Hermann Becker (painter, 1884)

Hermann Max Becker (born November 14, 1884 in Breslau , † February 26, 1972 in Heiligenstedten ) was a German aircraft technician and painter.

Life

Hermann Becker was a son of the tram driver and coachman Johann Karl Becker (* August 12, 1852 in Breslau; † September 12, 1924 there) and his wife Caroline Pauline , née Lepke, (* December 15, 1855 in Potarzyce ; † July 2 1920 in Breslau). He completed an apprenticeship as a carpenter and spent a few years as a journeyman on trips in Austria and Northern Italy. In 1907 he got a job as an aircraft technician at the Berlin Albatroswerke .

In 1914 Becker moved to Schneidemühl, where he helped build a branch of the Albatroswerke as a senior builder. On May 21, 1917 he married Elisabeth Minna Rosa Genz (born January 27, 1889 in Schneidemühl; † May 22, 1974 in Heiligenstedten). In 1920 he started his own business as a farmer on a small farm. During the Second World War he had to do military service in Berlin. After the end of the war, he moved to Heiligenstedten in 1947, where his wife had fled.

Becker died childless in February 1972.

Working as a painter

Becker painted for the first time at the retirement age of 75 years. He himself said: "Sunday painting serves me to stay vital, to stay alive". He wanted to prevent possible boredom and for this reason had first set up a beekeeping. As a naive artist, he first painted children from his neighborhood, the surrounding farmhouses, dykes and a bridge over the Stör. After a few learning successes, he used motifs from nature or templates such as photographs. He captured fish, flowers, squares and people in images. In 1964 he had his first exhibition in Itzehoe , followed by many exhibitions in Schleswig-Holstein and Hamburg later.

It was typical of Becker's works that he only used simple means such as colored pencils, oil pastels and simple opaque colors, which he put on drawing paper. He stuck the paper on cardboard, provided the work with a varnish and attached it to a frame he made himself with drawing pins. Since he lacked the necessary skills as an autodidact, he reduced the motifs to the essentials, but nevertheless tried to reproduce the templates as precisely as possible.

Becker created pictures in powerful and clear colors. These included works such as “Feierabend”, “Freuden der Freizeit”, “Rändliches Geplaer”, “Young Cat in a Tree” or “The old Störbrücke”. When he could no longer draw small details in old age, he used large lines, surfaces and shapes, as in the painting of "Schloss Heiligenstedt". During the twelve years of his work, he produced very few pictures of different quality. His works are now in the Museum of European Cultures, for example .

literature

• Wolfgang Reschke: Becker, Hermann . in: Schleswig-Holstein Biographical Lexicon . Volume 4. Karl Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 1976, pp. 35-36