Hein Derichsweiler

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The Max-und-Moritz-Brunnen on Lenauplatz in Cologne
Detail of the sculpture at the Max-und-Moritz-Brunnen in Cologne
Horse sculpture in the Rheinpark in Wesseling

Franz Heinrich "Hein" Derichsweiler (born April 14, 1897 in Cologne ; † February 3, 1972 there ) lived and worked as a sculptor in Cologne.

Life

The trained baker ran the bakery inherited from his father in Cologne-Ehrenfeld until 1935 . Under the influence of the First World War , he became a pacifist and, like his brother Johann Joseph Derichsweiler, was a communist.

As a sculptor, Derichsweiler was mainly self-taught . Through his brother he met the sculptor Tünn Brandts in 1925. Derichsweiler created his first sculptures under his guidance. In 1935 the city of Cologne commissioned him to reconstruct prehistoric vertebrates based on fossil finds. He worked closely with the Swiss paleontologist Hans Wehrli .

From 1939 Derichsweiler went on extensive study trips abroad, spending the last years of the war in the Bavarian Forest. In 1953 he married Paula Katharina Maiworm in Cologne. Hanna Adenauer made the Belvedere house in Cologne-Müngersdorf available to the couple . He lived in Müngersdorf until his death. He died in 1972 at the age of 74 in a Cologne hospital and was buried on February 8, 1972 in Cologne's Melaten cemetery . His grave was on the Ehrenfeld part of the cemetery in parcel E4, No. 3 + 4. The grave was leveled a few years ago.

plant

Derichsweiler's works are mostly representational, but not always naturalistic. His sculptures often depict animals, but also portraits or figures from Cologne folklore and from the world of fairy tales, for example the Max and Moritz Fountain on Lenauplatz in Cologne-Neuehrenfeld , a sculpture by the Bremen Town Musicians or the Cologne figures Tünnes and Schäl (in the foyer of the Kreissparkasse Köln am Neumarkt ). People and animals form the central point in the sculptor's work.

The reliefs that he created in memory of Max Reichpietsch and Albin Köbis , who were shot as “traitors to the war” in 1917 in Wahn am Rhein, testify to Derichsweiler's pacifism .

Derichsweiler's strong connection to his hometown Cologne is also shown by an approximately 1.30 m tall figure of the FC Köln mascot Hennes , which is in the FC club house (restaurant). Small bronzes of his "Hennes" were produced in small numbers and only given away on special occasions. B. on the occasion of winning the German championship in 1964 to the players of 1. FC Cologne.

His animal sculptures were unique. Hein Derichsweiler created his deer sculptures based on living models who grew up in his studio in the Belvedere house. The “art sculptor” found his first deer in the Bavarian Forest and took it to Cologne in the luggage network of the train. In Müngersdorf it was raised by his wife Paula with the bottle. In the catalog for the exhibition on the occasion of the art sculptor's 70th birthday, Dr. Werner Jüttner full of enthusiasm (excerpt): “... Again and again he captures the creatural strength, strength and movement of his young roebucks and deer with his shaping hands. There is, for example, the elegant ballet-like movement of the deer licking its right hind leg, a melodic grazioso in its closed form - or the buck that leaps and turns sideways, only attached to the ground with the right hind leg, while the other legs pick up the movement impulse, a furisoso that trembles through the entire animal body. "

Derichsweiler did not experience a special honor for his animal sculptures: he died a few weeks before the opening of an exhibition initiated by Bernhard Grzimek in the Frankfurt Zoo .

Well-known animal sculptures are the “Seals-Lovers” fountain on the island of Borkum and the life-size sculpture “Playing Bears” in the park of his Müngersdorf studio.

After the death of his second wife Paula in 1985, most of Derichsweiler's estate went to the city of Cologne. Numerous works of art are now stored there in a depot at the Cologne Zoo . The written estate was stored in the historical archive of the city of Cologne until it collapsed on March 3, 2009 .

swell

  • Kurt Schifner, Hein Derichsweiler - a Cologne sculptor , in: Bildende Kunst No. 12, 1957, p. 832.
  • Chronicle of the Halberkann / Derichsweiler families by Adolf Schweins from June 2002
  • Information from the artist's relatives
  • "Hein Derichsweiler", catalog for the exhibition on the occasion of his 70th birthday in Haus Belvedere Cologne (May 19 - June 31, 1967)
  • Hein Derichsweiler , brochure of the city of Cologne, published on April 14, 1972 on the occasion of the artist's 75th birthday (after A. Schweins, see above)
  • Kölnische Rundschau of July 30, 1970 (after A. Schweins, see above)

Web links

Commons : Hein Derichsweiler  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. a b Death certificate No. 410 dated February 4, 1972, registry office Cologne West. In: LAV NRW R civil status register. Retrieved December 8, 2018 .