Hellmuth Weissenborn

Hellmuth Weissenborn , born Hellmuth Fritz (born December 29, 1898 in Leipzig , † September 2, 1982 in London ) was an artist who mainly worked in England and created illustrations , woodcuts and linocuts .

Life

Youth and education

Hellmuth Weissenborn was born as the son of Julius Fritz, senior high school teacher and academy professor, and Clara Fritz geb. Goldacker born in Leipzig. Together with his two sisters Lotte and Marianne, Weissenborn grew up in an artistic family home. He attended the school where his father was employed in Leipzig. After taking part in World War I in Russia and France, among others, he studied philosophy, ethnology and art history at the Leipzig University from the winter semester 1918/1919 . He received his doctorate in 1925 with Fritz Krause on an ethnological topic and then took up a position as an artistic consultant at the Leipzig Ethnological Museum.

Escape to England

At the same time, Weissenborn had already passed the state examination for drawing teachers in Dresden in 1922 and met Max Schwimmer , Walter Tiemann and Hans Alexander Müller . In 1926 he was appointed by Tiemann as a lecturer at the State Academy for Graphic Arts and Book Industry in Leipzig, and a little later appointed professor. Like some other employees Tiemann also, he was after the seizure of power released by the National Socialists on April 1, 1937th Since Weissenborn was married to a Jew, he fled to exile in England after the pogroms of 1938, where he joined the “ Free German Cultural Association” .

Career in exile

In 1940 he was interned as an " Enemy Alien " for a few months at Hutchinson Camp , where he made prints, postcards or articles for the camp newspaper. He showed great ingenuity when it came to the use of substitute materials. So he mixed colors from food and made do with leftover linoleum from the attic of the camp kitchen. After his marriage broke up and his first wife Edith and son Florian emigrated to the United States, he became a part-time lecturer at Ravensbourne College of Art in 1941. With his second wife Lesley Macdonald, whom he met in 1943 on an illustration assignment, he took over in 1946 Head of Acorn Press. Editions of his graphic work appeared here in succession. In addition, he worked as a commissioned artist for Reader's Digest and other publishers. He also became a member of the London Club of Authors. As part of a longstanding cooperation with John Randle's The Whittington Press, many of Weissenborn's works were printed from original sticks. He worked incessantly until the end of his life and, for example, in the last year of his life in 1982 he created a series of 154 wood engravings for Shakespeare's sonnets. These appeared shortly after his death. In 1979 Weissenborn was awarded the Great Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.

estate

Weissenborn's artistic estate includes around 2,000 wood engravings, several hundred linocuts, vinyl cuts, engravings, drawings, oil paintings and pastels, but also marionettes and other works in clay. In England there are works by him in the Victoria and Albert Museum - including his well-known clay chess pieces - and in the Imperial War Museum in London. In Germany, his work is represented in the Gutenberg Museum in Mainz, in the House of History in Bonn, in the Klingspor Museum in Offenbach as well as in the Museum of Fine Arts and the German Museum of Books and Writing in Leipzig. The Whittington Press continues to use Weissenborn's work to illustrate their press prints.

Weissenborn is best known for his works in the field of linoleum and woodcuts, later also with panels made of other materials such as vinyl. The intensive preoccupation with these techniques only began after he took on an increasing number of illustration assignments in London. He quickly developed his own style, soon used his linoleum sheets in multi-colored coloring and thus finally came to the technique of the monotype . Even if later monochrome representations again made up the majority of his oeuvre, the monotypes nevertheless occupy a central point in Weissenborn's oeuvre. Also to be mentioned is his preference for unusual perspective representations.

Works (selection)

• with Lesley Macdonald: first complete English version of Simplicius Simplicissimus . Equipped with 45 wood engravings, HJC Grimmelshausen, Simplicius Simplicissimus. The Acorn Press, London 1964.
• The joyful year. An anthology from the garden of english poetry and prose, decorated with wood engravings of flowers fruits & plants. The Acorn Press, London 1957.
• A Collection of Proverbs from all Nations with 44 Wood Engravings. The Acorn Press, London, 1979. Printed by The Whittington Press, Andoversford.
• Advanced Zoology. The Acorn Press, 1980.
• Cretan picture postcards: wood engravings. The Acorn Press, London, 1981.
• Gnomes, elves, fairies. The Acorn Press, London 1983, ISBN 0-902015-19-2 . (Limited edition of 500 pieces.)

Exhibitions (selection)

• Archer Gallery, London, 1943
• Leipzig, 1957
• Brod Gallery, London, 1960, 1968
• Multi-storey car park, Berlin-Tiergarten, 1969
• Zaydler Gallery, London, 1970, 1972
• Goethe Institute, Boston, 1976
• Klingspor Museum, Offenbach a. M., 1976, 1980
• Gutenberg Museum, Mainz, 1980
• New Society for Fine Arts, Berlin, 1986 (19 works of art)
• Denham Gallery, London, 1987 (Emigré artists)
• Fiery Beacon Gallery, Painswick (England), 1989 (with others)
• Ben Uri Gallery, London Jewish Museum of Art, London, 2009 (group exhibition).

literature

• Henning Wendland: The illustrator and press printer Hellmuth Weissenborn . In: Illustration 63 , November 1977, pp. 74-78.
• Anna Nyburg: From Leipzig to London: The Life and work of Emigre Artist Hellmuth Weissenborn. Oak Knoll Press, New Castle DE 2012.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Günter A. Wicke: Weissenborn, Hellmuth. In: Saxon Biography, ed. from the Institute for Saxon History and Folklore e. V. Institute for Saxon History and Folklore e. V., March 23, 2012, accessed April 14, 2019 . 
2. ^ Editing of the German Exile Archive: Hellmuth Weissenborn. In: German National Library Federal direct institution under public law. Elisabeth Niggemann, 2012, accessed on April 14, 2019 . 
3. ↑ Gerald Cinamon: Hellmuth Weissenborn. In: German Designers. Gerald Cinamon, 2013, accessed April 14, 2019 .