Isaac Grünewald

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Isaac Grünewald self-portrait 1912
John Jon-And : caricature Isaac Grünewald (before 1941)

Isaac Grünewald (born September 2, 1889 in Stockholm ; died May 22, 1946 near Oslo ) was a Swedish painter , graphic artist and set designer .

Life

Grünewald studied 1905–1908 at the Konstnärsförbundets skola in Stockholm and 1908–1911 at the Henri Matisse Academy in Paris . With his talent and as a debater, he played a central role in modern painting in Sweden. The then 28-year-old Grünewald rented the exhibition hall of the Liljevalchs Konsthall in Stockholm in 1917 and showed a retrospective of his artistic career with almost 300 works, including a. Det sjungande trädet (The Singing Tree), Tjurfäktningen (bullfighting) and Apachedansen (Apache dance ). The art establishment saw the exhibition as a provocation and dismissed it as “Grünewald's mass production”. In a subsequent press debate, however, Carl Larsson defended him .

Isaac Grünewald was a pioneering set designer, with, for example, the set for "Simson and Delila" for the Stockholm Opera , abused by the press, but a public success and performed until 1956. He created around 30 sets in Stockholm, Paris and Copenhagen . His greatest monumental works (1926) are in the so-called “Grünewaldsaal” of the Konserthuset in Stockholm. In 1918 he also chose the light blue facade color of the concert hall. Mention should be made of his artistic work in the luxury liner M / S Kungsholm from 1928 and his gouaches and watercolors from Spain , southern France and Lapland of later years.

Grünewald's painting was sensually expressionistic , colorful, decorative and life-affirming. He himself was provocative, belligerent and quick-witted. According to Ragnar Josephson (1891–1966), art professor and member of the Swedish Academy ( Svenska Academies ), "there was no other contemporary artist who was so excited by the general public and none that the same public embraced so unreservedly".

From 1932 to 1942 he was a professor at the Kungliga Konsthögskolan and from 1941 he had his own painting school in his old studio near Slussen . He was attacked by the Swedish press for his Jewish background and his works were devalued as mass-produced “Matisse imitations”. In 1946 he and his wife Märta were killed in a plane crash at Fornebu airfield near Oslo.

For the 100th birthday of the artist, an exhibition of his works took place in the Liljevalchs Konsthall in Stockholm from 8/9 - 5/11 1989. The exhibition poster showed 'Det sjungande trädet'.

Web links

Commons : Isaac Grünewald  - Collection of images, videos and audio files