Heinz Witte
Heinz Witte-Lenoir (born February 17, 1880 in Lintel , † February 17, 1961 in Hude ), artist name "Lenoir" the black (man), was a German painter who mostly lived in France .
Life
Heinz Witte-Lenoir was the son of a farmer and gatekeeper , Hermann Heinrich Witte (born April 10, 1834) and his wife Sophie Catharina, née. Schütte (born February 22, 1835). After graduating from school, he began an apprenticeship with the Grand Ducal Oldenburg State Railways in Löningen in 1895 . He had drawn and painted since childhood. Through a chance acquaintance with the Oldenburg art professor Benno Schumacher, his life took an abrupt turn. At the age of 18 he gave up his railroad apprenticeship and initially spent six months with Schumacher in Italy. Bologna , Venice and Rome were the first stops.
After his return he worked in Oldenburg for a few months and received lessons from Gerhard Bakenhus . As a 19-year-old he went to Paris without the usual degree from a German academy . Without a higher education, with little language skills and without a secure financial background from home, he had an uncertain future ahead of him.
Witte rented a room at "n ° 35 Rue Delmbre", near the Academie Colarossi , where he took life drawing lessons. His neighbor there was Eugen Pratje . From 1902 he learned portrait painting from Jean-Paul Laurens and in the same year attended the Académie des Beaux-Arts . Fascinated by the opportunities offered, he worked obsessively. Witte sketched, drew, painted in the studio, in the academy and outdoors, and copied in museums.
His diligence and talent soon showed fruit and Witte was able to exhibit and sell his pictures in Paris. In 1905 he received first prize as a juror for his painting “Paris Street Sweeper” in a drawing competition organized by Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen . The profit of 1,000 francs and his other income from sales enabled him to go on study trips. The prize money was the basis for his first trip to India in 1905. His travels also took him to London , the Mediterranean countries and Africa.
The recognition that Witte received for his works also gave him access to the studio of 73-year-old Edgar Degas , whom he was able to assist as printer of monotypes that are now on display in the Louvre .
His first trip to India was followed by three more, longer stays there from 1907 to 1911. In India he made friends with Rabindranath Tagore , who followed a teaching position at the Visva-Bharati University in Shantiniketan , which Tagore had founded in 1901 .
Witte was friends with Amedeo Modigliani and Heinrich Wilhelm Lehmbruck . From 1911 to 1914 he lived permanently in Paris. His friends there named him “Le Noir, the Black” after seeing his dark pictures painted in India. But Parisian cityscapes in the style of French impressionism can also be found in his work. In 1900 he met Paula Modersohn-Becker in Paris , who visited him in his studio and also studied at the Académie Colarossi. Later, in addition to Amedeo Modigliani and Wilhelm Lehmbruck, he also had contact with Eugen Spiro , Elie Nadelmann , Josef Egry and Paul Signac .
Heinz Witte-Lenoir writes:
“... so it came about that, in addition to my work in the Colarossi, I looked in museums or art exhibitions for pictures by the masters who had tried to depict this city. There were many of these painters, but very few stood up to sufficiency. From the "old" it was Boningten and Jacquemart, from the "newer" Jongkind and Raffaelli. Bonington's generosity and Jacquemart's refinements, Jongkind's heavy eeriness, which suited my northern German moor feeling and Raffaelli's subtle way of setting the human wave in spring, inspired me again and again to try the same. "
During the First World War and afterwards, i.e. in the years up to 1922, he moved his domiciles to southern France and the Mediterranean coast. In 1920 he made a trip to Egypt , after his return to live in various places, such as Paris, on the Mediterranean Sea and from 1922 in Berlin . Much of his work was destroyed in a bombing raid on Berlin during World War II . From 1946 he lived again in Hude and began to paint again. In the 1950s, he made another trip to Paris and sketched on the street corners. “Cosmopolitan, an eloquent man who was able to speak from the wealth of his experiences,” recalled the editor of his catalog raisonné, Ulrich Wilke.
The former Federal Minister of Economics, Kurt Schmücker, wrote about Heinz Witte-Lenoir: “... he was not just the great painter who was friendly, helpful and helpful to everyone. He was also a gifted narrator with the brush and also with his words ”. Heinz Witte-Lenoir also sought contacts with his artist colleagues in the neighboring artists' colony in Dötlingen . August Kaufhold had set up a meeting place for artists in Dötlingen with the "Lopshof".
His partner had been Caroline ("Tully") Gladbach since the 1930s. Heinz Witte-Lenoir died on the same day in February on which he was born. He and Caroline Gladbach found their resting place in a grave at St. Elisabeth Church .
plant
Until his death, he remained true to his style (representational, based on impressionism). But his painting was permeated with contrasts, as if two painters were united in one. The bright pictures were mainly made in France in earlier years. The darker pictures are mainly shaped by his trips to India. Due to many different influences such as frequent changes of residence, travel, war damage, etc., many works are currently still undetectable or have been permanently lost. In the catalog raisonné there are still around 750 works from his hand. Like the works of many other artists of his time, his pictures were not acceptable to the National Socialists . Participation in exhibitions was out of the question during the National Socialist era. After the destruction of his apartment, studio and a large number of his works in Berlin as a result of the war, he returned to his Oldenburg homeland. His works were shown in numerous exhibitions, including in Paris, in the Kunsthalle Bremen in the 1920s, after the war in the Oldenburger Kunstverein , in Aachen, Cologne, Löningen and many other places.
France
French city in the sea of flags
Ladies in the park in front of a fountain
St. Tropez
Bathers
Orient and India
Atelier in India
The reader
The wild
mosque
Biblical subjects
Flagellation of Christ
Christ II
Hagar and Ishmael
Pietà
file
Sitting nude with a towel
Sitting nude with a plant
Sitting act in front of the landscape
Charcoal drawing seated nude
literature
- Krimhild Stöver: Witte-Lenoir, Heinz . In: Hans Friedl u. a. (Ed.): Biographical manual for the history of the state of Oldenburg . Edited on behalf of the Oldenburg landscape. Isensee, Oldenburg 1992, ISBN 3-89442-135-5 , pp. 810-811 ( online ).
- Jürgen Weichardt : Heinz Witte-Lenoir - An Oldenburg in Paris . In: Yearbook for the Oldenburger Münsterland 1981 . Vechta 1980, pp. 297-302
- Gerhard Wietek : 200 years of painting in the Oldenburger Land . ISBN 3-9801191-0-6
- Ulrich Wilke: Heinz Witte-Lenoir catalog raisonné ISBN 3-939119-38-5
- Reviews by Ulrich Wilke in the Nordwest-Zeitung on April 15, 2006 and February 17, 2007.
- Ulrich Wilke: New edition of the catalog raisonné 2010. Publisher: make-a-book. ISBN 978-3-940218-90-2
- Exhibition catalog Heinz Witte Lenoir - A painter on the move Aschendorff, Münster 2010, ISBN 978-3-402-12876-3
- Heinz Witte-Lenoir: "... to Paris and beyond." A painter on the move. Catalog for the exhibition in the gallery Luzie Uptmorr, Lohne, the industrial museum Lohne and the museum village Cloppenburg. Ed .: Jürgen Weichardt on behalf of the Friends of Luzie Uptmoor, Lohne, the industrial museum Lohne and the museum village of Cloppenburg. Aschendorff, Münster 2011, ISBN 978-3-402-12876-3
Web links
- Literature by and about Heinz Witte in the catalog of the German National Library
- www.dr-ulrich-wilke.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ Ulrich Witte: Heinz Witte-Lenoir Hude-Lintel 1880–1961 Hude.
- ^ Ulrich Wilke: Catalog raisonné Heinz Witte-Lenoir. Make a book publisher, 2004, ISBN 3-9391-1938-5
- ↑ Walter Janssen-Holldiek: Lintel. Settlement development of a village in the Delmenhorster Geest. Based on archaeological finds, excavations and archival sources. Pp. 732, 678
- ^ Gerhard Wietek : 200 years of painting in the Oldenburger Land. Hugo Prull Druck / Landessparkasse zu Oldenburg, 1986, ISBN 3-9801-1910-6
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Witte, Heinz |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Witte-Lenoir, Heinz (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German painter mostly living in France |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 17, 1880 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Lintel |
| DATE OF DEATH | 17th February 1961 |
| Place of death | Hude |