Hans Wilkens

Hans Wilkens (born June 13, 1894 in Lauenbruch ; † October 28, 1947 in Hamburg-Harburg ) was a German landscape painter .

biography

Hans Wilkens comes from the Prussian village of Lauenbruch near Harburg on the Elbe . His father was the mayor there. In 1904 the place had to give way to the construction of the Harburg seaport. The family moved to the neighboring village of Hamburg-Moorburg on the Süderelbe , where Hans Wilkens grew up.

In addition to his job as foreign trade - merchant he worked early on as a painter heimatlicher motives. His marriage to Anny Buhbe, who came from Denmark, in 1924 resulted in a daughter born in 1927, who now manages a residual estate in Wedel (Holstein). The painter was particularly encouraged during the last years of his life by the Moorburg industrialist Karl Ritscher.

Artistic development

After completing a commercial apprenticeship and participating in the First World War , Wilkens developed a naturalistic - impressionistic style of painting as an autodidact , which he further developed and technically refined, especially in his landscape watercolors. In his work he preferred rural, idyllic scenes, especially meadows and bodies of water, farmhouses and village views, but also ship and harbor motifs. In the 1930s and 1940s, his works were popular in his closer and wider North German homeland. Occasional exhibitions, for example in the Kunsthaus Heine in Hanover, contributed to his fame. The Hanoverian press wrote on December 7th, 1935: “[…] The art of this painter is deeply rooted in his north German homeland, whose typical mood stimuli he is able to reproduce naturally, true and soulful, in simple, clear drawings and with loving treatment of the details . In his delicate, small-format, simple and unaffected watercolors, he shows a remarkable technical skill that achieves a great painterly effect with the limited means of water color [...] ”. In addition to creating paintings and watercolors , Wilkens also devoted himself to the publication of magazine illustrations . From 1932 he designed the front page of the monthly magazine “Konsumgenossenschaftliches Volksblatt” (later “Genossenschaftsfamilie”) as well as contributions to the “Harburg district calendar”.

Artist friendship

Hans Wilkens was friends with the painter and graphic artist Georg Sluyterman von Langeweyde , whose ideological (Nazi-heroic) style of painting did not influence him. Wilken's art was neither agitational nor homeland. Even during the time of National Socialism , he primarily wanted to represent rural beauty, atmosphere and harmony.

The painter signed his works with " H. Wilkens ". As a result of the abbreviation of his first name, his pictures are often incorrectly attributed to the Berlin book illustrator Hugo Wilkens .

Honor

• In 1952 the Wilkensweg in Hamburg-Neugraben was named after him.