Johann Michael Bossard

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Johann Michael Bossard

Johann Michael Bossard (born December 16, 1874 in Zug , Switzerland ; † March 27, 1950 in Jesteburg , Harburg district , Lower Saxony ) was a Swiss sculptor .

biography

Stages of life: Zug, Munich and Berlin

Johann Michael Bossard was the son of master locksmith Georg Karl and his wife Katharina.

Two events shaped Bossard's later life: the early death of his father in 1882 and the loss of his right eye caused by a scarlet fever infection in 1885. For example, Bosshard saw in Odin , who sacrificed an eye to gain wisdom, a fateful link with his in later years own lot.

After finishing primary and secondary school in Lucerne and Zug, he began an apprenticeship as a potter in Anton Keizer's pottery in Zug in 1890 . In addition to the good technical training, they also supported his wish for an artistic training. At Easter 1894 Bossard went to Munich with a small scholarship for Zug citizens , attended Julius Hess's painting class at the Royal School of Applied Arts for two semesters, and one year later switched to Wilhelm von Rümann at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich . After an exhibition in Munich in 1896, which was criticized in the newspaper, he moved to Treptow near Berlin in 1899 . The first years in Berlin were full of privation, because he no longer received a scholarship and his mother needed his financial support.

First successes

In Berlin, Bossard attended the Academy of Fine Arts, then Max Seliger's painting class at the teaching institution of the Berlin Museum of Decorative Arts . In 1901 Bossard was a master class figure painting student with Arthur Kampf at the Berlin Academy for four semesters .

The first successes soon followed. Bossard received 2,000 Swiss francs for his competition design for the interior of the National Museum in Zurich with mosaics. His sculptures and graphic works (e.g. the graphic cycle Das Jahr 1904–1918) also found buyers. Through the mediation of the Berlin art lover Max Lucke , Bossard received larger orders, so that the financial hardship ended. One of these commissions, the Franke tomb, Berlin St. Georgen-Friedhof, enabled Bossard to study in Italy in 1905 , during which he conceived the monumental sculpture Das Leben , which caused a sensation and from well-known art critics of the time such as Friedrich Wolff and Adolf Grabowsky , Karl Storck and others have received profuse praise. However, this large-scale sculpture was never finally executed and only existed as a model. In 1912, the Swiss Confederation and the Bern Government Council donated two gold bronze double statues created by Bossard to the civic community of Bern for the newly built Casino Bern .

Teaching activity in Hamburg

Johann M. Bossard at Hamburg Central Station

Probably because of his small sculptures in the neoclassical style, with which he had success from 1906, Bossard and Richard Luksch received a call to the newly organized School of Applied Arts (today the University of Fine Arts ) in Hamburg in 1907 . In addition to his work as a professor of sculpture, which he held until 1944, Bossard created numerous sculptures on public buildings in Hamburg between 1909 and 1911, which can still be seen today without the creator of these sculptures being known in Hamburg. In 1906 Bossard was commissioned to take over part of the artistic interior design of the Hotel Adlon . Other works include a. the decorative reliefs on the facades of the Bernhard Nocht Institute , the figures on the main facade of the MARK Museum and the Curiohaus , the large ceramics at the Hamburg University of Fine Arts and the stock exchange clock. He created the tombs Puls (1908) and Hülse (1912) in the Ohlsdorf cemetery .

Around 1911 he stopped with this work in Hamburg, possibly because around this time he began to design a “total work of art” consisting of architecture, landscaping, sculpture, painting and handicrafts on a property in the Lüneburg Heath . Bossard had been planning such a large work of art, which would combine the various individual arts, with a socially utopian objective to be realized there for a long time; it is possible that he originally intended a plot of land acquired in Berlin for this purpose. Ms. Adelheid Page (Nestle?) In Cham also provided him with a piece of land on Lake Zug for this purpose.

Studio house and art temple

Johann Michael Bossard and Jutta Bossard

In 1912 the construction of the studio house in Lüllau began , which was built and furnished until 1914. The work was interrupted by the First World War, in which Bossard participated as a German soldier in France as a "sign painter". Renewed economic problems after the First World War also made it difficult to realize his ideas. The effects of the war could also be felt in Switzerland, and the previously ample support from Adelheid Page (Cham) and Emil Hegg (Bern) was canceled. In 1915 Bosshard began to work with porcelain.

From 1918 on, Johann Bossard began to systematically design the individual rooms in the studio house artistically: furniture and wall paneling and walls were painted, textiles and utensils were artistically designed, windows were painted, sculptures and reliefs were housed. The floors were painted or covered with designed carpets.

In 1926, after his marriage to his student Jutta Krull (1903–1996), Bossard and his young wife began building the second property on the property in Lüllau, the so-called art temple , which Bossard insisted on in his advertising leaflet to my friends in 1925 describes. After completion of the main building of the art temple , Bossard's sculptor's studio was redesigned into the Edda Hall from 1930 ; Jutta Bossard and Bossard's student Franz Hötterges carried out all the carving work. Like the art temple, the Edda hall is particularly elaborately designed and has a mosaic floor. In 1935, the temple of art received a porch and large portals made of chased copper.

  • West facade of the art temple and entrance to the Edda hall

  • Portal of the art temple

  • View of the south facade of the art temple, from the monastery garden

  • South facade of the residential and studio building

  • North side of the art temple and view of the living and studio building, entrance to the Edda hall

Graphic work

After several years of research, the graphic oeuvre of Johann Bossard has also been scientifically developed and documented since March 2015 .

Appreciation

A comprehensive art- historical investigation of Bossard's total work of art is still missing. After excellent reviews at the beginning of the 20th century (1906–1910), it was not until 1924 that attempts were made to analyze Bossard's work again [E. Seydow (1924)].

In 1984 Lucke and Murawski organized Bossard's first major retrospective in Bonn. The laudator was Bazon Brock. In 1986 Lucke and Murawski compiled the only catalog raisonné authorized by Jutta Bossard that is available as a typescript. They also documented Bossard's art in buildings in Hamburg and the tombs created by Bossard. The last major exhibition was called A Life for the Total Work of Art and took place in Zug and Oldenburg in 1986.

As one of the very few total works of art that have remained almost unchanged, the Bossard art site is of particular art historical interest. It is one of the few monuments in which expressionist wall painting and expressionist interior design have been preserved in their original context. The art temple is the only one of the visionary utopian cathedral buildings of the Expressionist era that was actually built and has been preserved to this day.

Bossard Art Center

After the death of Jutta Bossard in October 1996, Johann and Jutta Bossard's work was transferred to a foundation and is now accessible as a museum. This is located in Jesteburg in the Lüneburg Heath. The site is also an exhibition space where numerous artists make their work available to the public. For example, the works of the painter Otto Pankok were exhibited in 2017. In 2020 the Kunststätte will be showing drawings and prints by the expressionist Oskar Kokoschka from the Spielmann-Hoppe Collection and Art Foundation .

criticism

In Der Spiegel , Martin Doerry particularly criticized the public subsidies for the Bossard art facility, citing his explicitly anti-Semitic statements in the 1930s. Obviously, his sympathies for National Socialist ideas continued later.

literature

  • Rosa Schapire : Decorative paintings by Johann Bossard , in: Der Bund, Eidgenössisches Centralblatt , No. 80, 53rd year, March 21, 1902.
  • Hans Trog : Johann Bossard , in: Schweizerisches Künstler-Lexikon , Vol. I (A – G), red. v. Carl Brun, Frauenfeld 1905, p. 181.
  • Fritz Wolff: Sculptor J. Bossard – Friedenau , in: German art and decoration. Illustr. Monthly booklets for modern painting, sculpture, architecture, home art and artistic work by women , volume 3, 1906, vol. 10, pp. 169–171.
  • Fritz Wolff: Johannes Bossard , in: Neue Revue, bi-monthly publication for public life , 1st year, no. 13, May 1, 1908, pp. 949-957.
  • Adolf Grabowsky: Johannes Bossard , in: Die Kunst, monthly journals for free and applied arts , 19th volume of “Art for All”, no. 10, vol. 24/1909, pp. 224–248.
  • Adolf Grabowsky: Johannes Bossard , in: Ring. Zeitschrift fuer Kuenstlerische Kultur , issue 6, August 1909, pp. 4–28.
  • Emil Hegg: Johannes Bossard , in: Die Schweizerische Baukunst, H. 7, July 16, 1909, pp. 97–108.
  • Bernische Kunstgesellschaft: Exhibition of works of sculpture, painting and graphics by Johann Bossard, exh. Cat.Aula and gymnasium Städtischen Gymnasium Bern, Bern 1910.
  • Emil Hegg: Johann Bossard , in: O my homeland. Swiss Art and Literature Calendar, 1919, pp. 28–39.
  • Eckart von Sydow: Johannes Bossard , in: Velhagen & Klasings Monatshefte , Jg. 38, 1924, H. 12, P. 650–664.
  • Theodor Hafner: On Johann Bossard's pictures (attempt to interpret meaning) , in: Zuger Neujahrsblatt 1935, pp. 81–83.
  • Emil Hegg: Johann Bossard , in: Zuger Neujahrsblatt 1935, pp. 73–80.
  • Emil Hegg: Johann Michael Bossard. Introduction to the personality and the work , typed, o. O uo J., Bern 1953.
  • Eduard Plüss: Bossard, Johann Michael , in: Artist Lexicon of Switzerland, XX. Century , Vol. 1, Frauenfeld 1958–1961, p. 117.
  • Uwe Murawski and Klaus Lucke: Hommage à Johann-Michael Bossard , edition of 30 copies, private print for the exhibition in Poppelsdorfer Schloss, Bonn 1984.
  • Uwe Murawski and Klaus Lucke: Catalog raisonné Johann Michael Bossard (1874–1950) , typescript, o. O., Bonn 1985.
  • Uwe Murawski and Klaus Lucke: Documentation: Building sculptures and tombs: Johann Michael Bossard in Hamburg from 1907 to 1920 , typescript, 2nd version, above, Bonn 1986.
  • Rolf Keller: Johann Michael Bosshard . In: Mitteilungsblatt / Keramik-Freunde der Schweiz, 1997, pp. 60–62.
  • Harald Wohlthat: Johann Michael Bossard (1874-1950) - a visionary on the way from handicraft to total work of art -, written down from memory by Harald Wohlthat , typescript, o.O. 1997.
  • Rainer Schomann (ed.), Urs Boeck : Bossard garden near Jesteburg. In: Historical gardens in Lower Saxony, catalog for the state exhibition, opening on June 9, 2000 in the foyer of the Lower Saxony state parliament in Hanover. Hannover 2000, pp. 178-179.
  • Gerhard Ahrens: Bossard, Johann Michael . In: Franklin Kopitzsch, Dirk Brietzke (Hrsg.): Hamburgische Biographie . tape 3 . Wallstein, Göttingen 2006, ISBN 3-8353-0081-4 , p. 55-56 .
  • Gudula Mayr, Johann Michael Bossard and his total work of art in the Nordheide , in: Kreiskalender 2012, year book for the district of Harburg , Winsen 2012, pp. 7–22.
  • Maike Bruhns : Bossard, Johann Michael. In: The new rump. Lexicon of visual artists from Hamburg, Altona and the surrounding area. Ed .: Rump family. Revised new edition of Ernst Rump's lexicon ; supplemented and revised by Maike Bruhns. Wachholtz, Neumünster 2013, ISBN 978-3-529-02792-5 , p. 59.
  • Ignaz Civelli: Johann Michael Bosshard and his relationship to Zug and the First World War. In: Yearbook of the State Archives of the Canton of Zug , Vol. 33, 2017, pp. 211–230.

Web links

Commons : Johann Michael Bossard  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ This is where the walls speak . Abendblatt.de, July 4, 2012
  2. ↑ 1895 entry in the register for Johann Bosshard
  3. ↑ 1912 double statues by Bosshard for the Casino Bern
  4. ^ Bossard catalog raisonné. In: werkverzeichnis.bossard.de. Retrieved August 12, 2015 .
  5. ↑ Every spot a piece of art. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , June 6, 2012, p. R4.
  6. ↑ Current exhibition - Bossard Kunststätte. Retrieved August 20, 2017 .
  7. ↑ Current exhibition - Oskar Kokoschka, travel stations. In: Kunststätte Bossard. 2020, accessed June 30, 2020 .
  8. ↑ Books on the subject: Reports from Auschwitz Survivors. In: Spiegel Online . December 2, 2001, accessed May 14, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Bossard, Johann Michael
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss artist
DATE OF BIRTH December 16, 1874
PLACE OF BIRTH train
DATE OF DEATH March 27, 1950
Place of death Jesteburg