Horst Schmedemann

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Horst Schmedemann in his studio
Self-portrait 1995

Horst Schmedemann (born April 8, 1934 in Schwerin ; † August 23, 2010 in Warsow near Schwerin) was a German lithographer, graphic artist, draftsman and painter.

Life

Schmedemann was born as the son of the Schwerin master baker Karl Schmedemann and his wife Margarethe. He grew up in the craftsmen's quarter around Fritz-Reuter-Strasse and, as a result of the war, attended several schools in Schwerin's inner city, which were successively converted into hospitals . The joy of drawing already existed during school days. Horst Schmedemann discovered the economic advantages of his drawing arts early on . The father of a school friend was a master butcher , and so sausage was exchanged for art. The pedagogue and painter Rudolf Gahlbeck was Horst Schmedemann's art teacher. He discovered and nurtured his student's talent and opened his eyes to art. He recognized his talent and advised him to become a lithographer .

After graduating from school, Schmedemann did an apprenticeship as a lithographer at what was then the state print shop in Schwerin from 1950 to 1953.

After this training, he began studying in Leipzig at the College of Graphics and Book Art . There he met Margot Gramsch, whom he married in 1957. Since he was not “loyal to the line” as a student in what was then the GDR, he was not allowed to finish his studies and returned to Schwerin at the end of 1954.

From 1955 to 1992 Schmedemann worked at the Schweriner Volkszeitung , first as Offsetretuscheur later as Repro photographer in Chemigrafie and the last 10 years as a commercial artist of the publishing house . From 1965 he appeared in public with his artistic work. In 1969 the daughter Anke was born. In 1975 the couple bought an old farmer's cottage in Warsow, a small village south of Schwerin, a thatched half-timbered house from 1776. This initially served as a summer residence and had to be gradually renovated . There he set up a studio and a workshop for his artistic work , where he could now print his graphics himself. Before that he had his graphics printed by an art printer, his artist colleague Ernst Lau. In 1984 he received from the council of the district of Schwerin the "approval as an individual artist, with the right to accept commissions in the visual arts." In 1992, at the age of 59, he said goodbye to professional life, moved entirely to Warsow and from then on only worked as a freelance artist. In his half-timbered house he set up the small “Uhlenlock” gallery .

Schmedemann fell ill with leukemia in 2004 and tried to fight his illness with particularly intensive artistic work until the last day. He died on August 23, 2010.

A small plaque, embedded in the footpath on the Burgsee, immediately to the right before the bridge to Schwerin Castle , reminds of the artist with its initials (hs) and the year of birth 1934.

Honors

  • 1975 Special prize for excellent artistic results in the field of graphics in the folk culture competition of the Schwerin district, Kulturbund der DDR , Schwerin district management
  • 1979 Award for good artistic results, district cabinet for cultural work Schwerin
  • 1982 gold medal of the 19th Workers' Festival of the GDR for outstanding achievements (etchings), FDGB federal board
  • 1982 Certificate for good artistic results, 3rd district exhibition of the visual arts in Schwerin, council of the district of Schwerin and district board of FDGB Schwerin
  • 1984 Special prize for good artistic results in popular artistic creation, State Museum Schwerin
  • 1985 " Medal for merits in the artistic work of the GDR ", Lord Mayor of the City of Schwerin
  • 1986 Sponsorship award for good artistic results, 4th district exhibition of artistic folk creativity in Schwerin, district board of FDGB Schwerin
  • 1986 Diploma for the cultural and artistic contribution on the occasion of the 5th gallery of the Schwerin district, culture department
  • 1987 "Kurt Barthel Medal" for special merits in the development of intellectual and cultural life in the GDR, Council of the Schwerin District

Works

Horst Schmedemann was a calm and extremely sensitive person who always viewed his environment critically and went his own artistic path unimpressed by the innovations of contemporary visual art . In his graphics , pastels and oil paintings , he mainly designed the Mecklenburg landscape, the wide sky, old farmhouses, massive trees and quiet lake landscapes. In his graphic work he turned to landscape motifs as well as portraits , motifs with critical statements and erotic representations. He found his unmistakable expression in depicting the motifs of his immediate surroundings and his home in Mecklenburg, which he loved so much. He was a northern painter. The clear light, the vastness, the gray, brown and red colors have inspired him. Jürgen Borchert writes in the book "Stille Bilder": "Horst Schmedemann's ability to decipher the language of colors and to interpret it has helped me to experience the meaning of seeing in new ways. I have better read the variants of the color red learned to distinguish ".

He was friends with the painter Carl Hinrichs and the graphic artist Karl-Heinz Effenberger and sometimes had an intensive exchange of ideas with them. "Nature and buildings are recognizable, and yet the atmosphere is spacious, the mood, to meet in the subject and object, feeling and state of nature, universal. Carl Hinrichs has this tradition of the Weimar School of Franz Bunke about Wilhelm Facklam received and Horst Schmedemann passed on ". Between 1984 and 2007 Horst Schmedemann illustrated more than 25 books a. a. for Werner Lindemann and Jürgen Borchert. He designed vignettes and bookplates and after the fall of the Wall he also worked as an artist for the state government of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania .

For a better understanding of his work, here are a few quotes from Horst Schmedemann: "The south is too colorful for me, the north I can do better" - "I always painted for myself. The way I saw and experienced the landscapes, I designed them in my pictures "-" I've never made sketches outside . It's as if my eyes have taken a picture and I can call it up inside "-" A landscape doesn't have to look like I painted it. But I have it that way It is the attraction of the opposites that attracts me. Painting a blue sky is not an art! " - "I express moods that change faster in reality than they can be captured".

With the honors and prizes that Horst Schmedemann received in the GDR between 1975 and 1987 , one can get the impression that he was an adapted artist. But the opposite was true. As tall and stately as his figure and as friendly as his nature was, his character was just as indomitable and straightforward. If you look at the comments in the press on these exhibitions and award ceremonies, you are amazed at the motifs with which Horst Schmedemann participated and was awarded as an individual: "The Lerche ", "Nature-friendly", "Dream of an intensive cow ", "One of his own Hearth is worth gold "," Way out ", many bookplates, etc .; no pictures on the subject of socialist work.

Graphics

Graphic, dream of an intensive cow 1978

His main works are the graphics , which he made using various techniques such as drypoint and etching , aquatint , mezzotint , vernis mou and reserve , and which he printed himself in his workshop from 1983 onwards. The editions were often short, 8 to 50 prints. He also printed some graphics in color. With subtle and subtle humor, he tried to grasp the mentality of the Mecklenburgers and their landscape and to translate it into pictures in his own way.

Many motifs were created with the graphic, which are not intended to express a mood in nature, but rather a critical statement on various topics, on which the viewer should think along and stimulate questions and discussions : " Das Kapital ", a book with 100 Mark notes (both Karl Marx ); "You yourself?", A man in a mask ; "Dream of an intensive cow", a stable cow dreams of a flower meadow; "Untitled", using East German glasses to make an elephant out of a mosquito; "Disturbed balance" in nature; "Nature-friendly", an LPG farmer drives his plow around a tree; "Way out", a way to an idyllic farmhouse. With the political turnaround in the GDR in 1989/1990, his critical view did not stop.

From 1975 to 1982 he also devoted himself to bookplate art . With this small-format graphic he depicted the characteristics, inclinations, professional or personal circumstances of the book owner.

Horst Schmedemann also became known for his New Year's greetings, small graphics that always had a political background.

Pastels

Pastel, old tree 1990

After having been a graphic artist for a long time, he made it to the second mastery, pastel painting . With the pastel chalk he was able to express the mood of a landscape and a weather particularly expressively in colors: a landscape in the snow, a thunderstorm mood, dark clouds, a moonlit night. He preferred muted colors, but when the first ray of sun falls on a brick wall when the sky is still dark, then there is the bright red, Schmedemann's brick red (e.g. Schwerin Cathedral , Doberan Minster , Rostock Marienkirche , Schwerin Shelf Church , Barlachs Chapel in Güstrow and the island church on Poel ). The soft grain of the pastel chalk, the colors - red, green, brown, blue, preferably in dark, glowing tones - and the floating between drawing and painting, the blurring of lines and color transitions, matched Horst Schmedemann's nature and was added to the graphics his appropriate medium.

Oil paintings

Oil painting, Windig an der Ostsee 2008

It was not until the 1990s that Horst Schmedemann turned more intensively to oil painting . He went from drawing lines to two-dimensional, even spatial form, from pastel to oil painting in a consistent, constructive process. As in pastel, he was able to express moods and inner emotions in oil painting.

Book illustrations

Horst Schmedemann used three different techniques for his book illustrations : pastel chalk , ink drawing and etching . These originals could either be enlarged or reduced a little in letterpress printing. Sometimes it was an illustration of the respective text, but mostly an own interpretation .

  • 1984 Life is the highest of goods ..., readings on Schiller , Kulturbund der DDR , Schwerin district management
  • 1986 Book illustrations for the publishers: Hinstorff ( Rostock ), Demmler , (Schwerin) and Stock & Stein (Schwerin)
  • 1986 Cross country and downright, satires and aphorisms by Manfred Kubowsky , Eulenspiegel Verlag , Berlin
  • 1987 Die Räuberhöhle, three stories by Steen Steensen Blicher , Hinstorff Verlag Rostock
  • 1987 Passing twenty pfennigs, stories, sketches and anecdotes by Christa Borchert, Hinstorff Verlag Rostock, ISBN 3-356-00053-5
  • 1988 Music in Mäkelborg, anecdotes about the Mecklenburg State Orchestra by Günter Wittiber and Dieter Klett, Kulturbund der DDR, Schwerin district management
  • 1989 In Holt un Heid ', poems and prose by Richard Giese , Hinstorff Verlag Rostock
  • 1990 Drachtknuppen, Low German poems by Günter Wittiber, publisher Council of the City of Schwerin, Department of Culture
  • 1990 How weever got hats and stilts, legendary fairy tales by Erika Borchardt, Landesverlags- und Druckgesellschaft mbH, Schwerin
  • 1990 Max Dachshund in Mecklenburg, An enjoyable story by Manfred Kubowsky, Landesverlags- und Druckgesellschaft mbH, Schwerin
  • 1990 In the small book series from the publishing house of the Schweriner Volkszeitung : Das Wetterbüchlein (text by Horst Barz) and Quantwies, Krüzwies, tourwies ut Schwerin un ümrüm (texts by Günter Wittiber)
  • 1991 Petermännchen, The Enchanted Prince, Fabled Stories by Erika Borchardt, Landesverlags- und Druckgesellschaft mbH, Schwerin
  • 1991 The castle on the Nebel, story by Brigitte Birnbaum , Landesverlags- und Druckgesellschaft mbH, Schwerin
  • 1991 Wild blood and other stories, by Günter Wittiber, Landesverlags- und Druckgesellschaft mbH, Schwerin
  • 1991 Dances in the wind like a girl, small, enjoyable stories by Werner Lindemann , Landesverlags- und Druckgesellschaft mbH, Schwerin, ISBN 3-910179-23-1
  • 1992 Petermännchen, Der Poltergeist, a fabulous story by Erika Borchardt, Landesverlags- und Druckgesellschaft mbH, Schwerin
  • 1993 Thoughts are children of silence, by Werner Lindemann, Demmler Verlag , Schwerin, ISBN 3-910150-21-7
  • 1993 Walks in Mecklenburg, stories by Jürgen Borchert , Demmler Verlag, Schwerin, ISBN 3-910150-20-9
  • 1994 Vadder cooks, cooks and chatters by Jürgen Borchert, Demmler Verlag, Schwerin, ISBN 3-910150-23-3
  • 1994 Weever, The Mysterious Dwarf, stories by Erika & Jürgen Borchardt, Stock & Stein Verlags-GmbH Schwerin
  • 1997 Just a moment ago, Low German for everyday political life compiled by Jürgen Borchert, SPD parliamentary group in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania
  • 1998 "Christian" stories from a really happy time by Günter Pilgrim, Verlag Stock & Stein, ISBN 3-932370-46-5
  • 2007 My Uncle Erich and other stories, by Rolf-D. Klodt, Projekt-Verlag Cornelius GmbH, Halle , ISBN 978-3-86634-399-3

Publications

  • 1972 folk art calendar
  • 1990 ex-libris from Horst Schmedemann, Landesverlags- und Druckgesellschaft mbH Schwerin
  • 1995-2004 annual art calendar "Seasons in the Obotritenland ", Stock & Stein Schwerin
  • 1997 "Stille Bilder" graphics and pastels, with texts by Jürgen Borchert and Werner Stockfisch, Stock & Stein Verlag Schwerin
  • 2008 art calendar "Seasons in the Obotritenland", Stock & Stein Schwerin

Exhibitions

Group exhibitions

  • Conversation between two artists, Horst Schmedemann (left) and Carl Hinrichs (right)

  • 1988 Exhibition at the Ruhr Festival in Recklinghausen
  • 1989 Exhibition in the gallery building of the State Museum Schwerin , together with Carl Hinrichs
  • 1990 Art exhibition of the Hamburg CDU "Mecklenburg Artists in Hamburg" in the Ludwig-Erhard-Haus
  • 1994 Exhibition in the "Mecklenburg Art Gallery on Mattenstieg" in Dabel
  • 1994 Exhibition at the graphics show in Arneburg
  • 1996 Participation in the exhibition "erotic art" in Dresden
  • 1996 Exhibition of book graphics and illustrations from MV, Kath. Akademie Hamburg
  • 2016 FINEARTSCHWERIN, Kunstwasserwerk Schwerin graphics exhibition, represented with exhibits

Solo exhibitions

  • 1982 exhibitions in Boizenburg and Schwerin- Mueß
  • 1983 exhibition in Leipzig
  • 1984 exhibitions in Schwerin and Hagenow
  • 1985 Special exhibition for the 50th birthday in the Kulturbund Schwerin
  • 1986 Exhibition of New Year's graphics in the Leonhardi Museum in Dresden
  • 1986 Exhibition in Rostock
  • 1990 Ex-libris exhibition in the Landesverlags- und Druckgesellschaft mbH Schwerin
  • 1995 Works for the collection of the State Museum in Schwerin, Kupferstichkabinett
  • 1996 Summer exhibition in the Gammelin church
  • 1997 Exhibition in the Sparkasse Parchim
  • 1997 Exhibition in the publishing house of the Schweriner Volkszeitung
  • 1999 Presentation of the latest works in the gallery of the Schweriner Volkszeitung
  • 1999 Special exhibition in the company Mecklenburger Hochbau, Schwerin
  • 2000 Exhibition in the premises of the Sparkasse Hagenow
  • 2001 Exhibition in the gallery in the fire station in Gadebusch
  • 2002 Exhibition in the town hall of Reppenstedt about the art forum Gellersen
  • 2003 Exhibition in the Kreissparkasse Ludwigslust
  • 2004 Exhibition in Schloss Wiligrad , Kunstverein Wiligrad eV
  • 2004 Exhibition at Gallery Berger Schwerin
  • 2005 Exhibition in the church of Zickhusen
  • 2007 Exhibition in the Landesbibliothek Schwerin
  • 2009 Exhibition in Schwerin Cathedral on the occasion of the 75th birthday
  • 2011 Exhibition in the "Mecklenburg Art Gallery on Mattenstieg" in Dabel
  • 2011 Handover of 29 graphics (including 7 portraits) from the estate to the State Museum Schwerin, Kupferstichkabinett
  • 2012 Exhibition in Schwerin Castle, CDU parliamentary group in the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania state parliament , March - August
  • 2013 Exhibition in the Gallery Berger Schwerin "Memories", painting & graphics
  • 2014 exhibition in the Zeitkunstgalerie in Born auf dem Darß
  • 2016 graphics from the Dr. Rolf-D. Klodt in the Villa Rabe of the Christian Academy "The female face - grace and beauty", Halle (Saale)
  • 2017 Exhibition at the Kunstwasserwerk (KWW) Schwerin "Heimatkunde", October 2017, graphics, watercolor, pastel, oil
  • 2018 NDR-Landesfunkhaus Schwerin, solo exhibition "Diversity - Images from the North" with 32 works (graphics & oil) from April to September (exhibition poster)
  • 2018 Gallery Berger Schwerin, sales exhibition for graphics from October to January 2019

literature

  • Anke Schmedemann, manuscript of the opening speech for the exhibition in Schwerin Castle, CDU parliamentary group in the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania state parliament, March 2012
  • Rolf Seiffert, "His passion is prints", Schweriner Volkszeitung November 26, 1982
  • Hela Baudis, contribution to the special exhibition for the 50th birthday in the Kulturbund Schwerin 1985
  • Thorsten Meier, "He is particularly fond of the north German landscape", Schweriner Volkszeitung March 4, 1995
  • EB, "Love for the country and a quiet satire", Schweriner Volkszeitung May 16, 1997
  • Jürgen Borchert, "Schmedemanns Rot", contribution to the book "Stille Bilder" by Horst Schmedemann, Stock & Stein Verlag Schwerin 1997
  • Werner Stockfisch, "The country is his house", contribution to the book "Stille Bilder" by Horst Schmedemann, Stock & Stein Verlag Schwerin 1997
  • Werner Stockfisch, "Way to the whole of the experience", Schweriner Volkszeitung May 14, 2009 (read article)
  • Hanni Döge, "On the need to paint in Low German ...", Journal of the Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians MV, No. 201, June 2009, page 19 (read article)
  • Christine Mevius, "Horst Schmedemann paints with a lot of feeling", regional magazine Mecklenburg Schwerin delüx, 1/09, 2009, page 98
  • Jürgen Seidel, "Lebenskunststücke" in the Stralendorfer Official Gazette October 27, 2010, page 3 (read article)
  • Renate Kruppa, "He was an artist from the north", Schweriner Volkszeitung August 30, 2010 (read article)
  • M. Schötzau, "All in the family" Mecklenburg Art Gallery shows Mecklenburg Masters, page 72, regional magazine Mecklenburg-Schwerin, delüx 2/2011
  • Art historian Ulrich Kavka, speech at the exhibition opening at the Kunstwasserwerk Schwerin, October 2017
  • Freelance author Jutta Schlott, speech at the exhibition opening at Gallery Berger Schwerin, October 2018
  • Norbert Bosse, "Daughter preserves her father's inheritance", Schweriner Magazin in-house mail, page 26, February 2019 (read article)
  • "Mecklenburg im Farbenrausch", Schweriner Volkszeitung Jan. 8, 2019 (read article) [1]

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jürgen Borchert, "Schmedemanns Rot", contribution to the book "Stille Bilder" by Horst Schmedemann, Stock & Stein Verlag Schwerin 1997, o. P.
  2. ↑ a b Werner Stockfisch, "Das Land ist seine Haus", contribution to the book "Stille Bilder" by Horst Schmedemann, Stock & Stein Verlag Schwerin 1997, o. P.
  3. ↑ Werner Stockfisch: Way to the whole of the experienced . In: Schweriner People's Newspaper . May 14, 2009 ( Web version of May 13, 2009 [accessed July 13, 2015]).
personal data
SURNAME Schmedemann, Horst
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lithographer, graphic artist, draftsman and painter
DATE OF BIRTH April 8, 1934
PLACE OF BIRTH Schwerin
DATE OF DEATH August 23, 2010
Place of death Warsow near Schwerin