Hermann Kirchberger

Hermann Kirchberger (born December 16, 1905 in Berlin , † December 4, 1983 in Berlin) was a German artist.

Life

Hermann Kirchberger is a painter of the so-called "Lost Generation". An adoption by the Paul Kirchberger family made it possible for him, who originally came from a small family, to attend the Zehlendorfer Realschule and then the Odenwaldschule Heppenheim from 1919 to 1920. This was followed by an apprenticeship in glass painting in Berlin. From 1925 to 1933 he studied at the United State Schools for Free and Applied Arts in Berlin, most recently as a master student of Emil Rudolf Weiß . This was followed by a year as an employee in Bruno Paul’s studio for decorative paintings in Berlin. In 1932 Kirchberger married the artist Eva Hauser. He completed his studies as a master student of Ernst Pfannschmidt at the Prussian Academy of the Arts. His son Stefan was born in 1936. Kirchberger was a soldier from 1940 to 1942. In 1943 he was dismissed from the Wehrmacht as " unworthy of defense" because of his Jewish adoptive father . From 1944 to 1945 he was interned by the Todt organization in a labor camp for “ Jewish mixed race ” in Zerbst . After the war he found a job as head of the enamel workshop and lecturer in enamel painting at the Berlin University of Fine Arts . This was followed in 1946 by the appointment as professor of wall painting at the University of Architecture and Fine Arts Weimar . Design of four mosaic columns and a large mural in the German National Theater, Weimar. His work was attacked as formalistic , so that he had to give up the office in 1951 and went back to West Berlin. The Weimar mural was therefore also criticized as "formalistic" and was removed in July 1950. It was only found again in 2003 in an attic of the Erfurt Angermuseum. It has been hanging again since December 19, 2003 - in Weimar (Weimarhalle). After Hermann Kirchberger had been separated from his first wife for several years, he married the artist Becky Sandstede in 1958 . In 1960 he had his first solo exhibition of paintings and graphics in Bonn. Kirchberger also designed many church windows: In Erfurt a window in the west wing of the Augustinian Church, in Berlin a. a. the window in the foyer of the Schöneberg town hall, a window in the St. Anne's Church in Berlin-Dahlem and the window in the Paulus Church in Berlin-Lichterfelde . The mosaic on the facade of the Senate Department for Urban Development in Württembergische Strasse in Wilmersdorf was also made by him. His last work was the windows for the foyer of the St. Joseph Hospital in Berlin-Tempelhof . Hermann Kirchberger died on December 4, 1983 in Berlin and was buried in the forest cemetery in Dahlem.

Prices

• 1957: Prize of the "Friends of Fine Arts" (Berlin) for his painting "Captive Bird"
• 1960: Prize of the Great Berlin Art Exhibition

literature

• Martin Schönfeld: Hermann Kirchberger, an artist of the “lost generation”: “Where from? Where to? “: Figures in space: paintings, gouaches, drawings, glass windows. ERS-Verlag Berlin 1996, ISBN 978-3-928577-25-0 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Hermann Kirchberger in the catalog of the German National Library
• Estate directory painting