Joachim Karsch

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Grave of honor, Thuner Platz 2-4
in Berlin-Lichterfelde

Joachim Karsch (born June 20, 1897 in Breslau , † February 11, 1945 in Groß Gandern ) was a German sculptor and graphic artist . His expressive work, belonging to classical modernism, can be counted as post- expressionism . It shows strong influences from the work of Gerhard Marcks .

life and work

Joachim Karsch grew up as an orphan under difficult conditions. From 1911 to 1914 he attended the Breslau School of Applied Arts and in 1915 switched to the Royal Academy of Arts in Berlin . Peter Breuer was one of his teachers there . In 1917 Karsch's work was recognized for the first time: he was awarded the Karl Haase Foundation prize for the sculpture »Standing Woman«. In the same year he also dropped out of his studies.

Due to a handicap , Karsch was retired and, instead of serving at the front during the First World War, after breaking off his studies from 1917 to 1918, he was called to work on a Silesian estate . During this time many drawings and some sculptures were created.

Karsch received the State Prize for Sculpture in 1920 for his group of figures "Job and his friends" shown at the Berlin Academy exhibition. At first he did not take advantage of a related scholarship for a six-month stay at the Villa Massimo in Rome . Despite public recognition and a sales exhibition at Hans Goltz in Munich , Karsch was still forced to earn his living as an assistant at Schering and AEG .

In August 1924, Joachim Karsch and Meta Correns, daughter of the Berlin industrialist Friedrich Christian Correns, who died in 1923, married . At the end of 1924 he and his wife moved to Oberhannsdorf in Silesia . There Karsch created 41 - some life-size - sculptures, many drawings and etchings. Their son Florian was born in 1925.

After signing a contract with Galerie Nierendorf , Karsch moved back to Berlin in 1928. The couple separated soon after and divorced in the summer of 1929. Meta Karsch later married the art dealer Josef Nierendorf. Karsch had a period of artistic and financial success in the early 1930s. During this time he traveled a. a. to the south of France and also took advantage of his Villa Massimo scholarship in Rome in 1932. Here he also met Arno Breker , who was working at the Villa Massimo at the same time. In 1933 Karsch married Liesbeth Wiemer.

In the summer of 1935 Karsch met Gerhard Marcks while on a trip to the Baltic Sea. There were mutual studio visits and the exchange of drawings. In July 1936, Karsch had taken part in the last exhibition of the first German Association of Artists in Hamburg, which was closed by the National Socialists after ten days (his contribution, the bronze sculpture The Dreamer , was destroyed in the war). In 1937 the sculpture »Reading Couple« exhibited in the Folkwang Museum in Essen was classified as degenerate and confiscated. Other works have also been removed from museums and galleries. In addition, Karsch's exhibition opportunities dwindled in the following years.

A larger order for a cemetery chapel in Gdynia brought Karsch greater economic independence again from 1942 and enabled him to move to Groß Gandern near Frankfurt (Oder) . In 1943 his studio in Berlin's Motzstrasse with the sculptures, models and drawings located there was destroyed during a bomb attack. Another seven sculptures that were housed at the Berlin Artists' Association were also destroyed by bombs.

At the beginning of February 1945 the Soviet army occupied Groß Gandern. The soldiers destroyed Karsch's factory. Karsch and his wife Liesbeth evaded the ordered deportation to the east by suicide on the night of February 10th to 11th, 1945. Returning neighbors found the corpses and buried them makeshiftly. Today an honorary grave of the state of Berlin Karsch / Nierendorf in the park cemetery Berlin-Lichterfelde (family grave Correns and von Diebitsch) commemorates the sculptor and his wife.

Work: (selection)

-Reading couple

-Standing disciple

-Mharmonica player

-Hiob and Meta Correns (head sculptures)

Aftermath

Karsch's letters from 1933 to 1945 appeared posthumously as early as 1948 , edited by his friend Fritz Sonntag, with whom he stayed at the Villa Massimo. They showed that he had managed to preserve his inner and artistic freedom during the Third Reich . In 1953 the first traveling exhibition of Karsch's work took place; others followed.

Florian Karsch (1925–2015), the son from his first marriage and long-time owner of the Nierendorf Gallery, gradually brought together the remaining fragments of Joachim Karsch's work. Of the approx. 350 sculptural works, only 100 were found again. Of the presumably more than 3,000 drawings, only about 500 have been preserved. Today the works are mainly in the Karsch-Nierendorf Collection and in museums in Heilbronn and Regensburg . Four drawings are in Rudolstadt on the Heidecksburg .

Honourings and prices

  • 1917: Prize of the Karl Haase Foundation for the sculpture "Standing Woman"
  • 1920: Prussian State Prize for the figure group "Job and His Friends" combined with a scholarship at the Villa Massimo
  • 1932: Bronze medal at the Olympic art competitions as part of the Summer Games in Los Angeles in the graphics discipline for the drawing "The Relay Runner"
  • 1934: First prize in the "Folkwang Competition" for the wooden sculpture »Reading Couple«

Exhibitions (selection)

literature

  • Edouard Roditi: Joachim Karsch. Translated from the English by Hilla Eser. Gebr. Mann Verlag, Berlin 1967, ISBN 3-7861-4013-8
  • Florian Karsch. Joachim Karsch. Catalog raisonné of the sculptures. Publishing house and database for the humanities, Weimar 2006, ISBN 978-3-89739-490-2
  • Florian Karsch: Joachim Karsch. Catalog raisonné of the graphics. Publishing house and database for the humanities, Weimar 2006, ISBN 978-3-89739-540-4
  • Fritz Sonntag: Letters from the sculptor Joachim Karsch 1933-1945 , Berlin 1948

Web links

Commons : Joachim Karsch  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ EM Benson: Modern German Sculpture. A Discussion of Contemporary Trends. In: Parnassus. Vol. 5, No. 3, 1933, ISSN  1543-6314 , pp. 7-11.
  2. ↑ a b Anja Walter-Ris: The history of the gallery Nierendorf. Passion for art in the service of modernity. Berlin, New York 1920-1995. Inaugural dissertation, Free University, Berlin 2003, pp. 175, 329.
  3. ↑ 1936 forbidden pictures , exhibition catalog for the 34th annual exhibition of the DKB in Bonn, Berlin 1986. (p. 48/49)
  4. ^ Jobst C. Knigge, The Villa Massimo in Rome 1933-1943, Berlin 2013
  5. ↑ Kristina Hoge: Self-portraits in the face of the threat posed by National Socialism, reactions of defamed artists to National Socialist cultural policy. (PDF). Inaugural dissertation, Ruprecht-Karls-Universität, Heidelberg 2005, pp. 238–43.
personal data
SURNAME Karsch, Joachim
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German sculptor and graphic artist
DATE OF BIRTH June 20, 1897
PLACE OF BIRTH Wroclaw
DATE OF DEATH February 11, 1945
Place of death Great Gandern