Hans Dornbach

Philipp Heinrich Ernst Johannes Dornbach (born August 26, 1885 in Düsseldorf , † January 17, 1952 in Lippstadt ) was a German painter .

Life

Hans Dornbach was born on August 26, 1885 as the son of the privy councilor Joseph Dornbach in Düsseldorf. From 1894 to 1903 he attended grammar schools in Berlin , Koblenz , Boppard and Bonn , where he then took up law studies. After two semesters, he broke off his studies and from then on devoted himself to painting. His artistic training in Weimar , where he was also taught by Ludwig von Hofmann , lasted four years. In 1908 Dornbach moved to Paris, where he attended the Rancon painting school for the next two years. In 1911, Dornbach took part as an artist in the fourth exhibition of the New Secession in Berlin. Since 1913 he was married to Else Wedow, with whom he had a daughter and three sons. At the beginning of the First World War in 1914, Dornbach became a soldier, in 1917 he retired for health reasons and moved to Caputh in order to devote himself to painting from then on.

After his father's death in 1919, Dornbach moved to Koblenz to live with his mother on Kolonnenweg, where he began to expand the Luisenturm located below in the garden , which the family had acquired from the city of Ehrenbreitstein in 1911. The tower initially served him as a workshop, later also as a living space. His studio was built in 1920 as an extension to the tower. Together with other local artists, Dornbach founded the artists' association “Das Boot” in Koblenz in 1919. In addition to other artists, he also maintained contacts with writers such as Joseph Breitbach . Hans Dornbach was also a member of the German Association of Artists .

His wife Else died in 1935, and in 1941 he married Freia Nitzsche. In addition to the death of their son Dietz in 1943, the Second World War brought the artist Dornbach and his work another major loss: an air raid on the night of November 6, 1944 hit the property on Kolonnenweg, whereupon the tower and studio burned out. 170 of his paintings as well as sketches, drafts and notes went up in flames, the property and the garden were in ruins. Until 1947, the painter and his wife restored and renovated the tower and the studio by hand. In the same year he was elected President of the newly founded State Professional Association of Visual Artists Rhineland-Palatinate (today BBK Rhineland-Palatinate), which he remained until January 1952. In 1949 he also founded the Association of Visual Artists on the Middle Rhine (AKM), of which he became the first chairman. He was also a senator of the Rheinische Kulturinstitut, founded on February 9, 1947. Hans Dornbach died on January 17, 1952 in Lippstadt.

plant

Dornbach's work is to be seen in connection with German or Rhenish Expressionism or was close to it, even if it is not attributed to it. Above all, Cubism became the determining influence on the painter, as did his frequent trips to Italy and France . His pictures therefore often spread a “Mediterranean attitude to life”. In addition, the adopted home of Koblenz offered him motifs for his paintings.

literature

• Dornbach, Hans . In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General Lexicon of Fine Artists of the XX. Century. tape 1 : A-D . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1953, p. 586 .
• Bernd Brauksiepe, Anton Neugebauer: Artist Lexicon. 250 painters in Rhineland-Palatinate 1450–1950 , Mainz 1986, p. 52.
• The painter Hans Dornbach. 70th birthday commemorative book. Published by the Koblenzer Kunstverein, Koblenz 1955.
• Wolfgang Schütz: Koblenz heads. People from the city's history - namesake for streets and squares. Verlag für Werbung Blätter GmbH Mülheim-Kärlich, Ed .: Bernd Weber, 2005 (2nd revised and expanded edition), p.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ kuenstlerbund.de: Full members of the Deutscher Künstlerbund since it was founded in 1903 / Dornbach, Hans ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (accessed on March 5, 2016)  
2. ↑ Artist Lexicon , p. 52.