Herman H. ter Meer

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Herman H. ter Meer (around 1930)

Herman H. ter Meer ( Hermanus Hendrikus ter Meer , born December 16, 1871 in Leiden , † March 9, 1934 in Leipzig ) was a Dutch taxidermist. He was a pioneer of modern dermoplastic .

Live and act

Herman H. ter Meer was a son of the same name (Hermanus Hendrikus) taxidermist at the Reich Museum for Natural History in Leiden, where he also received his basic training. For further qualification his father sent him to the leading vertebrate taxidermist Friedrich Kerz (1842–1915) in Stuttgart .

After this training, Herman H. ter Meer took up a position as taxidermist at the Reich Museum for Natural History in Leiden on February 1, 1895. After his father's retirement in 1900, he took his place as the first taxidermist. He soon gained international recognition through publications about his improved preparation technique and the necessary precautions taken by hunters and other customers before taxation, as well as the quality of his preparations.

  • Leipzig employment file

  • Atelier at the Zoological Institute

  • In the private studio

In the period that followed, however, he was unable to fully utilize his qualifications in the Leiden Museum, as only a few of his specimens were exhibited. He promised himself better working conditions and more appropriate appreciation for his achievements at the Zoological Institute of the University of Leipzig , from where he had received an offer and which he accepted in 1907. Among other things, he was attracted by the tasks involved in the processing of the numerous biological objects from the Valdivia expedition to explore the deep sea of ​​1898/1899, the scientific director of which was the director of the Leipzig Institute Carl Chun (1852-1914). He was employed on October 1, 1907 with the title "Inspector at the Zoological Institute".

During his 26 years in Leipzig, he manufactured numerous animal preparations for the zoological institute as well as for museums in Germany and abroad as well as for private customers. The latter were mainly created in a private studio on Kochstrasse. His works impress with their apparent liveliness and aesthetics. He achieved this through excellent anatomical knowledge, meticulousness and, last but not least, through the preparation technique he developed and perfected, which was developed in Leiden and after which a so-called nude model is first made over a support frame from a kneadable and hardening mass he developed which is then pulled up the skin. He always attached great importance to the artistic component of the dermoplastic work.

This aspect also prompted him to encourage the establishment of a professional organization. In 1931 the German Association of Museum Thermoplastic Artists (DEUKÜMUS) was founded in Leipzig, and he became its first chairman. Today's Association of German Taxidermists (VDP) goes back to that association. Another concern of Ter Meers was to establish the job description of the dermoplastic and a regulated, qualified training course. He himself trained a total of 15 students, some of whom later worked on renowned houses and created masterful works themselves.

A special attraction of the Leipzig fur trade museum was a group of three animals consisting of “wonderfully lively” fur seals , which ter Meer had created for the international fur trade exhibition . It probably went down when the museum was destroyed during the air raids on Leipzig in 1943. The large collection of ter Meerscher objects at the Leipzig Zoological Institute was no longer of interest there after the restructuring of the university reform in the GDR in 1968, and a large part of it came to the Leipzig Natural History Museum . With approx. 240 ter sea preparations, he has the world's largest collection of his work.

family

The ter Meer couple
(around 1930)

There were several taxidermists in the ter Meer family in Leiden. Herman H. ter Meer's great-grandfather Hermanus Hendrikus ter Meer (1774–1819) was a taxidermist, as was his grandfather Jacobus Thomas ter Meer (1803–1877), his father Hermanus Hendrikus ter Meer (1838–1917) and his uncle Franciskus Hendrikus ter Meer (1831-1903). In order to avoid confusion with the father, the son called himself Herman H. ter Meer.

Herman H. ter Meer married the Belgian Lily Mataré in Leiden in 1899, and their daughter Edith was born five years later. In 1907 the family moved to Leipzig. Her apartment was at Elisenstrasse 80 (today Bernhard-Göring-Strasse) and from 1916 at Kochstrasse 111. After Ter Meer's death, the widow and her daughter moved to Berlin in 1935 . Lily ter Meer died in Potsdam in 1945 and was buried in Leipzig. After a stay in the Oldenburger Land , her daughter Edith, who works as a journalist, moved to the Black Forest , where she died in 1993. Her marriage to sports reporter Roderich Dietze (1909–1960), which she entered into in 1939, remained childless.

He Also Had Humor: Self-Portrait with Monkeys (1928)

literature

  • Hans Völkel: Herman H. ter Meer - A life as a dermoplastic and artist. Leipziger Universitätsverlag, 2004, ISBN 978-3937209500 (reading sample)
  • Christine Becker: Like a second life: the animal trainer Herman H. ter Meer . Passage-Verlag, 2004, ISBN 9783932900952
  • Susanne Köstering: Nature to look at: the natural history museum of the German Empire 1871–1914 Böhlau Verlag, Cologne 2003, ISBN 3-412-04702-3 , p. 181 (online)

Web links

Commons : Herman H. ter Meer  - Collection of images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hans Völkel: Herman H. ter Meer - ... , p. 53
  2. ^ Association of German Taxidermists. Retrieved March 8, 2018 .
  3. ↑ Without indication of the author: Fur animal zoology in the fur museum of the Reichsmesse city Leipzig . In: Der Rauchwarenmarkt No. 27, July 16, 1943, p. 4.
  4. ↑ Leipzig Address Book 1909 Retrieved March 5, 2018
  5. ↑ Gina Klank, Gernoth Griebsch: Encyclopedia Leipziger street names . Ed .: City Archives Leipzig. 1st edition. Verlag im Wissenschaftszentrum Leipzig, Leipzig 1995, ISBN 3-930433-09-5 , p. 35 .
  6. ↑ Hans Völkel: Herman H. ter Meer - ... , p. 37
personal data
SURNAME ter Meer, Herman H.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES ter Meer, Hermanus Hendrikus (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Dutch taxidermist
DATE OF BIRTH December 16, 1871
PLACE OF BIRTH Suffer
DATE OF DEATH March 9, 1934
Place of death Leipzig