Heinrich Schmidt-Pecht

Heinrich Schmidt-Pecht - Shadow self-portrait in profile to the right , undated

Heinrich Schmidt-Pecht: Choirboy in the Überlinger Münster , 1879

Heinrich Christian Andreas Schmidt-Pecht (born January 9, 1854 in Konstanz ; † October 24, 1945 there ) was a painter and lithographer and honorary director of the Wessenberg-Galerie Konstanz for 56 years .

Live and act

Heinrich Schmidt-Pecht was born in Constance as the only child of the lithographer Friedrich Schmidt-Pecht and his wife Christine Pecht. The father ran the JA Pecht lithographic institute in the old guild house "zur Katz". First Heinrich Schmidt-Pecht attended the Konstanzer boys school and then switched to the Konstanzer Gymnasium, today's Heinrich-Suso-Gymnasium . In 1871 he began to train in drawing and lithography at the arts and crafts schools in Munich and Nuremberg. From January 1877 he studied at the Grand Ducal Badische Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Karlsruhe with the history painter Ferdinand Keller.

In 1878 Schmidt-Pecht met Elisabeth Sachs, who was born in St. Blasien on April 2, 1857 and who was training at the art embroidery school of the Badischer Frauenverein Karlsruhe . They married in 1881 and moved into their own apartment in the “zur Katz” house . In 1880 Heinrich Schmidt-Pecht joined his parents' business, which he took over in full three years later after his father left. He expanded the printing business in the arts and crafts direction by developing inlay printing processes for wood veneers and a process for printing leather. Schmidt-Pecht received a gold medal for the leather printing process at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893 . Further awards followed at the art exhibition in Munich and the German subject exhibition in Karlsruhe. Around 1895, Count Ferdinand Zeppelin had his first plans for an airship printed in the Pecht'schen printing works under great secrecy. When the aviation pioneer was made an honorary citizen of the city of Konstanz in 1908, Schmidt-Pecht designed the honorary citizenship certificate.

In 1887 Schmidt-Pecht was elected first chairman of the Konstanzer Kunstverein . Two years later he took over the honorary management of the Wessenberg gallery. Schmidt-Pecht was involved in a variety of ways in his hometown, including on the school board of the trade school, as secretary of the spa and traffic association as well as in the Wessenberg monument foundation, in the library of the citizens' museum, as a member of the city council's traffic and building commission and as a city ​​councilor . Schmidt-Pecht also wrote numerous articles on art and architecture.

Hans and Cella Thoma (outside) as well as Elisabeth and Heinrich Schmidt-Pecht in Konstanz, 1901

Throughout his life, Heinrich Schmidt-Pecht maintained friendships with numerous artists and cultural workers , including the painters Julius Dietz , Hans Garnjobst , Peter Halm , Ernst Kreidolf , Carl Theodor Meyer-Basel , Hans Thoma , Fritz Voellmy , Wilhelm Volz , Albert Welti , dem Sculptor Hermann Volz and the publisher couple Franz Joseph and Frieda von Lipperheide . The correspondence testifying to the friendships of Heinrich Schmidt-Pecht is now in the Konstanz city archive.

Heinrich Schmidt-Pecht: Hydrangeas in a Vase , 1916

In 1894, Elisabeth Schmidt-Pecht began designing decors for ceramics - initially for Georg Schmider's Black Forest stoneware factory in Zell am Harmersbach . Later she began to experiment with her own designs for art ceramics, which were made at a pottery in Villingen. The art exhibition in Munich's Glaspalast brought the breakthrough in 1898 and soon made Elisabeth Schmidt-Pecht a well-known figure in the German arts and crafts . In the following years she won international prizes and awards for her pottery. The great success led Heinrich Schmidt-Pecht to give up the lithographic establishment in 1906 and set up an art pottery with a kiln in the “zur Katz” house. Until the war-related cessation of production in 1914/1915 and the subsequent abandonment of the art pottery in 1917, numerous award-winning ceramics were created.

Heinrich Schmidt-Pecht: Painted cover of a photo album, undated

The Schmidt-Pechts got involved on a voluntary basis during the First World War : Elisabeth took over the management of a home for the wounded, while her husband organized support for families whose fathers and sons were at war. In 1920 Schmidt-Pecht, previously a member of the National Liberal Party , co-founded a local branch of the German National People's Party . In 1922 he resigned from the management of the art association. Due to his conservative attitude, he was allowed to keep his position as director of the Wessenberg Gallery after 1933. On June 25, 1937, Schmidt-Pecht applied for membership in the NSDAP , which came into force retroactively from May 1.

Elisabeth Schmidt-Pecht died on March 24, 1940. Heinrich Schmidt-Pecht died on October 24, 1945 at the age of 91. He had headed the Wessenberg Gallery to the end. The entire art possession of the childless Schmidt-Pecht couple went to the Wessenberg Gallery.

plant

Heinrich Schmidt-Pecht's artistic direction was shaped by his training and years of study. He valued the art of historicism and art nouveau and not only made paintings and works on paper in these styles as a lithographer, but also as a painter. After 1884 he hardly found time for his own artistic activity. This did not start again until the First World War. Now he mainly painted realistic still lifes and landscapes with an impressionistic touch. From the 1920s onwards he devoted himself increasingly to chalk and pastel drawings .

Publications

• The house of the cat in Constance. Constance 1924.
• Friedrich Pecht as a lithographer of Lake Constance. In: Badische Heimat. My home country. Journal for regional and folklore, nature, environmental and monument protection, vol. 13, Freiburg i. Br. 1926, pp. 96-99.
• The Constance “Biblia Pauperum”. In: The beautiful Konstanz on Lake Constance and the Rhine, the old city in the south of Germany. Bodensee-Rundschau, vol. 23, no. 3, Konstanz 1936, pp. 52–56.
• Old Constance paintings. In: The beautiful Konstanz on Lake Constance and the Rhine, the old city in the south of Germany. Bodensee-Rundschau, vol. 24, no. 1, Konstanz 1937, pp. 14-20.
• Memories of Count Zeppelin. A review of the anniversary of July 8th. In: Alemannisches Volk, vol. 6, Konstanz 1938, p. 113ff.
• Spring trip to the Rococo. In: Das Bodenseebuch 1938, 25th year, Ulm-Donau / Lindau-Bodensee 1938, p. 61ff.
• Memories from a long life in my hometown of Konstanz. 2 vols. Konstanz 1939 (typescript).
• The Bismarcks in Constance. A historical find. In: Velhagen & Klasings Monatshefte, 54th year 1939/1940 (2 vol.), Pp. 489–494.
• Old house paintings in Constance. In: Das Bodenseebuch 1940, 27th year, Ulm-Donau / Lindau-Bodensee 1940, pp. 32–37.

literature

• Janina Burandt, Barbara Stark (ed.): Art, ceramics and conflicts. Heinrich Schmidt-Pecht. Exhibition cat. Municipal Wessenberg Gallery Konstanz, Konstanz 2019.
• NN (Hönn, Karl): Heinrich Schmidt-Pecht. In: Das Bodenseebuch 1946, 32nd year, Zurich 1946, p. 98. (Obituary for Heinrich Schmidt-Pecht)
• Günther von Pechmann: Pottery course on Lake Constance. In: The Bodenseebuch 1948/49, 34./35. Vol., Friedrichshafen 1948/49, pp. 87ff.
• Rosgarten Museum Konstanz (Ed.): Ceramic Center Konstanz. Art Nouveau until the 50s. Exhibition cat. Constance (Rosgarten Museum) 1997.

Web links

Commons : Heinrich Schmidt-Pecht  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Notes and individual references

1. ↑ Heinrich Schmidt-Pecht's father was the one who appended the famous name of his wife to his name. He is not to be confused with (August) Friedrich Pecht , the brother of his wife.
2. ↑ Janina Burandt, Barbara Stark (ed.): Art, ceramics and conflicts. Heinrich Schmidt-Pecht. Exhibition cat. Municipal Wessenberg Gallery Konstanz, Konstanz 2019.