Johann Benjamin Godron

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Johann Benjamin Godron , also Benjamin Godron (born June 1, 1902 in Munich ; † March 16, 1965 ibid) was a German landscape and figure painter as well as a draftsman and graphic artist of the New Objectivity , who fell into oblivion after the end of the Second World War .

life and work

Beginnings and first successes as a painter of the New Objectivity 1902–1932

Poster for the exhibition Neue Sachlichkeit 1925 in Mannheim
Back of a painting by Benjamin Godron from 1926 with a sticker from the Galerie Neue Kunst

Benjamin Godron was the son of the painter, graphic artist and ornament draftsman Richard Godron (born in Speyer , died around 1926). Richard Godron studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich with Franz von Stuck (1863–1928). He directed the wood carving school in Partenkirchen , the drawing schools in Oberammergau and Ettal and the violin making school in Mittenwald . In 1906 he took over the management of the graphic trade school in Munich and in 1921 designed the war memorial chapel in Perlesreut , which was donated by the cigar manufacturer and art patron Hermann Wolf. The mother was born Koller. She came from Maresberg near Perlesreut in the Bavarian Forest .

Like his father, Benjamin Godron studied after attending the humanistic grammar school from 1919 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich with Carl Johann Becker-Gundahl (1856–1925) and Franz von Stuck. He then went to Italy, France and Spain for longer study visits. The first graphic works were created in 1921. Typical motifs from this period are the sheets Zweikampf , Magdalena , Introduction , Nun and Sermon (all motifs 17 x 15, 8 cm, sheet sizes 43.5 x 33.5 cm), which deal with the thematize Christian faith. He stayed regularly in Perlesreut, where he was a guest at Hermann Wolf. Godron took part in the traveling exhibition Neue Sachlichkeit, organized by Gustav Friedrich Hartlaub . German painting has participated since Expressionism , which took place from June 14 to September 18, 1925 in the Kunsthalle Mannheim , from October 18 to November 22, 1925 in the Saxon Art Association , Dresden, and from December 13, 1925 to January 17, 1926 in the Kunsthütte Chemnitz took place. In the exhibition were among others works by Max Beckmann , Heinrich Maria Davringhausen , Otto Dix , Adolf Erbslöh , George Grosz , Alexander Kanoldt , Arthur Kaufmann , Carlo Mense , Werner Peiner , Anton Räderscheidt , Otto Ritschl , Rudolf Schlichter , Georg Scholz and Georg Schrimpf shown . In 1925 Godron was involved in another exhibition entitled Painter of the New Objectivity , which was held in the Kunsthaus Schaller at Marienstraße 14 in Stuttgart .

In the 1920s, portraits of Benjamin Godron, along with works by Christian Schad , Otto Schön , Jeanne Mammen , Albert Birkle and George Grosz , were featured regularly on the covers of the magazine Jugend (No. 26/1924; No. 48/1927; No. 2/1928; No. 18/1928; No. 14/1934; No. 3/1935; No. 50/1937), an illustrated weekly magazine for art and literature that was founded in 1896 by Georg Hirth and Fritz von Ostini and until 1940 appeared in Munich. Godron's portraits, such as that of the expressive dancer Eva Boy , who performed in Munich in the 1920s (cover picture of Jugend , no. 2/1928), were based on a careful drawing, executed in a strict, linear style and were based on the ancients Masters like Mathias Grünewald and Albrecht Altdorfer . The people portrayed by Godron exude a subdued, introverted mood with a look that is directed inward. Godron was represented by the Neue Kunst gallery , which was run by the art dealer Hans Goltz at number 8 on Brienner Strasse . Modern art movements such as Fauvism , Cubism and Expressionism were shown in the gallery.

National Socialism and the Post-War Period 1933–1965

With his depictions of landscapes of the Bavarian Forest, the portraits and religious themes related to Renaissance painting , Godron did not come into conflict with the National Socialist conception of art . In November 1935, six black and white reproductions of his work appeared in the literary magazine Das Innere Reich ( Portrait of my bride , Rohne and Wurzel , lovers , landscape with a crow , girl's head and Venus Urania ) as well as “Sprüche zu seine Bilder”, in which it says : "You only achieve the ultimate in art, if you look at the divine miracle in every thing, whether it is beautiful, whether its external appearance is deformed, the eternal God-nature also includes it." his paintings Zarathustra and Venus Urania were shown in the Great German Art Exhibition in the House of German Art . Zarathustra is represented by Godron as a hermit with the features of Leonardo da Vinci , who stands by the sea in front of the rising sun, at his feet are an eagle and a snake (cat.-no. 248, fig. 42). In 1943 his Munich studio was bombed out and much of his work burned.

In 1948 Godron still sold works to various collectors such as the textile manufacturer and art collector Karl Heinemann in Mönchengladbach , who took over the chairmanship of the museum association attached to the Museum Abteiberg from 1969 , but overall he could no longer find the connection to a newly forming art scene. In the 1950s he continued to devote himself to the representation of small-format biblical themes ( Christ on the Cross (painting); 1953; Maria (lithograph), 1954; The Almighty Father (gouache), 1959), which as a rule does not exceed formats of 20 centimeters . In 1956 he took part in an international portrait exhibition organized by the Künstlerhaus Salzburg . In the year he died, his work was shown one last time in a portrait exhibition that took place in the Prinz-Carl-Palais in Munich. Benjamin Godron died in 1965. He was buried in the Munich forest cemetery. His new, factual work from the 1920s had been forgotten. In 1969 the writer Hertha Wittmann-Kirschbaum self-published a memorial about the painter with excerpts from his diary and 14 black-and-white panels of paintings. The volume appeared in further editions in 1972 and 1978.

The face of his beautiful wife Gertraud (born June 18, 1910 - September 9, 2001) can be found in some of the works of Benjamin Godron, for example:

  • Front cover of number 50 from 1937 of the magazine JUGEND (black-and-white drawing). The "Jugend" was an illustrated Munich weekly for art and life, founded by Georg Hirth and Fritz von Ostini , published in Munich from 1896 to 1940. It gave its name to the Art Nouveau style .
  • Oil color painting "Venus Urania" from 1938
  • Oil color painting "Mother of God" from 1955

In addition, Benjamin Godron depicted his wife (aged around 40 to 45) in a symbiosis between a proud Spaniard and an aristocrat in an oil painting. This shows her in a red robe that covers a stole , with upper-arm-length white gloves, a black one Carrying a fan in his hands and a diadem on his head.

After the death of her husband, Gertraud Godron, who has worked as a freelance beautician since then, was committed to preserving his artistic memory and was therefore in constant contact with the managers of Munich's Pinakotheken . In 1969 she published the commemorative publication “Benjamin Godron in memoriam” for the first time in self-publishing Gertraud Godron together with Hertha Wittmann-Kirschbaum .

literature

  • Franz Roh , Post-Expressionism. The magical realism. Problems of the latest European painting , Klinkhardt & Biermann , Leipzig 1925.
  • Arnold Weiss-Rüthel , The painter Benjamin Godron - Munich . In: German art and decoration. Illustrated monthly issues for modern painting, sculpture, architecture, home art and artistic work by women, Issue 69, 1931–1932, pp. 148–151.
  • Jugend , Nr. 50/1937 (Vol. 42), (cover picture and pp. 785–790).
  • Johann Benjamin Godron, Proverbs . In: Das Innere Reich , November 1935, ed. by Paul Alverdes and Karl Benno von Mechow , p. 998.
  • Heinrich Hoffmann (Ed.), Art to the People. Monthly magazine for visual and performing arts, architecture and handicrafts , 10th year 1939, episode 7 and episode 8 (July / August), special issue " Great German Art Exhibition " I. / II. Part, Vienna, Heinrich Hoffmann Verlag, 1939.
  • Youthfulness . Monthly magazine with art supplements . 64th volume, No. 14, May 1, 1939, ed. by Josef Bauer, Youth Pleasure Administration of W. Tümmel's Buchdruckerei, Nuremberg 1939.
  • Hertha Wittmann-Kirschbaum, Benjamin Godron in memoriam , self-published, Munich 1969 (second edition 1972, third edition 1978).
  • Dennis Crockett, German Post-Expressionism. The Art of the Great Disorder 1918-1924 , The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999, p. 159, ISBN 0-271-01796-1 .
  • Hans F. Schweers, paintings in German museums. Catalog of the works exhibited and stored , Part II, KG Saur Verlag , Munich 2002, ISBN 3-598-24166-6 .
  • Beate Reese , The "Würzburger Sachlichen". Carl Grossberg , Hans Otto Baumann , Fitz Mertens . In: Tradition and Awakening. Würzburg and the art of the 1920s, exhibition catalog Museum im Kulturspeicher Würzburg, Königshausen & Neumann , Würzburg 2003, p. 85, ISBN 3-8260-2763-9 .
  • Werner Ebnet, personalities in Munich from 1275 to today , Verlag Dr. Huth, Munich 2005, ISBN 978-3-899639-00-1 .
  • Ines Schlenker, Hitler's Salon. The Great German Art Exhibition at the Haus der Deutschen Kunst in Munich 1937-1944 . GLCS German Linguistic and Cultural Studies, Volume 20, Verlag Peter Lang, Bern 2007, p. 235, ISBN 978-3-03910-905-0 .
  • Werner Ebnet, you lived in Munich. Biographies from eight centuries , Allitera Verlag , Munich 2016, pp. 219, 220, ISBN 978-3-86906-744-5 .

Working in public collections

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ General Artist Lexicon , Volume 56 Glandorf - Goepfart, KG Saur Verlag , Munich, Leipzig 2007, p. 454, ISBN 978-3-598-22796-7 (Volume 56), ISBN 978-3-598-22740-0 (total ).
  2. ↑ Hertha Wittmann-Kirschbaum , Benjamin Godron in memoriam , Selbstverlag, Munich 1969 (second edition 1972, third edition 1978), p. 2.
  3. ^ Dennis Crockett, German Post-Expressionism. The Art of the Great Disorder 1918-1924 , The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999, p. 159, ISBN 0-271-01796-1 .
  4. ^ The Kunsthaus Schaller on the website of the Staatliche Museen Preußischer Kulturbesitz , accessed on June 19, 2018
  5. ^ Exhibitions of the Kunsthaus Schaller on the Berlinische Galerie website , accessed on June 19, 2018
  6. ^ Journal Jugend 1927 (27–52), 2nd half-year bound, G. Hirth Verlag AG, Munich 1927.
  7. ^ Johann Benjamin Godron, Proverbs . In: Das Innere Reich , November 1935, ed. by Paul Alverdes and Karl Benno von Mechow , p. 998.
  8. ↑ Ines Schlenker, Hitler's Salon. The Great German Art Exhibition at the Haus der Deutschen Kunst in Munich 1937-1944 . GLCS German Linguistic and Cultural Studies, Volume 20, Verlag Peter Lang, Bern 2007, p. 235, ISBN 978-3-03910-905-0 .
  9. ^ Website of the Mönchengladbach Museum Association , accessed on June 19, 2018
  10. ↑ Werner Ebnet, you lived in Munich. Biographies from eight centuries , Allitera Verlag , Munich 2016, p. 220, ISBN 978-3-86906-744-5 .
personal data
SURNAME Godron, Johann Benjamin
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Godron, Benjamin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter and draftsman
DATE OF BIRTH June 1, 1902
PLACE OF BIRTH Munich
DATE OF DEATH March 16, 1965
Place of death Munich