Hildegard Michaelis (artist)

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Hildegard Michaelis (born November 17, 1900 in Erfurt ; † July 8, 1982 in Simiane-Collongue ) was a Catholic monastery founder and artist.

life and work

Youth, art studies, conversion

Hildegard Michaelis was the daughter of a florist. The family was Protestant. At 17 she saw her brother return home and die in Verdun, who was wounded and defaced. When her father turned down her wish to study at the Weimar Academy of Fine Arts and asked for a degree in business , she decided to emigrate to the United States. In Hamburg she missed the ship and in 1924 began studying at the Staatliche Kunstgewerbeschule am Lerchenfeld (today: Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg ), where she learned to weave boards , but did not graduate. She came into contact with the Bauhaus . In the Lüneburg Heath she got to know monastic life and converted to Catholicism in 1927. She wove a chasuble for the papal nuncio Pacelli (later Pope Pius XII ). She came to Holland in 1928 through exhibitions of her works in Utrecht, Amsterdam and the Hague and stayed in Amsterdam until 1935. She worked artistically for furnishing the Obrechtkerk in Amsterdam and the Sint-Antonius Abtkerk in Rotterdam. At the same time she gathered poor young women around her with the intention of giving meaning through craftsmanship.

Founding of monasteries in Holland, Switzerland and France

Her wish to enter a Benedictine abbey in South Holland failed because of the dowry demanded by the monastery. Then she decided to found her own monastery in Egmond aan den Hoef (not far from the Egmond monastery in Egmond-Binnen) in the diocese of Haarlem , which she called Sankt Lioba-Kloster (after Lioba von Tauberbischofsheim ). The monastery, which should not be confused with the St. Lioba monastery founded by Maria Föhrenbach in Freiburg- Günterstal in 1927 , entertained itself through handicraft work, was elevated to a priory in 1936 and an abbey in 1952 (after church approval). The congregation of the Sorores Benedictinae Sanctae Liobae Egmundensis gained in the sixties the specialty of gathering nuns and monks (in separate communities). She founded two subsidiary monasteries, which are now independent, in 1958 in Orselina (not far from Locarno ) the Orsa Minore monastery (from 1992 independent under the name Sanctae Hildegardis ) and in 1966 in Simiane-Collongue (530, chemin des Mérentiers) the Abbaye de Sainte-Lioba . In the meantime, a house for theology studies was set up in Strasbourg in 1963 .

Artistry and Death

Hildegard Michaelis, who was paralyzed on one side from 1966 and could only paint with her left hand, kept a lively artistic creativity until her death in 1982. It left behind three monasteries, the only one of their kind, which interpret the Benedictine “labora” (work!) Primarily artistically.

literature

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Individual evidence


personal data
SURNAME Michaelis, Hildegard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Catholic monastery founder and artist
DATE OF BIRTH 17th November 1900
PLACE OF BIRTH Erfurt
DATE OF DEATH July 8, 1982
Place of death Simiane collongue