Jo Jastram

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Jo Jastram 1990
Jo Jastram at work, 1985
Sculpture “Great African Journey” at the Rostock city harbor
Sculpture "The circus is coming" from 2009, on Saaler Bodden in Ribnitz (photo 2018)
Sculpture "Die Rast" in front of the "Smallest House" museum in Wernigerode.

Joachim "Jo" Jastram (born September 4, 1928 in Rostock ; † January 7, 2011 in Ribnitz-Damgarten ) was a German sculptor and a cultural functionary in the GDR .

Life

Joachim Jastram was born into a family of teachers in Rostock. Together with Walter Kempowski he attended the St. Georg School in Rostock. He began to draw at an early age and was encouraged by his teacher Thuro Balzer . In the last days of the Second World War he was drafted into the Volkssturm and became an American prisoner of war. After the war he worked as a forest worker and then began an apprenticeship as a well builder and later as a wood sculptor. This was followed by a visit to the technical school for wood art in Empfertshausen / Rhön.

Jastram studied at the Dresden University of Fine Arts with Walter Arnold and then at the University of Fine and Applied Arts in Berlin-Weißensee with Heinrich Drake . He finished his studies in Berlin in 1956 with a diploma as a sculptor. After completing his studies, Jo Jastram lived as a freelance sculptor in Rostock, from 1973 Kneese (now part of Marlow ) was the center of his work and life.

In 1964 Jastram was given a teaching position at the University of Greifswald , and from 1980 to 1986 he held a teaching position and professorship for sculpture at the Berlin-Weißensee School of Art. Students during this time included the sculptors Gerti Bauer, Daniel Hillert, his son Michael Jastram, Reiner Kessel, Peter Lewandowski , Michael Mohns , Jens-Uwe Raddatz, Susanne Rast, Hans Schlegel, Anne Sewcz and, as master students, the painter Martin Colden and the draftsman Michael Reich.

From 1956 Jastram belonged to the Association of Visual Artists of the GDR (VBK), became its chairman in the Rostock district in 1974 and president of the International Committee of the Baltic Sea Countries Biennale in 1975. From he was chairman of the Ernst Barlach working group in the Kulturbund of the GDR and belonged to the " Akademie der Künste der GDR " from 1983 to 1993 (1990 to 1993 "Akademie der Künste zu Berlin"). From 1990 he was a member of the Künstlerbund Mecklenburg-Vorpommern e. V. in the Federal Association of Visual Artists . In 1995 he resigned from the " Academy of the Arts ", which was united in 1993 .

Jo Jastram left behind an extensive life's work with an abundance of portraits, figurative representations of humans and animals and works for public spaces such as fountains, church doors, reliefs and monuments. In 1971 he created a wall frieze for the Hotel Neptun in Warnemünde . In 1977 “Ringer” could be seen at documenta 6 in Kassel. As a gift from the GDR to the Ethiopian dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam , Jastram created a monument for Karl Marx in Addis Ababa and in 1991 the statue of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy for the Leipzig Gewandhaus .

His most famous works include the “Fountain of Joy of Life” on the University Square in Rostock (1978, together with Reinhard Dietrich) and the “Great African Journey” (since 1983), installed in 2008 at the Rostock city harbor. His last major work in public space was the group of figures “The Circus is Coming” (in collaboration with Susanne Rast) set up on the Ribnitz riverside promenade in 2009.

In 1984, on the occasion of Erich Honecker's state visit, a Marx stone monument was erected by him in Addis Ababa .

Another steel relief has been standing on Schwerin Ziegelinnensee in front of the Speicherhotel next to the jetty since November 9, 2017.

Jastram exhibited his works in numerous national and international exhibitions.

Jastram was married to the graphic designer Inge Jastram . He has a daughter, the sculptor Susanne Rast and three sons, the designer Matthias Jastram and the two sculptors Michael and Jan Jastram .

Honor

literature

Web links

Commons : Jo Jastram  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. a b c Sculptor Jo Jastram died In: Weser Kurier , January 9, 2011.
  2. Dirk Hempel: Walter Kempowski - a bourgeois biography. btb, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-442-73208-5 , p. 41.
  3. This section after the catalog: Jo Jastram - Plastik - An exhibition of the Rhineland Regional Association of the Rheinisches Museumamt and the Brauweiler Circle of Friends
  4. ^ Academy of Arts
  5. Volker Wehdeking (ed.): Documenta 6. Mentality change in German literature on unity (1990–2000) . Erich Schmidt, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-503-04974-6
  6. Eckhart Gillen : Arno Breker. Decorator of power and scapegoat of the Germans . Kunsthaus Dahlem, Berlin 2015, ISBN 978-3-9816615-2-1 , p. 3 f.
  7. DY 30/18725 Karl Marx Monument in Addis Ababa
  8. Neues Deutschland , October 5, 1988, p. 5