Ilse Jonas (painter)

Ilse Jonas (born May 29, 1884 in Berlin ; † April 30, 1922 there ) was a Berlin painter.

family

Ilse Jonas was the daughter of Fritz Jonas (school councilor, Schiller researcher and co-founder of the Schiller Archive in Marbach) and his wife Anna Jonas, née. Franz, and grew up in Berlin. She lived there until her death.

Artistic career

Ilse Jonas took private painting lessons as a teenager with the support of her parents. Early on, her goal was to become an artist. In 1904 she began her studies in the Association of Women Artists in Berlin from 1867 (women were not yet admitted to the art academy until 1919). Ilse's teacher, Margarete Hoenerbach (1848–1924) was a portrait, still life and landscape painter. From 1892 to 1909, Hoenerbach was director of the drawing and painting school of the Association of Women Artists in Berlin. Ilse Jonas belonged to von Hoenerbach's portrait class until 1909.

In 1911 Ilse Jonas worked in the studio of the painter Leo von König (1871–1944). He painted society portraits and landscapes. Both met the interests of Ilse Jonas in a special way. With her sculptural works, Ilse Jonas worked towards a career as a sculptor. In 1912 she entered the renowned Lewin-Funcke School, but soon afterwards had to give up training there for health reasons.

Landscape pictures by Ilse Jonas show that she has visited the East Frisian North Sea islands of Langeoog and Baltrum several times. Ilse Jonas regularly spent the summer months in the family's summer house in Arnstadt / Thuringia. That explains the many Arnstadt motifs in her pictures. The sketchbooks show that Ilse Jonas' travel destinations were mainly in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. In the summer of 1915 Ilse Jonas stayed on Usedom, as several dated sketches from Heringsdorf show. Two of her pictures “Trees on the Beach” and “Pines on Dune” testify to a cheerful holiday mood. Their style is reminiscent of landscapes by Lesser Ury (1861–1931) or Walter Leistikow (1865–1908), whose views of and through trees, often in the glowing evening light, were very popular with Berliners at the beginning of the 20th century.

In September 1916, Ilse Jonas visited Schwaan in Mecklenburg. She could have contacted Franz Bunke (1857–1939) in June 1916 on the occasion of a visit to Weimar . Bunke was a native of Schwaaner and founded an artists' colony there in 1892. He had been a master student of the landscape painter Theodor Hagen (1842-1919) in Weimar and was appointed professor at the Weimar art school in 1910. Ilse Jonas' stay in Schwaan resulted in a drawing of the Warnow Bridge from September 21, 1916, which used black and white chalk to carve out the front side with the wooden bridge, which no longer exists, and the mighty, pointed church tower from a yellowish tinted paper. Two days later, Ilse Jonas draws the old barn in Wiendorf in a similar way. In 2015, when a family estate was dissolved, the oil painting "An der Warnow" by Ilse Jonas from 1916 was found (now owned by the Schwaan art mill)

Focus of the painterly work

The focus of Ilse Jonas' artistic work is portraits and landscapes. She was interested in unspectacular motifs, views of the landscape, often over roofs, the simple life in the country or in the small town and the family. Her pictures give the impression of a German painting following the French Barbizon school .

The work of Ilse Jonas includes - as far as it can still be found today - approx. 50 pictures, small sculptures and 6 sketchbooks, most of which are in family ownership. Although Ilse Jonas always lived in Berlin, the available estate only contains four pictures with Berlin motifs.

Membership in the Association of Women Artists in Berlin

On March 29, 1922, Ilse Jonas submitted the necessary documents and some of her works for inclusion in the Association of Women Artists in Berlin. Shortly afterwards, on April 3, 1922, the Association of Artists in Berlin informed Ilse Jonas that she was unanimously accepted as a member of the association based on the work she had submitted. In the same month, on April 30, 1922, Ilse Jonas died of complications from pneumonia, at a time when her artistic career was only just beginning.

literature

• Jonas'sche Family Foundation (Ed.): Ilse Jonas - A Berlin painter. Wachholtz-Verlag, Neumünster 2008, ISBN 978-3-529-02899-1 .
• Association of Berlin Women Artists 1867 eV (Ed.): To be continued! 150 years of the Association of Berlin Women Artists 1867 eV , u. a. Ilse Jonas pp. 35, 90, 91, Vice Versa Verlag, Berlin 2017

Web links

• Artist colonies - a painted village: Schwaan in Mecklenburg. In: Hamburger Abendblatt. August 10, 2011.
• Schwaan art museum: women in the colony, painting women - Ilse Jonas.