Heinz Dodenhoff

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Heinz Dodenhoff (born March 9, 1889 in Tarmstedt , Lower Saxony , † September 25, 1981 in Worpswede ) was a German painter and poet .

biography

Heinz Dodenhoff belonged to the second generation of Worpswede artists . After completing his training at the Stader teachers' seminar , he worked as a teacher in Hamburg.

He began painting for the first time during the First World War . In 1917 he returned from the war with severe tuberculosis .

He quit school due to his illness and began training as a painter at the Lübeck Art School. He later attended the master class at the Nordic Art School . In 1925 he moved with his wife Anna and their two sons Erwin and Rudolph to Worpswede, not far from his birthplace. In the artist colony founded in 1889, he was able to win the friendship of some first-generation artists such as Fritz Mackensen , Otto Modersohn and Heinrich Vogeler .

Since the pension was not enough to support, Dodenhoff tried his hand at an art dealer. In a wooden hut he sold pictures by other painters as well as his own works. These were based on the works of his friends and often depicted the landscape around Worpswede.

After the Second World War , landscape paintings were hardly in demand. Even Mackensen had to earn his living by painting portraits . However, Dodenhof remained true to his landscape painting. Mackensen visited Dodenhoff in his studio in the early 1950s. “Nobody paints your skies after you”, he paid Dodenhoff his admiration, “neither do I”.

In the mid-1950s, Dodenhoff's poems were suddenly more in demand than his pictures. He gave more than 600 readings of his Low and High German poetry. He wrote the early work “Meinem Kinde” for his daughter Linde. After being set to music by the composer Walter Lehnhoff , this volume of poems became a radio success. His last book "Seasons of a Life in Pictures and Poems" is a collection of his most beautiful pictures and poems.

In 1960 Dodenhoff separated from his wife, left Worpswede and moved to live with his girlfriend Lieselotte Hoff in Langen near Bremerhaven. From memory and driven by the longing for Worpswede, he created some of his most beautiful pictures during this time. Lieselotte died in 1979 and Dodenhoff went back to his family in Worpswede. Dodenhoff: "So my departure from Bremerhaven was deeply sad and beautiful at the same time". Until his death he painted, even lying in bed.

Works

  • To my child: poems, with 5 small compositions v. Ernst Krüger-Lindhorst , Worpswede 1937.

Web links

Source and literature

  • Kurt Fechtner: Heinz Dodenhoff - Seasons of a Life in Pictures and Poems, Roeser-Bley Verlag Baden-Baden 1978
personal data
SURNAME Dodenhoff, Heinz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter and poet
DATE OF BIRTH March 9, 1889
PLACE OF BIRTH Tarmstedt
DATE OF DEATH September 25, 1981
Place of death Worpswede