Horst Strempel

Horst Strempel (born May 16, 1904 in Beuthen / Upper Silesia , † May 4, 1975 in Berlin ) was a German painter and graphic artist .

Life

After training as a decorative painter, Horst Strempel attended the State Academy for Arts and Crafts in Breslau from 1923 to 1927 , where he studied with Otto Mueller and Oskar Moll . In 1927 he went to Berlin to continue his studies with Karl Hofer . He joined the KPD and was involved in the "Association of Revolutionary Visual Artists" (ARBKD).

After his controversial painting Blessed are the spiritually poor was removed from the Great Berlin Art Exhibition in 1932 , he decided to leave Germany in mid-1933.

Until 1939 he lived and worked in Paris . He made his living with cartoons that he published in newspapers. At the same time he worked as a decorative, advertising and theater painter. After the German troops marched into Paris, Strempel was deported to the unoccupied south of France, where he stayed until 1941. He spent this time in various detention centers.

In 1941 he took up an offer that guaranteed emigrants willing to return to Germany extensive impunity. During the last two years of the war he was a soldier in Yugoslavia and Greece .

In June 1945 Horst Strempel returned to Berlin and was involved in building up culture in the Soviet-occupied eastern part of the city. He became known because of his public appearances and his numerous exhibitions in the first post-war years, but especially for his murals, such as the fresco in Berlin's Friedrichstrasse station.

Friedrichsstrasse station in 1948, wall painting by Horst Strempel

His painterly and graphic work from this period is primarily devoted to dealing with the era of National Socialism and the reconstruction . His main work, Nacht über Deutschland, from 1945/46 remains a valid testimony to this historical phase beyond the immediate occasion. The picture translates the trauma of National Socialism into dense, complex pictorial formulas, which even today's viewer can still guess that only an artist could do this who had understood the mental state of the German people beyond the mere situation.

In addition, a large number of still lifes were created, which also reflect the zeitgeist. In 1947 Strempel received a lectureship at the Berlin-Weißensee School of Art , and in 1949 he was appointed professor .

At this point the discussions about the form of art in socialist society had already reached their first climax. The formalism debate divided the artists into two camps: those who saw a desirable model for GDR art in a "socialist realism" of Soviet character, and those who demanded independent art that adapts to the diverse manifestations should be oriented towards international modernity and older traditions.

In the course of these disputes, Strempel was heavily criticized, especially because of his style, which could not adequately reflect the image of man propagated by the political leadership . His well-known and controversial mural Rubble Away - builds on in Friedrichstrasse station was painted over in 1951 in a night and fog action. He was attacked so much that he saw no other option but to flee the GDR.

In 1953 he went to West Berlin with his family .

Here, however, Horst Strempel could no longer achieve the importance that he had had in the GDR in the first post-war years .

But after a long, grueling battle during the Cold War with the West Berlin authorities for recognition as a political refugee - which he only received in 1971 - he barely had the strength to artistically face the problems of the time.

To secure his material existence, he had to work as a wallpaper and fabric designer and give drawing courses at adult education centers.

Many of his works are in private hands, some in the depots of Berlin museums such as the Märkisches Museum, the Nationalgalerie, the Kupferstichkabinett and the Berlinische Galerie; a not insignificant part was lost through National Socialism, war and flight. There were times - especially the years 1945 to 1952 - when he was very well known.

literature

• Manfred Tschirner, Horst Strempel. In: Catalog for the exhibition in Berlin, Altes Museum "Companions - Contemporaries - Fine Art in Three Decades", Berlin 1979, p. 550
• Günter Feist: Horst Strempel and Karl Hofer - Discussion - A comparison of images. In: Zone 5 - Art in the four-sector city 1945 - 1951. Berlin 1989 (edited by Eckhart Gillen and Diether Schmidt), p. 86 ff.
• Ursula Feist: Horst Strempel - The Blind. In: Zone 5 - Art in the four-sector city 1945 - 1951. Berlin 1989 (edited by Eckhart Gillen and Diether Schmidt), p. 90 ff
• Günter Feist .: The mural in the Friedrichstrasse station - A Horst Strempel documentation 1945 - 1955. In: Zone 5 - Art in the four-sector city 1945 - 1951. Berlin 1989 (edited by Eckhart Gillen and Diether Schmidt); P. 92 ff
• Gabriele Saure: Night over Germany. Horst Strempel, Life and Work from 1904 to 1975 , Argument-Verlag, Hamburg 1992.
• Gabriele Saure: Catalog for the exhibition in the Märkisches Museum Berlin “Horst Strempel: in the labyrinth of the Cold War. Paintings, drawings, prints in the years 1945–1953. ” , Berlin 1993.
• Martin Schönfeld .: The »Dilemma of Fixed Wall Painting«. The consequences of the formalism debate for the mural movement in the SBZ / GDR 1945 - 55. In: Günter Feist, Eckhart Gillen, Beatrice Vierneisel (ed.) Art Documentation SBZ / GDR. Cologne 1996, p. 444 ff.

• Anke Scharnhorst:  Strempel, Horst . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 2. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .