Hedwig Bollhagen

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Hedwig Bollhagen, photography: D. von Osten

Hedwig Bollhagen (born November 10, 1907 in Hanover ; † June 8, 2001 in Marwitz ) was a German ceramist and co-founder of the HB workshops for ceramics .

Life

Hedwig Bollhagen grew up as a half-orphan in Hanover and attended the Lyceum there , after which she completed an internship in a pottery in Großalmerode that same year . After a visiting student at the State Art Academy in Kassel she learned from spring 1925 to summer 1927, the ceramic technical school Höhr-Grenzhausen with Eduard Berdel and Hermann Bollenbach and volunteered in 1926 in Hameln pottery of Gertrud Kraut in Hameln.

From 1927 to 1931 she was employed as a designer and head of the painting department at the Velten-Vordamm stoneware factory in Velten .

After their closure due to the loss of exports as a result of the global economic crisis , the "wandering years" began, which they first in the state majolica factory in Karlsruhe , then in the Rosenthal plants in Neustadt near Coburg , the Wilhelm Kagel workshop in Garmisch-Partenkirchen (until spring 1932) and finally led to Tilly Prill-Schloemann and Bruno Paul in Berlin as a “shop girl” until February 1933 . Until October 1933 she still worked in the glaze and painting department of J. Kalscheuer Cie. Steinzeugwerke mbH in Frechen .

When the ceramist Nora Herz in Cologne found out about the failed resettlement of the Haël workshops for artistic ceramics founded by the ceramist Margarete Heymann and her husband Gustav Loebenstein , Hedwig Bollhagen was able to manage with the help of the craft functionary Heinrich Schild in 1934 with the participation of Margarete Heymann and Nora Herz Establish the new HB-Werkstätten für Keramik GmbH in the old ceramic factory in Velten . They established themselves through the collaboration of ceramic master Thoma Gräfin Grote as a commercial assistant and developer - she had developed glazes for Charles Crodel - and other former employees of the Steinutfabriken Velten-Vordamm GmbH, such as Theodor, who emerged from the ceramics workshop of the State Bauhaus under Gerhard Marcks Bogler and Werner Burri .

Charles Crodel opened up the field of building ceramics for the company in 1935 and at the same time brought his industrial experience, which he had gained in cooperation with Wilhelm Wagenfeld , to the development of decor in the United Lusatian Glassworks . In 1939 Hedwig Bollhagen passed the master craftsman examination with a vessel painted by Charles Crodel (1894–1973). She thus became a ceramic master and was able to withdraw the operation from the access of the German Labor Front (DAF).

Heinrich Schild , the main opponent of DAF, the co-founder and managing director of HB-Werkstätten, who worked free of charge, went back to the Rhineland after the Second World War and Hedwig Bollhagen took over the business alone.

After the end of the Second World War, Heinrich Schild moved from what was then the Soviet Zone to West Germany in 1946 . Hedwig Bollhagen then took over the management of the HB workshops under sole responsibility. In 1972 the workshops were nationalized , but Bollhagen remained artistic director for the twenty years up to the reprivatisation in 1992 and continued working until shortly before her death. Her successor was Heidi Manthey , a student of Charles Crodel, with whom Hedwig Bollhagen had worked since the company was founded.

Hedwig Bollhagen achieved international fame for her simple, timeless everyday crockery, which in terms of shape and decor creates an informal combination of rural tradition and Bauhaus aesthetics. She herself said: “Art? Oh yes, some call it that. I make plates, cups and jugs. ”Or, in short:“ They're just pots! ”.

Hedwig Bollhagen was buried in the city cemetery in the Hanover district of Stöcken .

estate

The estate of Hedwig Bollhagen was included in the list of monuments of the State of Brandenburg as a movable monument in 2004 under the leadership of the Brandenburg State Office for Monument Protection .

For the estate, the heirs set up the Hedwig Bollhagen Foundation as a trust foundation in the care of the German Foundation for Monument Protection . It was to be exhibited from summer 2008 in the “Im Güldenen Arm” museum building in Potsdam . However, the opening of the planned museum was postponed after differences between the Hedwig-Bollhagen Foundation and the Hedwig-Bollhagen Society on the one hand, and the Potsdam city administration on the other.

Triggered by an article in the rbb magazine Kontraste , there was an intensified media discussion in early 2008 about the extent to which Hedwig Bollhagen was a conscious beneficiary of the so-called "Aryanization" of the Haël workshops. In 2008 the Jewish Claims Conference adhered to the compensation regulation of 1981 and confirmed that the state office responsible for settling open property issues had denied that the sale was due to persecution.

Potsdam's Lord Mayor Jann Jakobs had commissioned a study from the Center for Contemporary Historical Research Potsdam (ZZF) to check whether a planned permanent exhibition of Hedwig Bollhagen's ceramics could still be realized in the city's “Haus im Güldenen Arm”. The historian Simone Ladwig-Winters , who did her doctorate with a dissertation on the "Aryanization" of Berlin department stores, published it on July 14, 2008. In it she came to the conclusion that Hedwig Bollhagen was neither a supporter nor a supporter of National Socialism, as it was rbb magazine "Contrasts". Although she benefited economically from the anti-Jewish framework conditions of the Nazi establishment phase, she did not use them specifically to her advantage. Jakobs then gave his approval for a permanent exhibition of Bollhagen's ceramics, which should also be supplemented with the discussion about their time after 1933.

In 2002, a newly built grammar school in Velten in Brandenburg was named after her. In Hanover, in the Seelhorst district, a street has been named after her since 2009.

Honors

Exhibitions

  • Berlin honors Hedwig Bollhagen . October 8 to November 13, 1994. Guest exhibition of the Ceramic Museum Berlin in the Martin-Gropius-Bau Berlin
  • Hedwig Bollhagen - unique items . May 1 to 31, 1996. Galerie Theis Berlin.
  • Hedwig Bollhagen. A life for ceramics . June 22, 2007 to January 13, 2008. House of Brandenburg-Prussian History, Kutschstall am Neuen Markt , Potsdam
  • Hedwig Bollhagen (1907–2001) on her 100th birthday . August 26 to December 31, 2007. Ceramic Museum Berlin
  • Pots, cups, tankards for VEB Stadtgrün u. a. - Present and commissioned ceramics from the HB workshops in Marwitz . November 3, 2007 to February 3, 2008. Velten Oven and Ceramics Museum , Wilhelmstrasse 32, Velten (Mark)
  • Hedwig Bollhagen - ceramics . Special exhibition, April 12 to September 21, 2008, Ceramics Museum Bürgel
  • Hedwig Bollhagen. Building ceramics and monument preservation . February 11 to August 13, 2012. Hedwig Bollhagen Society visits the Ceramic Museum Berlin

literature

Web links

Commons : Hedwig Bollhagen  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. ↑ The assessment of the establishment of the company by a literary scholar friend of the descendants of Margarete Heymann-Loebenstein-Marks as " Aryanization " under the direction of Heinrich Schild is based on a comparison between the HB workshops and the Jewish Claims of 1992, which is based on the recognition of Grete Loebenstein supported in 1961 as a victim of National Socialist persecution and the subsequent compensation of 1985 - at which time the expropriated and thus state HB workshops were subject to the sovereignty of the GDR.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Hugo Thielen : Bollhagen, Hedwig . In: Hannoversches Biographisches Lexikon , p. 64
  2. ↑ Paul Dahms: Velten, A foray through the history of the furnace city . Veltener Verlagsgesellschaft, ISBN 978-3-9811401-8-7 , p. 78
  3. ↑ to H.Bollhagen u. Grete Loebenstein see also Astrid von Pufendorf: Forced nomadism . In: the daily newspaper - taz , Berlin, November 18, 2000
  4. ↑ Hedwig Bollhagen's grave. knerger.de
  5. ↑ Center for Contemporary Historical Research (PDF)
  6. ↑ Press release of the DSD ( Memento from September 11, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
  7. ↑ "Lord Mayor Jakobs makes Bollhagen a matter for the boss" In Potsdam's latest news , March 26, 2009
  8. ↑ Page no longer available , search in web archives: Hedwig Bollhagen - The controversial beginnings . In: Contrasts , February 7, 2008@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.rbb-online.de
  9. ↑ Harry Nut: Scratching the ceramic monument . In: Frankfurter Rundschau , March 19, 2008
  10. ↑ Press release . (PDF) Center for Contemporary History Potsdam, Director, July 14, 2008, accessed on April 13, 2018 .
  11. ↑ Hedwig Bollhagen and the Marwitz ceramic workshops during the Nazi era ( Memento from December 22, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
  12. ↑ "Hedwig Bollhagen was neither a supporter nor supporter of National Socialism" (PDF; 35 kB), ZZF, July 2008
  13. ↑ Database of the bearers of the Federal Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, Federal President's Office
personal data
SURNAME Bollhagen, Hedwig
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German ceramist, co-founder of the HB workshops for ceramics
DATE OF BIRTH November 10, 1907
PLACE OF BIRTH Hanover
DATE OF DEATH June 8, 2001
Place of death Marwitz