Cartel of Fine Arts and given the state license for commissions and exhibitions. He also joined the NSDAP in 1937 . The freelance artist was still unable to achieve great success. According to his own statements, his initially highly praised works were already "thrown out" in 1937/38 from the exhibitions of the Kunstring of the Nazi cultural community in Koblenz. In Trier, his large-format painting “Old Germanic Wedding Vow” was taken from an exhibition in the Electoral Palace in 1938 to the city's registry office, but to his great disappointment, it was not purchased. In contrast to most of the artists in Trier, Adamy was not represented at the major Nazi propaganda art exhibitions "Moselland" in 1941/42 in Berlin, Posen and Breslau, or at the exhibitions in the Kunsthaus Luxemburg in 1943/44. After the Second World War, the way seemed clear to him for a new beginning. He took part in the art exhibition as part of the Trier Culture Weeks in autumn 1946, and became a member of the “Society of Fine Artists and Friends of Art”, which was re-established in 1950/51. V. ”in Trier and sent their annual exhibitions from 1950 to 1952. In December 1957 he exhibited in the Trier Electoral Palace and took part in the exhibitions of the European Association of Visual Artists from Eifel and Ardennes e. V., based in Prüm, most recently in 1960. With bitterness, however, he realized that his work was judged to be “unfashionable” at later exhibitions. He then resorted to self-help. In his home in Pfalzel, at that time Ringstrasse 49 (now Hans-Adamy-Strasse 5, see below), he set up a gallery in which he made his works of art accessible to the public, but at the same time also put them for sale.

Works

Hans Adamy devoted himself intensively to architecture and landscape painting. He was primarily concerned with the architectural monuments of Palatinate, which he depicted in whole series of oil paintings. Likewise, many of his graphic works, including two "Pfalzelmappen", both drawn in 1943, the first printed in 1949, the second published in hand-drawn linocuts in 1955, should draw attention to his hometown. He felt personally obliged to help preserve its significant historical legacy, which goes back to a late Roman palace and fortress, be it with his artistic work or with numerous controversial petitions to the administrative authorities. The range of his works also included numerous portraits of people around him, but also of people from contemporary history, such as a linocut “ Benito Mussolini ” published in 1923 or several portraits of the doctor and pacifist Albert Schweitzer . Everyday scenes such as “workers with tilting lores” or pictures of animals were also part of his repertoire. His preoccupation with religious topics led to a series of oil paintings with accusations critical of the church, such as “crown of thorns and tiara”. As a graphic artist, Adamy designed book covers, text illustrations, wine labels and artist postcards in addition to the Pfalzel views already mentioned. According to his award-winning design, the official pilgrim badge for the Heilig-Rock-Pilgrimage in 1933 in Trier was minted in brass. During all of his creative periods, Adamy remained stuck with objectivity. He was an excellent draftsman who was able to sketch vitally and focused on the essentials, but who mostly relied on the precision of the old masters in his depictions of the Pfalzel. His oil paintings are also relatively firmly outlined, although there he mainly worked with a shimmering application of paint. Color was his most important means of expression anyway: he preferred unconventional and strong contrasts with expressionistic tendencies that were characteristic of his paintings. His painting can largely be assigned to the art-historical category of expressive realism.

Legacies and Honors

In the last years of his life, the single painter hoped to be able to bring his gallery and, above all, his artistic work into a local history museum named after him in Pfalzel. When, after lengthy negotiations, he had managed to come up with a more realistic assessment, he bequeathed the city of Trier with a notarial will of June 10, 1976 "the museum values ​​in his house" for independent determination of the place and form of their presentation. However, should a local history museum be built in the Trier-Pfalzel district in the future, he would like to exhibit the objects there. In addition to personal memorabilia and some antiques, the legacy mainly comprised oil paintings, drawings and linocuts including plates, a total of more than 500 items that were integrated into the holdings of the Simeonstift Trier City Museum . In 1978, 1982 and 1988 exhibitions in this museum and in the meeting room of the administrative building in Trier-Pfalzel commemorated the painter. His self-portrait and palette also point to his legacy in the museum's “Stifterkabinett”. The painter received a special honor posthumously when the section of the Ringstrasse in Trier-Pfalzel in which his house is located was renamed Hans-Adamy-Strasse in 2009.

literature

• Paul Mauder: Trier painting - Trier painter groups and Trier painters. In: Trierische Heimat, 7th year, issue 7, April 1931, pp. 97–99 and issue 8/9, May / June 1931, pp. 117–119.
• New Trierisches Jahrbuch 1964, Fig. 20 (after p. 80): Stiftskirche in Pfalzel, oil painting by Hans Adamy - with an appreciation of the painter, without indication of the author.
• Hans Adamy †, obituary without statement of responsibility. In: Trier-Saarburg District Yearbook, 1978, pp. 281f. with color illustration of the "Stiftskirche in Trier-Pfalzel before the reconstruction", oil painting 1963.
• Dieter Ahrens: The work of Hans Adamys in the Städtisches Museum Simeonstift Trier. In: New Trierisches Jahrbuch 1983, p. 61f. with 2 illustrations.
• Dieter Ahrens: Three modern artists in Rome - I. Hans Adamy. In: Rooms of History - German-Romanesque from the 18th to the 20th Century, Trier 1986, p. 137 with an illustration of a pencil drawing from 1922.
• Willi Marx: Palatinate artist - the painter Hans Adamy. In: Pfalzel - Past and Present, ed. from the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Pfalzeler Chronik, Trier 1989, p. 418f. with 5 illustrations.
• Silvia Holstein: Adamy, Hans. In: Heinz Monz (Ed.): Trier Biographisches Lexikon, Trier 2000, p. 1.
• Bärbel Schulte: Hans Adamy. In: Inspired by inner conviction… artistic departure in the southern Rhine province after the First World War. Booklet accompanying the exhibition of the same name from 25 August to 28 October 2007 in the Middle Rhine Museum in Koblenz.
• Catherine Lorent: The National Socialist Art and Cultural Policy in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg 1934-1944, Trier 2012.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Trier City Archives, birth register Tb 31/1198 Pfalzel 1890.
2. ^ Letter from the painter dated July 11, 1971 to the Trier city administration, archive of the City Museum Simeonstift Trier.
3. ^ Letters from the painter dated June 7, 1971, August 7, 1971 and August 23, 1971, each to the Trier city administration, archive of the city museum, as above.
4. ↑ Most exhibitions without an accompanying catalog, exceptions: Exhibition guide of the trade show Aug./Sept. 1925 in Trier on the occasion of the millennium of the Rhineland, p. 41: Adamy as a member of the artists' guild (without specifying the works); Catalog of the art exhibition in the Casino in Trier, Nov./Dec. 1930, p. 15/16: Adamy as a member of the Society of Fine Artists and Art Friends eV in Trier, with the listing of 21 works.
5. ↑ “Development work of the Reich Cartel of Fine Arts. From the district group Trier. “ Article without indication of responsibility. In: Trier National Gazette of September 16, 1933.
6. ^ Information from the Federal Archives Berlin from May 18, 2001 and NSDAP gaucard.
7. ↑ Letter from the painter dated December 16, 1938 to City Planning Officer Schmidt, City Administration Trier, with the addition that it has not been seizable for two years. City archive Trier, autograph collection.
8. ^ Letter from the painter dated September 12, 1939 to the Museum of the City of Trier, in which he demands the return of his painting "Old Germanic Marriage Vow" and at the same time urgently asks for purchases from the city. City archive Trier, autograph collection.
9. ↑ Catherine Lorent, cf. Lit. catalog: data appendix p. 381–386 with a list of all exhibiting artists and catalogs of the exhibitions mentioned.
10. ^ Leaflets for the annual exhibitions in 1950, 1951 and 1952 in the "Museum der Stadt Trier Simeonstift". Trier City Library, 11/4183 8 °: Hans Adamy with 10 (1950), 6 (1951) and 5 (1952) papers.
11. ↑ After drawings by Hans Adamy in 1943, hand-colored, with an introduction to the history of Pfalzel by Maria Adamy, printed by Dackweiler & Co. in Trier in 1949. City Museum Simeonstift Trier.
12. ↑ Linocut portfolio "Pfalzel", Ex. 4/10 with information on the time of origin 1943-1955, Stadtmuseum Simeonstift Trier.
13. ↑ Submissions by the painter from 1971 to 1976 with descriptions of his “monument preservation” activities. Archive of the City Museum Simeonstift Trier.
14. ↑ Paul Mauder, see Lit. Verz., P. 99: Publication of the "Mussolini linoleum cut" by Hans Adamy in October 1923 at Lintz in the Brotstrasse (book and art trade in Trier).
15. ↑ E.g. cover illustration for M. Homscheid: As far as the church tower looks, Trier 1927.
16. ↑ For example, text illustrations for Peter Lambert Sartor: The Markus Fest, Trier 1949th
17. ↑ Elisabeth Dühr / Markus Groß-Morgen: Between devotion and memory - jewels of religious art and pilgrimage souvenirs from Trier collections, Trier 1992, p. 348 (no. B 191) and p. 441 (no. C 44.1).
18. ↑ His wife Maria Margarethe Mathilde geb. Clemens, with whom he had lived childlessly since 1946, died in 1974.
19. ^ Written and verbal negotiations between the painter and the Trier city administration, in particular with the mayor Dr. Emil Zenz, files “Correspondence Heimatmuseum Adamy”, archive of the City Museum Simeonstift Trier.
20. ↑ Notarial will, drawn up on June 10, 1976 in front of the notary Salzmann in Trier, document roll number 1357 for 1976. Archive of the City Museum Simeonstift Trier.