Jean Schuler

Jean Schuler (born January 15, 1912 in St. Ingbert , † May 2, 1984 in Paris ) was a German painter .

biography

Schuler was born into a well-off middle-class family. After graduating from the St. Ingbert Reform Realgymnasium (1931), this enabled him to study painting at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts with Karl Caspar , which he broke off in 1933 after Hitler came to power. In the same year he moved to Berlin, as the city seemed more liberal and avant-garde to him than the "Nazi capital" Munich . In Berlin he became acquainted with Emil Nolde , whom he admired and whose atelier student he became. In Nolde's environment he also became known with the work of Oskar Kokoschka , like Nolde later, a "degenerate" artist ostracized by the Nazis.

1935–1937 Schuler did his military service, after which he returned to St. Ingbert for a few years. At the end of 1937 he went on a study trip to Paris for a comprehensive El Greco exhibition; this was his first acquaintance with the French capital, "... which would become his second home and shape his whole later life" (Sabine Jung). Before the outbreak of the Second World War, the artist went on another study trip to Swiss museums in 1939. In November of the same year he was drafted into the Wehrmacht. Throughout the war, Schuler was fortunate not to be involved in any combat operations. After the end of the war he was taken prisoner by the British, from which he was released at the end of 1946.

Schuler lived again in St. Ingbert, but increasingly visited painter friends in Paris; in 1949 he settled entirely on the Seine. There he quickly integrated into the art scene and quickly acquired the reputation of an aspiring young artist. He had his first comprehensive solo exhibition in the "Galerie Saint-Placide" in Paris, and was represented in numerous group exhibitions. Schuler had a strong creative phase in the 1950s, producing over 200 oil paintings and gouaches. The works of Picasso and Braque as well as the entire development of Cubism influenced him in a special way .

"As one of the first Saarland artists who not only visited Paris after the war, but also took up residence there, Schuler was a first port of call for many subsequent colleagues, mainly from Saarland" (Sabine Jung). Financially the artist was in a very bad position. He was able to secure a meager life for himself through casual work and regular purchases by the Saarland Ministry of Education.

1951–1953 Schuler lived again in Germany, in Munich with his sister and in St. Ingbert with friends. At the beginning of 1953 he moved back to Paris because his old homeland had become a stranger to him. In the years that followed, Schuler had numerous exhibitions in both French and Saarland museums and galleries. In 1954 he married Louise Richard, who brought two children into the marriage; their son Gérard was born at the end of the same year. At this time, Schuler took a job at the large Parisian printing company Trapinex, which he held for 20 years and which ensured his family a subsistence level.

In 1965 he got to know the St. Ingbert industrialist Franz-Josef Kohl-Weigand , a patron and art collector, who in the following years sponsored Schuler alongside other artists. He helped him to several exhibitions, which brought him recognition, but no major sales. At the beginning of the seventies, Schuler had more and more alcohol problems, which severely impaired his health. His wife also suffered from worsening health problems that led to her death in 1974.

From around 1975 Schuler had established himself with his art, which refused to conform to the taste of the time, and the circle of his collectors and sponsors expanded considerably. This finally led to the longed-for financial security for himself and his son living with him. In 1977 Schuler had what is probably the most important exhibition in St. Ingbert: over a hundred works from all previous creative phases offered a representative overview of his oeuvre over four decades. In the following years, the artist suffered more and more from degenerative muscle diseases and severe depression. He isolated himself from his surroundings, his illness deteriorated rapidly. On May 2, 1984, Jean Schuler died in a Paris hospital; He was buried in the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris .

Artistic work

Jean Schuler's work has its roots in German Expressionism , which he experienced directly in his time in Munich and Berlin and which will also shape him in his future work. "Throughout his life, Schuler felt closely related to this style, with its perception of color and form, as well as his critical view of human beings. In his own unique way, he traced this art direction three decades after it came into being and flourished" (Jung). The artist was shaped in a special way by his Munich academy teacher Karl Caspar. Caspar made his pupil familiar with the leading German expressionists of the time, with whom he had close connections: Alexej von Jawlensky , Karl Schmidt-Rottluff , Max Beckmann , Otto Dix , Karl Hofer and Adolf Hölzel .

During his Paris years Schuler came into contact with the trends of French modernism; Fauvism and Orphism , founded by Robert Delaunay , whose German representatives were August Macke and Franz Marc , had a great influence on Schuler's artistic point of view.

The artist worked mainly figuratively, as his extensive life work shows. Although he allows numerous abstract elements to flow into his work groups (portraits, animals, landscapes, nudes, religious subjects, still lifes), the main features of his work can be found in almost every work. Over the years, Schuler's engagement with Cubism led to his very own artistic signature, which came closer to abstract expressionism . In the last three decades of his work there was no decisive stylistic development in the artist's visual language.

Jean Schuler worked more spontaneously and intuitively than analytically or specifically and constructively . He wanted to implement his sensations and feelings very directly. "Uncontrollable human passions, ultimately chaos, have a stronger effect on the artist's work and person than the organizing mind. For him, painting is as vital as eating, drinking or sleeping" (Jung).

Awards / prizes

• 1958 Albert Weisgerber Prize for Fine Art from the City of St. Ingbert

Exhibitions (selection)

• 1946 First art exhibition of the Association of Visual Artists on the Saar (Saarland Museum, Saarbrücken)
• 1948 Solo exhibition at the Rathausgalerie St. Ingbert
• 1949 Solo exhibition at the Saint-Placide Gallery, Paris
• 1950 Joint exhibition at the Salon d'Automne, Paris
• 1953 Solo exhibition at Galerie Vivant, Paris
• 1954 New Darmstadt Secession, annual exhibition in Vienna
• 1959 Great Art Exhibition Munich (House of Art)
• 1960 Solo exhibition (graphics), Kunstverein Darmstadt
• 1962 Solo exhibition at Galerie Elitzer, Saarbrücken
• 1965 Solo exhibition at Galerie Voelter, Ludwigsburg
• 1972 Solo exhibition at the Goethe Institute, Algiers
• 1977 Solo exhibition at the St. Ingbert Culture House
• 1979 Solo exhibition Le nouveau salon de Paris
• 1980 Solo exhibition at Galerie Divergence, Metz
• 1984 Memorial exhibition for Jean Schuler (Rathaus-Galerie), St. Ingbert
• 1988 Jean Schuler - the primacy of color and shape. Exhibition in the Kulturhaus, St. Ingbert

Bibliography (selection)

• Költzsch, Georg W .: The Myth of Humans - Jean Schuler Exhibition in the Elitzer Gallery. In: Saarheimat, vol. 7 (1963), issue 6.
• Jung, Sabine: Jean Schuler - the primacy of color and form. [Catalog for the exhibition in the Kulturhaus St. Ingbert]. St. Ingbert: Self-published by the Cultural Office, 1988.
• Jung, Sabine: Jean Schuler 1912 to 1984 - life and work. [Dissertation]. Saarbrücken: Institute for Regional Studies in Saarland, 1996. 402 p., Numerous. Fig. With catalog raisonné. (= Publications of the Institute for Regional Studies in Saarland; Vol. 36) ISBN 978-3-923877-36-2

Web links

• Literature by and about Jean Schuler in the catalog of the German National Library