Heinrich Harder

Old facade of the Berlin Aquarium with Harder's Iguanodon sculpture

Heinrich Harder (born June 2, 1858 in Putzar , Western Pomerania , † February 5, 1935 in Berlin ) was a German painter of primeval landscapes and animals.

Live and act

Illustration of an Iguanodon (ca.1916)

The birth of Heinrich Harder was entered in the birth register of the church register in Putzar in 1858. So he was not born in Friedland in Mecklenburg , as is mostly stated in the literature . The son of Karl Harder, a "Count's farmer" in the Good Putzar , the first years were spent his childhood in Putzar visited later in Berlin , the Higher School for Boys of Dr. Sachse and then the Dorotheenstädtische Realschule .

From 1874 to 1876 he attended the Royal Art School in Berlin, whose director was Martin Gropius , and then went to Paul Gropius' studio for practical training . From April 1890 to 1892 he studied painting with Eugen Bracht at the Royal Academic College for the Fine Arts and initially worked mainly as a landscape painter. In 1900 Harder produced 60 lithographs for the series Animals of the Urwelt by the Hamburg cocoa and chocolate manufacturer Theodor Reichardt , depicting dinosaurs, trilobites , ammonites and primeval mammals. The writer Wilhelm Bölsche , with whom he had worked since 1898, described the animals on the back of the cards. In 1906 Bölsche published articles about the planet earth in the magazine Die Gartenlaube , which were illustrated by Harder. Harder was also involved as a draftsman in Bölsche's Animal Book (1908) and Animal Walks in the Primeval World (1914). In 1910 he delivered drafts for Stollwerck collectors' pictures on behalf of the Cologne chocolate producer Ludwig Stollwerck . a. for the Stollwerck scrapbook No. 11. In addition, Harder taught from 1906 to 1923, from 1913 as an art professor, at the Berlin University of Fine Arts .

Iguanodon sculpture in front of the aquarium

When the Berlin Zoo's aquarium was opened in 1913 , Harder decorated the facade with depictions of dinosaurs, archelons (an extinct giant sea turtle), ammonites , primeval amphibians and a shellfish . When the destroyed aquarium was rebuilt after the Second World War , Harder's badly damaged mosaic pictures could not be restored due to lack of funds. In 1977, 14 original designs were rediscovered, which served as a template for the restoration of the murals in 1978. Harder's best-known works include the Iguanodon sculpture in front of the entrance to the aquarium on the zoo side. Harder died in 1935 at the age of 76. His final resting place is in the Steglitz cemetery .

Individual evidence

↑ Stollwerck scrapbook No. 11 " The animal in the service of man ". Verlag Gebrüder Stollwerck, Berlin, Pressburg, New York, 1910.

literature

Detlef Stapf: The sweet temptation to prehistoric times. The art professor and painter Heinrich Harder was born 150 years ago in Putzar, West Pomerania. In: Heimatkurier. Supplement to the Nordkurier . June 2, 2008, p. 25
Ernst Probst : Animals of the primeval world. Life and work of the Berlin painter Heinrich Harder , Munich 2014

Web links

Digitized works

Animals of the primeval world (series 1a, approx. 1910)

personal data
SURNAME	Harder, Heinrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German painter of primeval landscapes and animals
DATE OF BIRTH	June 2, 1858
PLACE OF BIRTH	Putzar
DATE OF DEATH	February 5, 1935
Place of death	Berlin