Heinrich Heidner

Heinrich Heidner (born February 4, 1876 in Schoppershof near Nuremberg ; † May 7, 1974 in Allmannshausen (Berg) on Lake Starnberg ) was a German painter.

Life

Heidner is born as the son of the machinist Christoph Heidner and his wife Babetha Heidner. Leitner was born in Schoppershof near Nuremberg. He had four siblings, a sister, Marie, and three brothers, Konrad, Ludwig and Johann. In 1891 he enrolled at the Nuremberg School of Arts and Crafts with professors Friedrich Wilhelm Wanderer , Heinrich Heim and Paul Johannes Rée . On October 19, 1898, Heidner enrolled in Professor Karl von Marr's painting class at the Royal Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. He received support from Theodor Freiherr von Cramer-Klett (1874–1938). In 1900 he became a master student of Professor Wilhelm von Diez at the Munich Academy.

In 1902 he founded a painting and drawing school in the academy's studio building, which he had to close again in 1906, as the teaching operations for around 70 students robbed him of the freedom he needed for his own artistic development. Also in 1902, Heidner took part for the first time in the annual Munich exhibition of the “Association of Munich Artists” in the Glaspalast with the painting “Before the Rehearsal”. In 1904 he made copies of Dürer's Munich self-portrait in a fur coat and a Rubens portrait by Helene Fourment on behalf of the Albrecht Dürer House and the Rubens House in Antwerp .

On March 27, 1906, he married his former student Frieda Gronefeld (1876–1944). As a wedding present, the couple received from the bride's father, Ferdinand Gronefeld, the property and the construction of a house, the later “Heidner Villa” in Gstadt am Chiemsee . In the same year the only son Fred is born. At the end of February 1908, Heidner and his family moved into the villa in Gstadt am Chiemsee.

War images

In August 1915, Heidner went to the western front of the First World War and made his first war sketches. On August 20, 1916, Heidner was drafted into the 1st Bavarian foot artillery regiment in Mainz as a soldier; from there he was transferred to Upper Alsace in November 1916. On October 23 of the same year, the royal general director of the state galleries in Munich, Friedrich Dörnhöffer, advocated that Heidner should continue to work as a battle painter, since he had sufficiently documented his unusual talent for a monumental representation of the great war.

In May 1917 the Städtische Galerie Nürnberg bought the painting “Sieg”, the Galerie Mosse (Berlin) bought three smaller war paintings. Two months later in July Heidner was transferred as a war painter to Army Detachment C in the Argonne near Verdun; in September to the 3rd foot artillery regiment in Grafenwoehr. On October 30, 1917, Heinrich Heidner's assignment as a war painter in the 1st Replacement Battalion of the 3rd Bavarian Foot Artillery Regiment was approved. From November 15, 1917 to January 31, 1918 he worked as a war painter on the Western Front. In February 1918, he was dismissed from the army. He made drafts for the wall design of the Bavarian Army Museum with frescoes, the execution of which, however, was no longer realized after the defeat in November 1918.

1924 to 1974

In 1924 Heidner undertook study trips to San Gimignano , 1925 to Passau and Dürnstein , 1926 to Berlin and 1930 and 1931 to Paris . In October 1927, Heidner declared his solidarity with the previous President Fritz Behn and left the Munich artists' cooperative together with other artists.

Heidner did not have any exhibitions from 1933 to 1945. He withdrew completely and limited his activities to painting harmless subjects such as portraits, horses and landscapes as well as caring for his seriously ill wife, who finally died on November 14th in 1944. Six months later, on June 20, 1945, he married Maria Stock (1906–1972). In 1947 he was a founding member of the “Notgemeinschaft Bildender Künstler Gstadt”, later the “Association of Visual Artists at the Chiemsee”.

In 1960 he became a member of the Association of Franconian Artists in Nuremberg. In 1972 Heidner's second wife Maria dies. He moves from Gstadt to Allmannshausen on Lake Starnberg in the house of his former student Elfie Schloter. 1974 on May 7th Heinrich Heidner died in Allmannshausen on Lake Starnberg. His grave is in the cemetery in Gstadt am Chiemsee.

Exhibitions

• In 1916 he had his first major successes through exhibitions of his war paintings in Munich, Nuremberg and Berlin. This is followed by acquisitions by important museums and collections: The Königliche Pinakothek acquires the works of the war paintings exhibited in the Heinemann Gallery in March: “October Fights on the Linge Head” and “After the Fights on the B-Head”, the Royal Graphic Collection acquires the colored design to the latter. The Albrecht Dürer Association in Nuremberg bought four watercolor paintings.
• In 1918, in a second phase of successful exhibitions of war paintings in the Caspari Gallery in Munich and Gurlitt Berlin, with consistently positive reviews, Heidner's paintings were offered at high prices. The Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum Magdeburg acquires the two paintings “Comradeship / Blind bullets” and “From the storm days on the Maas” from the Galerie Gurlitt Berlin.
• 1920 from February to March the Museum Folkwang in Hagen shows paintings by Heinrich Heidner in a solo exhibition.
• In 1930, Heidner's images of war were presented in the rooms of Editions Bonaparte in Paris.
• In 1956, on the occasion of his 80th birthday, the Städtische Galerie in the Lenbachhaus in Munich presented works by Heinrich Heidner in two halls.
• 2007 rediscovered! Museums of the City of Nuremberg, City Museum Fembohaus,

Honors

• Federal Cross of Merit on Ribbon (June 26, 1961)
• Culture Prize of the City of Rosenheim (1965)
• Honorary citizen of the community of Gstadt am Chiemsee (1971)

plant

Heidner achieved his great artistic breakthrough with his images of war, which he created on the western front of the First World War, in the midst of the fighting. In his early works he attached great importance to graduated color tones in the painterly artistic execution of the picture. A self-portrait of Heidner from 1900 shows the coins of the Munich School of Wilhelm von Diez. A comparison with his last self-portrait from 1973 shows the stylistic breadth of an almost 100-year life as a painter.

He created landscapes and rural scenes, especially painting the Chiemsee with the Fraueninsel, a motif that he had in mind every day. In addition, scenes of farm workers were created, which he realized using different techniques. Of the portraits that Heidner created, the self-portraits and, among the animal pictures, horse pictures occupy a prominent position.

literature

Irma Hoffmann: Heinrich Heidner: Life and work, results of the research , in: Rediscovered! Heinrich Heidner 1876–1974 , exhibition catalog, Stadtmuseum Fembohaus, Nuremberg 2007, pp. 15–25; Documentation pp. 79–83.

Web links

• Literature by and about Heinrich Heidner in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Office of the Federal President