Hans Spiegel (painter)

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Hans mirror (* 2. February 1894 in Münnerstadt ; † 15. September 1966 in Stuttgart ) was a German painter of the Cubism and university teacher. From 1931 to 1938 he was director of the Stuttgart Art Academy .

life and work

Hans Spiegel first studied at the Munich Art Academy with Gabriel von Hackl and Angelo Jank , until he switched to Christian Landenberger at the Stuttgart Art Academy in 1918 . The so-called Stuttgart Üecht Group emerged in 1919 from the intensive exchange of content between the students Oskar Schlemmer , Willi Baumeister , Albert Mueller (1884–1963) and Hans Spiegel . From 1924 to 1927 he was part of the Stuttgart Secession . In 1929 he was together with Arnold Waldschmidt (1873-1958), Gottfried Graf (1881-1938) and Albert Mueller founders of the "Gruppe 1929 Stuttgart".

Similar to his early student painter colleagues from the Üecht group, he formally integrated cubist features into his work. He created figurative compositions in which round organic forms (for example human bodies) interplay with geometric forms. His further developed cubist painting was characterized as follows: “Spiegel has given up the external mathematics of cubist territory in order to give way to a paradisiacally experienced color modulation. His watercolors of enigmatic beauty ”are“ pierced with all nervous soft twitches. ”As a full member of the German Association of Artists , Hans Spiegel took part in the 25th annual DKB exhibition in the Cologne State House in 1929 , where he was represented with three works.

From 1925 onwards, Hans Spiegel held a professorship for wall painting and compositions at the Stuttgart Art Academy . In 1931, at the age of 39, he was appointed director of the academy, which he headed until 1938 (provisional from 1935). At the end of the winter semester he asked "to be released from official duties" and suggested Fritz von Graevenitz as his successor . However, he remained a professor until 1945. While in 1937 a “seated female figure” (oil on cardboard) from the early 1930s was confiscated from the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart as degenerate , it became clear that Spiegel had adapted well to the National Socialist conception of art : in 1937 ( comrades , Hall 24) and in 1944 took part in the National Socialist propaganda and sales shows of the Great German Art Exhibition in Munich. In 1938 he was a member of the pre-selection jury. At the 1944 exhibition, the city of Stuttgart bought Spiegel's oil painting Herbst (room 20). Also at the Great German Art Exhibition in 1944, the sculptor Fritz Nuss exhibited and offered a portrait head of Prof. Hans Spiegel (room 30), which was also acquired by the city of Stuttgart. During the bombing raids on Stuttgart in 1943/44, Spiegel's studio was also opened in the academy and with it a large part of his early work. Since only 13 students studied at the academy during the war, Spiegel was temporarily transferred to the "War Damage Office of the City of Stuttgart". During the last months of the war, Spiegel and his family are said to have been based in the academy's own study center Reinwaldhaus in Bodman on Lake Constance. After the fall of the Nazi regime in 1945, he was no longer employed at the academy. His position as professor and head of the decorative painting class was taken by the unencumbered Willi Baumeister , who had previously been banned from painting and exhibiting by the Reich Chamber of Fine Arts .

He is not to be confused with a presumably fictitious painter Hans Spiegel (1911–1999) .

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The information on this article is taken from the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart's online catalog .
  2. ^ Rudolf Utzinger: Report from the Stuttgart exhibition in 1920 . In: The Ararat. 2, 1921, issue 1, p. 20 (discussion of the autumn show New Art 1920 organized by the Üecht group in Stuttgart)
  3. ↑ kuenstlerbund.de: Full members of the German Association of Artists since it was founded in 1903 / Spiegel, Hans ( Memento from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) (accessed on March 11, 2016)
  4. ^ Deutscher Künstlerbund Cologne 1929. May – September 1929 in the State House. Catalog. M. DuMont Schauberg, Cologne 1929, p. 31 (catalog no. 290-292: Spiegel, Hans, Stuttgart, portrait , still life , woman with flower. )
  5. ↑ In the inventory book of the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart there is the following note: Confiscated by the Reich Chamber of Commerce. image. Arts. 8/28/37 ; Seated female figure
  6. ↑ website GDK Research - Image-based research platform to the Great German Art Exhibitions 1937-1944 in Munich
  7. ↑ This, as well as the question of Spiegel's behavior during the Nazi era, to what extent he was a NSDAP member and / or active in other functions, requires even more detailed research.
  8. ↑ See art fraud with fictional artists .
personal data
SURNAME Spiegel, Hans
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter
DATE OF BIRTH February 2, 1894
PLACE OF BIRTH Münnerstadt
DATE OF DEATH September 15, 1966
Place of death Stuttgart