Hans Ludwig Pfeiffer

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Hans Ludwig Pfeiffer (born March 30, 1903 in Rome ; † March 9, 1999 in Berlin ) was a German painter and sculptor and co-founder and director of the Amber School .

life and work

The time until 1945

Hans Ludwig Pfeiffer grew up in a family of artists; his mother was the painter Gertrud Pfeiffer-Kohrt (1875–1939), his father Richard Pfeiffer (1878–1962) professor at the Art Academy in Königsberg . His sister was the visual artist Riccarda Gregor-Grieshaber (1907–1985). From 1924 to 1928 Pfeiffer studied at the United State Schools of Fine Arts in Berlin and was a student of Wilhelm Gerstel . He was also a private student of the painter Johannes Walter-Kurau . In order to be able to survive financially, he drew - often caricatures - for numerous magazines, including for the art and culture magazine Der Cross and for the satirical magazines Ulk and Simplicissimus . When Hitler came to power, this activity was canceled for him. He was able to stay with an influential friend as a “designer” for monumental paintings, survived as a set painter for the entertainment film industry, designed advertising pictures and painted in his own way in secret. In 1942 his studio was destroyed in an air raid; all of his work was lost. He spent the war in the east, and towards the end of the war he worked as a medic in southern Württemberg. In 1945 he tried to survive by carrying out small restorations on church buildings destroyed in the war for a low wage.

The time in the amber school

In 1945 many who had to drop out of art studies during the war looked for further training opportunities. Since the art academies had not yet reopened, Pfeiffer and Paul Kälberer collected students and looked for rooms. The French cultural officer of the occupying power, Professor Richard Thierberger, put the vacant Bernstein Monastery at their disposal, where they founded the Bernstein School in 1946. In the building, which had been devastated by the war, everything had to be painstakingly furnished, and so Pfeiffer was “lecturer, caretaker, gardener [...] and administrator [...] all at the same time”. The monastery church served as a lecture hall and community studio. The school had no classes, there was no fixed teaching schedule and no exams. When HAP Grieshaber took over the management of the school in 1951 , Pfeiffer found himself being pushed into the background by the new direction that he implemented. Grieshaber opened the school to the outside world and paved the way for the students in practical professions. Among other things, he set up courses for typography and photography, sponsored artistic industrial design and won sponsorships with advertising contracts. There were disputes in which Pfeiffer received no support from the Ministry of Education. Resigned, he withdrew in 1953.

For many years Pfeiffer had his place of work in Neuenbürg Castle.

The years in Neuenbürg

Pfeiffer came impoverished to Neuenbuerg , where he was promised a place to stay. “Some citizens of the city, who learned of the situation of the starving artist, then gave him a hand.” Later Pfeiffer was able to move into rooms in the Neuenbürg Palace to work. In 1957 he married a doctor from the GDR. He received orders for the preservation of monuments and was in demand because of his manual skills. He restored public buildings, churches and castles, including some halls (including the Äneas Hall and the White Hall) in the New Palace in Stuttgart. 1964 his wife died; the pension enabled him to make a modest living.

From around 1968 Pfeiffer began his late work, a completely new type of oeuvre , he "sweeps aside everything that looks like artistic thought rules" and developed his own style regardless of fashion trends. "He revolted in the sense of Dadaism , disgusted by the lies of his age and the life that was played around it, which he wants to expose." Pictures, sculptures and objects emerged, for example The Big Blah Machine . His main work is the "evolutionary drama of mankind" with the title Theatrum Mundi , "a satirical, gloomy world panopticon [...] of neo-baroque sensuality". The provocative and socially critical installation can be seen permanently at the site of his former studio in Schloss Neuenbürg.

Exhibitions

Alumni

  • Herbert Feierabend, painter and restorer
  • Joachim Geissler-Kasmekat, art professor
  • Herbert W. Kapitzki , graphic artist and graphic designer
  • Lothar Quinte , painter

literature

  • Werner Baumann, Günther Wirth: Hans Ludwig Pfeiffer . Heilbronn Art Association 1997
  • Ulrich Bergmann : Bernstein and Hans Ludwig Pfeiffer, sculptor, painter . In: Clams. Annual journal for literature and graphics . No. 39/40. Viersen 2000, ISSN  0085-3593
  • Ulrich Bergmann: Bernstein and Hans Ludwig Pfeiffer . In: Building bridges . Journal of social psychology, literature, art. Vol. 20, Paranus, Neumünster 2004, ISBN 978-3-926200-58-7
  • Ernst Fischer: Hans Ludwig Pfeiffer (1902-1999). Artist in Neuenbürg . In: The Enzkreis . Vol. 8. Pforzheim 1999, ISSN  0935-9125
  • Joachim Geissler-Kasmekat, Bernhard Rüth, Andreas Zoller: Pfeiffer in Bernstein. Hans Ludwig Pfeiffer - paintings, sculptures, objects . Rottweil 1997, ISBN 978-3-928869-07-2
  • Jacqueline Maltzahn-Redling: The horse stable as a studio workshop. Hans Ludwig Pfeiffer in Neuenbürg . In: Museum Schloss Neuenbürg . Karlsruhe 2011, ISBN 978-3-937345-51-2
  • Friedrich Reister (editor): Hans Ludwig Pfeiffer, visual artist . Neuenbürg 1987
  • Bernhard Rüth (Ed.): The Bernstein School. The nucleus of post-war art . Rottweil 1998, ISBN 978-3-928869-10-2
  • Artist and teacher. The Berlin painter Hans Ludwig Pfeiffer is dead . In: Berliner Zeitung of March 20, 1999

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ulrich Bergmann: Bernstein and Hans Ludwig Pfeiffer, sculptor, painter , p. 166
  2. ^ Ulrich Bergmann: Bernstein and Hans Ludwig Pfeiffer, sculptor, painter , p. 169
  3. ^ Friedrich Reister: Hans Ludwig Pfeiffer. About his life and life's work . In: Hans Ludwig Pfeiffer, visual artist . Neuenbürg 1987, p. 13
  4. ^ Friedrich Reister: Hans Ludwig Pfeiffer. About his life and life's work , p. 16
  5. ^ Ulrich Bergmann: Bernstein and Hans Ludwig Pfeiffer , p. 171
personal data
SURNAME Pfeiffer, Hans Ludwig
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter and sculptor
DATE OF BIRTH March 30, 1903
PLACE OF BIRTH Rome
DATE OF DEATH March 9, 1999
Place of death Berlin