Jan Bontjes van Beek

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Jan Bontjes van Beek (born January 18, 1899 in Vejle / Jutland , † September 5, 1969 in Berlin ) was a German ceramist , sculptor and dancer .

Life

Jan Bontjes van Beek grew up as a child of Dutch parents in Uerdingen . There he attended elementary school and secondary school. He had been a German citizen since 1907.

After his voluntary naval service in World War I , Bontjes van Beek spent a few months in Fischerhude and at Heinrich Vogeler's Barkenhoff in Worpswede . In 1920 he married the dancer and painter Olga Breling , daughter of the painter Heinrich Breling . He had three children with her: Mietje , Cato and Tim, who all grew up in Fischerhude.

He trained as a potter in Undenheim from 1921 to 1922 and then studied at the Seger Institute in Berlin , the former chemical and technical research institute of the Royal Porcelain Manufactory , named after the silicate chemist Hermann August Seger .

With his sister-in-law, the sculptor Amelie Breling (1876–1966), he set up a ceramics workshop in Fischerhude in 1922. After several stays abroad, including foreign ones, Jan Bontjes van Beek worked in 1932, initially on a commission from the architect Fritz Höger in Velten near Berlin, to produce ceramics for the new church building on Hohenzollernplatz in Berlin-Wilmersdorf .

Honorary grave, Potsdamer Chaussee 75, in Berlin-Nikolassee

In Berlin he met his second wife, the interior designer Rahel-Maria Weisbach (daughter of the art historian Werner Weisbach ), whom he married in 1933 and with whom he built a ceramics workshop in Berlin-Charlottenburg , which was completely destroyed by a bomb attack in 1943 . Four children came from this marriage: the author and filmmaker Digne Meller Marcovicz , the sons Jan-Barent Bontjes van Beek, Sebastian Bontjes van Beek and the daughter Julia Schmidt-Ott.

In autumn 1942 Jan Bontjes van Beek and his daughter Cato were arrested by the Gestapo for illegal political work by the Berlin Red Orchestra. His daughter was convicted by the Reich Court Martial and executed on August 5, 1943 in Berlin-Plötzensee . Van Beek was released after three months in prison for lack of evidence , but drafted into the Wehrmacht in 1944 and deployed as a soldier on the Eastern Front. In 1945 he was taken prisoner by the Soviets .

After the Second World War , Jan Bontjes van Beek began teaching as a lecturer in ceramics, then as professor and rector of the Berlin-Weißensee School of Art . Due to the regulation of his work by government agencies, he stopped working there in 1950. 1950 to 1953 he worked for the company "Keramisches Werk Dr.-Ing. Alfred Unknown ”in Dehme near Bad Oeynhausen .

From 1953 to 1960 he was director of the master school for arts and crafts in West Berlin , then until 1966 professor for ceramics at the University of Fine Arts in Hamburg , where he also had the opportunity to produce unique pieces.

His grave is on the Zehlendorf forest cemetery in Berlin-Zehlendorf , Nikolassee ( grave of honor XIII-AW-159, 008/335 new ).

Important exhibitions

Memberships

Awards

  • Gold medal at the Milan Triennale (1938)
  • Silver Medal, 3rd International Ceramic Exhibition (Prague 1962)
  • Prize of the Cultural Authority of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg (1963)
  • Art Prize Berlin (1965)

student

Students of Jan Bontjes van Beek are a. a .: Till Sudeck (1926–2014), Volker Ellwanger (* 1933), Christine Atmer de Reig (* 1935), Barbara Stehr (* 1936), Gesa Petersen (1939–2009), Antje Brüggemann-Breckwoldt (* 1941) , Katrin Schober (* 1941) and Anke Rasche-Suhr.

literature

  • Digne M. Marcovicz: “Pots, People, Life.” Reports on the life of Jan Bontjes van Beek. Hentrich & Hentrich, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-942271-31-8 .
  • German Biographical Encyclopedia . Walter Killy, KG Saur, Munich 1995.
  • Krefeld workbooks. Issue 3: Jan Bontjes van Beek. Krefeld 1967.
  • Jan Bontjes van Beek 1899–1969. Exhibition catalog Akademie der Künste, Berlin 1977.
  • G. Reineking von Bock: Master of German ceramics 1900–1950. Exhibition catalog. Cologne 1978, pp. 73-79.
  • Hans-Peter Jakobson, Volker Ellwanger (ed.): Jan Bontjes van Beek ceramist 1899–1969 . Jena 1999.
  • Heinz-Joachim Theis (Ed.): Bontjes aspects . Berlin 1999.
  • Short biography to:  Bontjes van Beek, Jan . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Tabular curriculum vitae on janbontjesvanbeek.de
  2. ↑ List of honorary graves at Waldfriedhof Zehlendorf ( Memento from December 22, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 55 kB) in the Internet Archive.

Web links

Commons : Jan Bontjes van Beek  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Bontjes van Beek, Jan
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German sculptor and ceramist
DATE OF BIRTH January 18, 1899
PLACE OF BIRTH Vejle , Jutland
DATE OF DEATH 5th September 1969
Place of death Berlin