Johannes Radermacher

Johannes Radermacher (born February 24, 1905 in Engelskirchen-Miebach , † February 21, 1978 in Krefeld ) was a German painter.

biography

Childhood, youth and education

Johannes Radermacher was a son of the farmer Heinrich Radermacher and his wife Timothea. His father died in 1908, after which the mother argued about the inheritance and for this reason had to leave the farm and take up a job. Johannes Radermacher stayed in the Engelskirchen orphanage , where he fell ill with tuberculosis . He did not fully recover from the illness that had lifelong and recurring. In 1911 his mother remarried. Radermacher then fled the orphanage he hated and moved in with his stepfather in a farm in Rommerskirchen .

Until 1919 Radermacher went to an elementary school in Engelskirchen, where he first showed an interest in painting. A teacher supported him with copies of the works of old masters, which enabled Radermacher to study paintings by Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo . With his wish to become a painter, he met with rejection in his environment. Only his mother understood, but could not support him financially enough. Therefore, he worked from the age of 14, initially as an unskilled employee in a forge, then for a drill manufacturer. As a result of his health problems, he was unable to work long in these physically demanding jobs. So after a short time he moved to his parents' court, where he had significantly fewer problems.

Radermacher's father-in-law died in 1923, which meant that he inherited a small amount. This enabled him to leave his intellectually cramped home and move to his brother-in-law in Troisdorf . Here he worked for a master painter and due to inflation lost his inheritance, which in the end would only have been enough to buy half a pound of butter. Radermacher quickly showed himself to be a talented designer of sophisticated wall and ceiling work, which he provided with decorative friezes and stucco.

In the summer of 1927, Radermacher used his savings to study under Ernst von Bernuth , Seiß and Phieler at the Wuppertal School of Crafts and Applied Arts, among others . Thanks to a small scholarship, he was able to study there until the beginning of 1931. After finishing his studies he painted the church of St. Peter and Paul around 1932/1933 . The municipality of Engelskirchen bought the painting in 1988.

First work as a painter

District Administrator Leo Huttrop wanted not only to improve the traffic situation in the Wipperfürth district , but also to support artists. He therefore commissioned Radermacher with a picture frieze for the city's youth hostel, which Radermacher designed and executed. Huttrop commissioned three other works from him, including for the Köttingen youth center near Hohkeppel . Via the district administrator, Radermacher got in touch with families of the Bergisch nobility, such as the Nesselrode families , the barons of Landsberg and the von Lüninck family , for whom he created various portraits. He also portrayed various former district administrators for the meeting room of the Wipperfürth district committee.

At the turn of the year 1931/1932 Radermacher moved to Cologne . In 1934 he received a small studio apartment in the Künstlerhaus Bonner Straße 500 in Cologne-Raderthal, which was subsidized by the city . The city considered him a young artist worthy of support and commissioned him in 1937 to design an upper lyceum in Cologne-Mülheim . Edmund Schiefeling, the author of the Bergische Wacht, reported on this in an extensive newspaper article in January 1938. There were also public contracts such as those for the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum .

Time of National Socialism and return to the Bergisches Land

During the time of National Socialism , Radermacher initially adapted from 1933 in order not to be considered a “degenerate” artist . In 1934 he joined the Reich Chamber of Culture and submitted a contribution to the design of the congress hall in Munich's Haus der Kunst . Later he firmly rejected the National Socialists. Before the outbreak of World War II, he painted the "Apocalypse" in 1939. On the back of the painting he wrote: “A few days before the outbreak of the Hitler wars: this war marks the end of European culture and is the beginning of a worldwide chaos”.

In 1939 Radermacher was called up for military service. Since his tuberculosis broke out repeatedly, his time in the military ended at the end of 1941. He then moved into a small one-room apartment at 48 Kölner Strasse in Lindlar . In the following years he created many watercolors showing landscapes in the mountains. There were also caricatures and drawings of farmers, "types" of the Bergisches Land and several portraits on commission. In 1942 he was commissioned to paint the parish church of Agathaberg , which gave him a small income. In the same year he met the florist Johanna Krins from Krefeld , with whom he went on vacation to Triberg . In 1943 Krins then moved to Lindlar near Radermacher's studio. It was probably Radermacher's happiest years.

Move to Krefeld

At the end of 1948 Radermacher's income as an artist was insufficient for a living. Johanna Krins got a job in Krefeld, where they both moved at the end of the year. They spent the following years there in poor conditions. Probably under pressure from outside in particular, the two married on March 26, 1949.

Radermacher never really felt at home in his new place of residence. He became increasingly an eccentric, whom from his point of view all outsiders attacked and misunderstood. He had contacts with Paul Wember , whose Kaiser Wilhelm Museum acquired several of his pictures. Nevertheless, Radermacher was extremely bitter about the fact that from his point of view one does not recognize one's artistic abilities accordingly. He wrote a letter to Wember in which he complained that the city pays large sums of money "for a few blotches and lines", but that he has to "squander his pictures for an alms [...]". He refused and wrote that his works should then be left in his neglected studio. Radermacher was referring to purchases of works by Yves Klein and later created several biting caricatures about this artist. He was then offered several exhibitions and commissions, for example for a Way of the Cross in the Krefeld Franziskuskirche and a complete design of a Bottrop church, which, however, were not realized for unknown reasons.

Radermacher had radical opinions about ethics and morals, which also caused problems for his well-meaning contemporaries. In 1956 he moved into his own studio, in which he often worked for days at a time. He painted his ideas about the impending end of the world due to armament, the destruction of the environment or crime. In these pictures he lamented the general decline of morals and the pursuit of power and money, which opposed a life according to the Christian principles of ethics and morality. In 1972 he wrote to an acquaintance: “Here in the gray stone and filthy desert of the city creeping horror, death of soul and heart, is going on. All the people you look in the face no longer find their God, they now speak it openly. They put material goods under their spell ”.

In 1976, Radermacher met Paul Corazolla . Both decided to design a glass window for a Berlin church. Radermacher invested a lot of time in this, but never saw the realization of his designs. He died in early 1978 after a long illness.

Works

Radermacher created around 1000 works. These were paintings, drafts for wall paintings, glass windows and mosaics and especially drawings. He mostly made quick sketches in leaf form. He often made several drawings on identical topics and tried to find the optimal form from his point of view. His works in public spaces have been destroyed or are considered lost. Of his paintings, only landscape paintings from the Bergisches Land appear naturalistically cheerful.

Radermacher preferred to work with a pencil. From the end of the Second World War at the latest, he focused on individual topics, subjecting all works to his strict religiosity. He always applied the highest moral standards and therefore repeatedly came into conflict with himself and his contemporaries. In particular he chose biblical motifs, saints, apostles and Jesus Christ during his life, suffering and death. He depicted the people whose faces despair, helplessness, sadness and pain can be seen without embellishments. He achieved a clearly visible effect even with smaller drawings. He venerated David , Moses , Peter and Paul , who in his view were true saints, but strongly criticized living theologians and advocated the renewal of the church.

Radermacher had to undergo an eye operation and therefore became blind in the meantime. From 1962 to 1964 he therefore painted numerous blind people with the Kyrie of the Blind . He portrayed the storm surge in Hamburg in 1962. He also often made paintings about mothers with children. During the war he created a suffering Pietà , but also pictures of intimate motherliness with flowing borders to a Mother of God with Child Jesus, but only rarely created pictures that were cheerful and carefree.

After the artist's death in 1988, the community of Engelskirchen took on his estate. She showed his work in three exhibitions and published a book with many of the artist's pictures.

style

Radermacher's works cannot be assigned to a clear style or group of artists. Obviously he himself did not comment on stylistic aspects. Stylistically, his works appear confusing and their lines and development cannot be clearly defined. He did not reproduce his observations unadulterated and could have taken inspiration from Georges Rouault . Like this one, he used strongly emphasized outlines and interior lines and, like this one, dealt heavily with religious motifs and vulnerable and grieving clowns. Perhaps he also took up thematic and creative suggestions from El Greco . In addition, he probably liked the color work of Oskar Kokoschka and Emil Nolde and expressionist works.

literature

• Gregor Schaefer: Stations of an artist's life from Engelskirchen. iIn: Rheinisch Bergischer Calendar 1995. Heider-Verlag, Bergisch Gladbach, pp. 63–74.

Web links

• The 1900 generation and the '45 group. RP-Online from July 25, 2017.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Gregor Schaefer: Stations of an artist's life from Engelskirchen. In: Rheinisch Bergischer Calendar 1995. Heider-Verlag, Bergisch Gladbach, p. 63.
2. ^ Gregor Schaefer: Stations of an artist's life from Engelskirchen. In: Rheinisch Bergischer Calendar 1995. Heider-Verlag, Bergisch Gladbach, pp. 63–64.
3. ^ Gregor Schaefer: Stations of an artist's life from Engelskirchen. In: Rheinisch Bergischer Calendar 1995. Heider-Verlag, Bergisch Gladbach, p. 64.
4. ^ Gregor Schaefer: Stations of an artist's life from Engelskirchen. In: Rheinisch Bergischer Calendar 1995. Heider-Verlag, Bergisch Gladbach, pp. 64, 67 (regarding the painting).
5. ^ Gregor Schaefer: Stations of an artist's life from Engelskirchen. In: Rheinisch Bergischer Calendar 1995. Heider-Verlag, Bergisch Gladbach, pp. 64–65.
6. ^ Gregor Schaefer: Stations of an artist's life from Engelskirchen. In: Rheinisch Bergischer Calendar 1995. Heider-Verlag, Bergisch Gladbach, pp. 65–66.
7. ^ Gregor Schaefer: Stations of an artist's life from Engelskirchen. In: Rheinisch Bergischer Calendar 1995. Heider-Verlag, Bergisch Gladbach, pp. 66–67.
8. ^ Gregor Schaefer: Stations of an artist's life from Engelskirchen. In: Rheinisch Bergischer Calendar 1995. Heider-Verlag, Bergisch Gladbach, pp. 67–68.
9. ^ Gregor Schaefer: Stations of an artist's life from Engelskirchen. In: Rheinisch Bergischer Calendar 1995. Heider-Verlag, Bergisch Gladbach, p. 68.
10. ^ Gregor Schaefer: Stations of an artist's life from Engelskirchen. In: Rheinisch Bergischer Calendar 1995. Heider-Verlag, Bergisch Gladbach, pp. 68, 70.
11. ^ Gregor Schaefer: Stations of an artist's life from Engelskirchen. In: Rheinisch Bergischer Calendar 1995. Heider-Verlag, Bergisch Gladbach, p. 70, quoted there.
12. ^ Gregor Schaefer: Stations of an artist's life from Engelskirchen. In: Rheinisch Bergischer Calendar 1995. Heider-Verlag, Bergisch Gladbach, p. 70.
13. ^ Gregor Schaefer: Stations of an artist's life from Engelskirchen. In: Rheinisch Bergischer Calendar 1995. Heider-Verlag, Bergisch Gladbach, pp. 69–70.
14. ^ Gregor Schaefer: Stations of an artist's life from Engelskirchen. In: Rheinisch Bergischer Calendar 1995. Heider-Verlag, Bergisch Gladbach, pp. 70–71.
15. ^ Gregor Schaefer: Stations of an artist's life from Engelskirchen. In: Rheinisch Bergischer Calendar 1995. Heider-Verlag, Bergisch Gladbach, pp. 71–73.
16. ^ Gregor Schaefer: Stations of an artist's life from Engelskirchen . in: Rheinisch Bergischer Calendar 1995. Heider-Verlag, Bergisch Gladbach, p. 63.
17. ^ Gregor Schaefer: Stations of an artist's life from Engelskirchen. In: Rheinisch Bergischer Calendar 1995. Heider-Verlag, Bergisch Gladbach, pp. 73–74.