Herbert Zeitner

Herbert Zeitner, self-portrait from 1919

Herbert Zeitner (born June 12, 1900 in Coburg , † October 14, 1988 in Lüneburg ) was a German gold and silversmith .

Pin (brooch) for the Gymnaestrada 1975 in Berlin - designed by Prof. Herbert Zeitner and manufactured by BH Mayer's

He created vases, jugs, goblets, bowls, crosses, tableware, the whole range of jewelry as well as works for cities and public institutions. Herbert Zeitner was honored for his work with the Lower Saxony State Prize for the creative craft (1966), the Bavarian State Prize (1974) and the Lüneburg Prize (1981). The gold and silversmiths that Zeitner produced between 1918 and 1933 are characterized by styles as diverse as Art Nouveau , Art Deco and Bauhaus , while later work in the 1960s and 1970s is characterized by increasing abstraction.

Education and professional activity

Herbert Zeitner completed his training from 1914 to 1921 as a scholarship holder at the State Drawing Academy in Hanau , which was headed by Hugo Leven during this time . Reinhold Ewald was one of his teachers . In 1924 Zeitner passed his master's examination as a goldsmith in Hanau. In the same year he was appointed teacher for artistic metal design at the United State Schools for Applied Arts in Berlin-Charlottenburg by the architect, designer and graphic artist Bruno Paul . The gold and silversmiths that Zeitner made in the 1920s also include a long coral and porcelain necklace that the film actress Brigitte Helm wore in Fritz Lang's classic silent film " Metropolis ". In 1930 Zeitner became a member of the German Society for Goldsmithing in Berlin.

Between 1933 and 1945 Zeitner also made jewelry in Berlin for the representatives of National Socialism ; In 1935 he was appointed associate professor and in 1939 head of a master's atelier for goldsmiths at the Prussian Academy of Arts in Berlin. After 1945 Zeitner distanced himself from National Socialism, but it is undisputed that between 1933 and 1945 he profited from his work for the rulers of the Nazi regime.

After the end of the war, in 1945, Zeitner left Berlin in a houseboat and settled in Lüneburg. In the first years after the war he worked on the houseboat, from 1954 to 1959 he ran a workshop with journeymen in the old department store in Lüneburg as a master goldsmith. In 1955 Zeitner became chairman of the arts and crafts working group Lüneburg Heath in the Lower Saxony arts and crafts work group. The gold and silversmith's work that Zeitner made in the 1960s also includes the mayor's necklace, which was created in 1966. In 1969 he made the honorary award silver mask for the Hamburger Volksbühne .

In the summer of 2010 two exhibitions, in the German Goldsmith's House in Hanau and in the Chamber of Crafts Braunschweig-Lüneburg-Stade in Lüneburg, commemorated Herbert Zeitner's life's work.

Awards

• 1932 4th prize in the competition "The silver cup" of the German Society for Goldsmithing
• 1937 Award at the Paris World Exhibition
• 1943 Awarded the Golden Ring of Honor by the Society for Goldsmithing
• 1952 Prize for a sports gift (Olympic medal) at the Helsinki Olympics
• 1954 Silver medal of the X. Triennale, Milan for brooches (including moon brooch)
• 1958 Certificate of Honor at the World Exhibition in Brussels
• 1962 3rd prize in the competition "The Silver Mask" of the Society for Goldsmithing
• 1966 Lower Saxony State Prize for the creative craft
• 1974 Bavarian State Prize
• 1975 Master of Honor certificate for the goldsmith's trade of the Lüneburg Chamber of Crafts
• 1976 Cross of Merit on Ribbon of the Lower Saxony Order of Merit
• 1981 Awarded the Lüneburg Prize (bronze statuette) in the Fürstensaal of the Lüneburg town hall

Publicly owned works by Zeitner (selection)

• Museum of Arts and Crafts Hamburg
• Badisches Landesmuseum Karlsruhe
• Museum of Applied Arts Cologne
• Museum for the Principality of Lüneburg
• Bavarian National Museum Munich
• New collection - Pinakothek der Moderne Munich
• Pforzheim jewelry museum

Literature (selection)

• AMATE - The goldsmith Herbert Zeitner . Verlag der Kunst, Dresden 2010, ISBN 978-3-86530-127-7 .
• Karl H. Bröhan (Ed.): Art from Art Nouveau to Modernism (1889-1939) . Volume 4: Metal Art: Silver, Copper, Brass, Tin . Bröhan-Museum, Berlin 1990, ISBN 3-9801525-3-7 , pp. 580f.
• Anna Beatriz Chadour, Andreas Freisfeld (Hrsg.): Jewelry pieces. The impulse of modernity in Europe Klinkhardt and Biermann, Munich 1991, ISBN 3-7814-0294-0 , pp. 70, 73.
• Hermann Schadt: Goldsmith's Art. 5000 years of jewelry and equipment . Arnold, Stuttgart 1996, ISBN 3-925369-44-9 , pp. 190ff.
• Christianne Weber-Stöber: jewelry . DuMont-Literatur-und-Kunst-Verlag, Cologne 2004, ISBN 3-8321-7613-6 , ( DuMont pocket books 543 DuMont crash course ), pp. 106-107.

Web links

• [1]
• [2]

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Press kit for the double exhibition Expressive. Experimental. Headstrong. Reinhold Ewald 1890–1974, 2015/2016 as a PDF file
2. ↑ Retrospective: 50 Years of the Lower Saxony State Prize for the Creative Crafts  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Website of the Chamber of Crafts Hanover with a directory of the state prize winners since 1958.