John Reinert Nickelsen

John Reinert Nickelsen (born March 28, 1865 in Braderup / Sylt , † February 19, 1950 in Hamburg ) was a German art glazier and owner of a workshop for church glass paintings.

Life

John Reinert Nickelsen was the only son and six daughters of the trained cap maker (also carter, butcher and trader) Ammon Andreas Nickelsen (1828–1925) and his wife Johanna Johannis Nickelsen, née. Nickelsen (1835–1925) was born. He attended a one-class small school in Braderup until he was 12. Then the parents moved to Westerland / Sylt.

In order to relieve the financial burden on his parents, Nickelsen, who had just been confirmed, went to Hamburg in 1880 at the age of 15, in order to go to sea on various ships until 1886 (including three years with the American Navy).

The summer time as a house painter in Wenningstedt was bridged until the beginning of the thirteen-month recruitment period as a German marine on October 1, 1886, with later promotion to senior seaman . In the years 1890 to 1894 - in addition to his own work as a painter - he helped his father in his hotel "Dünenhalle" in Westerland with "serving, bowling, playing cards and even dancing." He saved his father from bankruptcy and took over the hotel "Dünenhalle", renamed it "Hotel Union" and thereby became a "village hotelier" until he sold the hotel in the spring of 1899 for 4,300 marks.

family

Nickelsen married on March 20, 1897 in Westerland Clara Helene Alwine Kopff (born June 7, 1865 in Hamburg, † November 14, 1950 in Hamburg), with whom he had five sons.

The couple initially lived in their own house in Westerland (corner of Friedrichstrasse and Elisabethstrasse), moved to Hamburg in autumn 1902 and bought a house there in 1904 in Hamburg-Rotherbaum , Badestrasse 29, for 50,000 marks.

The three eldest sons John Alwin (born January 21, 1898 in Westerland; † February 1992 New York ), Harald Günther (born April 22, 1900 in Westerland; † March 29, 1992 Rochelle Park , Bergen, New Jersey / USA) and Ralf Edgar ( "Mische", * February 2, 1903 Hamburg; † December 8, 1990 Gloucester (Massachusetts) ) emigrated to the USA between 1922 and 1930 due to lack of professional prospects after the First World War , where they also successfully practiced the craft of glass painting. It seems as if the also emigrated son Hubert Olaf Nickelsen (born February 4, 1905 Hamburg; † January 13, 2000 Saratoga , Santa Clara Valley, California / USA) worked as a research chemist for Universal Atlas Cement, a subsidiary of United States Steel Corp. worked in Pittsburgh . The youngest son Harro Sigurd (* July 18, 1907 Hamburg; † August 9, 1990) took over his father's business in Hamburg. His son Gunnar Nickelsen closed the workshop in 1990.

Career

Nickelsen must be described as an autodidact , as he neither enjoyed an education for a long time nor completed an education with an official degree. After the early discharge from military service due to too large a team in autumn 1887, he was employed in a dye works in Chemnitz, in order to begin an apprenticeship at Panizza & Röder in Chemnitz from Easter 1888 with additional attendance at the college for painting apprentices in Chemnitz. After a dispute with the teacher, Nickelsen broke off his apprenticeship and worked for a few months until December 1889 in Berlin as an assistant in the painting industry.

Nickelsen started his own business as a master painter in Westerland from 1890 to 1894. In 1895 he took over the workshop of an old master glazier in Westerland with the intention of making lead glazing. In 1896 - after a two-day short course with Karl Engelbrecht in Hamburg - Nickelsen obtained the necessary tools for the lead glazing, ordered a lead glazing unit “and off we went with the art glazing. In Westerland I made a big joke that anyone who still had some money was encouraged to purchase lead glazing. ”He produced“ small Sylt landscapes and seascapes in leaded glazing ”, which were sold to Sylt summer guests. At about the same time, according to an old Hamburg glass painter, he had an iron furnace built (glass kiln) by a locksmith in order to become familiar with the technique of glass painting with the help of an assistant. In Hamburg he also learned - again from an assistant - how to make mosaics . In 1900 he advertised in the Sylt Kurzeitung newspaper as "Applied for glass decoration." In the winter of 1899/1900 Nickelsen attended the Hamburg School of Applied Arts , where he carried out ornament and nude studies.

In the summer of 1902, Nickelsen turned down a request from Gustav Dorén whether he wanted to join the well-known Hamburg company of the recently deceased glass painter Karl Engelbrecht as a full partner. After moving to Hamburg in 1902, he named his business in Hamburg “Nordic Art Institute for Glass Decoration John Nickelsen in Hamburg”. In 1908 he also acquired the "North German glass etching and sign factory from B. Hackmann & Co.", Hamburg-Eppendorf , Eppendorfer Landstrasse. His workshop was located in the converted basement of the house he bought in 1904 in Hamburg-Rotherbaum, Badestrasse 29.

collaboration

Nickelsen worked with the German manufacturer of glass mosaics and stained glass, Puhl & Wagner , Berlin, by subcontracting orders from his clients there as “kits”.

He worked with the following architects in the design and / or execution of church windows:

• Hugo Groothoff , 1851-1918; Dreieinigkeitskirche (Hamburg-Allermöhe) , 1914;
• Camillo Günther , 1881–1958; Resurrection Church (Hamburg-Barmbek) , 1925, design: Axel Bünz;
• Heinrich Bomhoff 1878–1949; Sachsenwaldschule Gymnasium Reinbek , 1925/25 and Bismarck Memorial Church in Aumühle , 1930;
• Bernhard Hopp 1893–1962; Luther Church (Hamburg-Wellingsbüttel) , 1937, design: Bernhard Hopp and Sigrid Schlytter, and Church of St. Lukas (Hamburg-Fuhlsbüttel) , 1938, design: Bernhard Hopp.

He made commissioned work for various companies (including Gebr. Merz, Hamburg, Grimm 32, building materials). The collaboration with the architect Bernhard Hopp was so close at times that the workshop in Hamburg 36, Badestrasse 29 from January 1930 to 1933 also housed the “Workshop for Church Art in the Rauhen Haus ” under the direction of Bernhard Hopp. There is also evidence of a collaboration between John Reinert Nickelsen and his son Harro Sigurd Nickelsen and the lithographer, draftsman and painter A. Paul Weber (1893–1980). Weber, in turn, carried out the artistic design for a large number of farms (e.g. Gut Thansen) by Alfred Toepfer in the years 1933 to 1936 .

Works

Self-designed works:

• Catholic chapel in Westerland, Neue Strasse (painting and glazing with colored cathedral glass, 1896). - Ansgar Church in Hamburg-Langenhorn (4 high side windows and row of windows in the parish hall).
• Kurhaus in Westerland (lead window, 1897). - Hotel and restaurant “Seestern” in Westerland (owner Heinrich Dührkop, painting and lead glazing, 1900). - Auctioneer Louis Bock & Sohn, Hamburg, Große Bleichen 34 (window for the art exhibition room, 1901).
• Staircase windows of the Hamburg office buildings “Semper-Haus” (1905/06), “Streit's Hof” (1908/09), “Rappolthaus” (1911/12), “Ballinhaus” (1912–1923), “Gutrufhaus” (1913/14 ), "Kontorhaus Stubbenhuk" (1923/25).

• Glass ceilings on all luxury steamers operated by Hamburg Süd until 1927 (most recently “Cap Arcona”).
• Leaded glass windows in movie theaters:
  • "Light and sound image stage Waterloo Theater" (around 1909, today in the "Hamburg area" of the Landhaus Scherrer restaurant )
  • “Hamburger Lichtspielbühne”, Steindamm (around 1930).
• Stained glass in the Hamburg-Bergedorf town hall.
• Glass painting (the Rungholtsage ) in the Warmbadeanstalt in Westerland (1909).
• Gold mosaic work in the Hamburg Museum of Ethnology (around 1912).

Executing workshop for third-party designs:

• Church of St. Jürgen , Frischwassertal 18, 25992 List / Sylt (1935).
• Hotel Erkenhof, 24103 Kiel, Dänische Straße 12 (Florida bar in the basement), glass painting “Münchhausen” (design: A. Paul Weber; execution: Harro Sigurd Nickelsen, 1960).
• St. Nicolai Church, Kirchenweg 1, 25821 Bredstedt (design: Otto Thämer , execution: Harro Sigurd Nickelsen, 1964).

Exhibitions

Nickelsen received an honorary diploma at the international exhibition in Buenos Aires on the occasion of the Argentine centenary in 1910.

Award

Nickelsen was awarded the silver rescue medal by the German Society for the Rescue of Shipwrecked People on October 31, 1890, together with other people, who rescued a ship's boy from a ship that ran aground on the Rote Kliff (steep coast between Wenningstedt and Kampen / Sylt) and got into distress .

literature

• John Reinert Nickelsen: John Reinert Nickelsen 1865–1950 : autobiographical notes / after the handwriting in typescript by Harro S. Nickelsen (son) in January / February. 1932. Sylt archive in Westerland, access no. 89/215.
• Jörg Gfrörer: From the family chronicle of John Reinert Nickelsen , in: Tourismusverein Westerland / Sylt e. V. (Hrsg.,), Schwere Seen - Schwere Zeiten: Youth memories on the island of Sylt, 65 stories, reports, letters and documents collected and written down by Jörg Gfrörer, Tourismusverein Westerland / Sylt e. V., editor, BoD - Books on Demand, Norderstedt 2019, ISBN 978-3-7504-6275-5 , pages 16-28.