Josef Daniel Sommer

Josef Daniel Sommer around 1930

Josef Daniel Sommer (born August 14, 1886 in Steinheim , Höxter district ; † March 18, 1979 in Schlehdorf near Munich) was a German sculptor who mostly worked in Düsseldorf .

Life

After finishing school, Josef Daniel Sommer, the eldest of seven siblings, began his educational career as an apprentice carver and altar builder , who laid the foundation for his training as a sculptor. After six months at the Bielefeld School of Crafts and Applied Arts , which was founded in 1907 and which the expressionist Ernst Sagewka attended as one of the first students, he first had to serve at the front in the First World War . After the First World War, he began studying at the Düsseldorf Art Academy in 1919 . In 1924 he became a freelance artist. In 1936 he worked on the design of the north park in Düsseldorf for the propaganda exhibition Creative People . In 1937 he was a member of the jury at the Great German Art Exhibition in Munich . 1938 left the teaching staff at the Düsseldorf Art Academy. In 1954 he moved to the Schlehdorf Monastery in Bavaria . In 1961 his wife Liselotte (née Braschoss) died.

Act

Sommer's estate provides information about his work for the Nordpark Düsseldorf and the propaganda exhibition "Schaffendes Volk", a garden, industry and settlement show in 1937. Even in the run-up to the planning of the park, its monumental water axis of twelve life-size sculptures from the professional and groups of estates of the National Socialist ideology should be flanked, there were numerous conflicts between artists and clients, in particular differences in the award of contracts between the artists and the planning committee of the exhibition. Finally, nine artists from Düsseldorf, including the brother of Arno Breker , Hans Breker belonged, determined and commissioned to design the twelve sculptures that are modified several times to satisfy the wishes of the art commission had. Josef Sommer took on the design of the "musicians". For this purpose, he was given the task of creating them with “tight faces” and “moving details”. Apparently the result did not satisfy the artistic directors. So she commissioned the stonemasons Haigis and Voegele under strict guidelines to rework the sculptures before the exhibition opened. Today only six of the former “Twelve Estates” remain, the remaining six are considered lost.

Another sculpture by Sommer, of which neither pictures nor descriptions are available, was a group “ Bund Deutscher Mädel ”, which was placed in front of the Hitler Youth home in Düsseldorf. Similar to part of the "Twelve Stands", the whereabouts of this sculpture can no longer be clarified.

Another important station in his artistic work was his work as a juror at the Great German Art Exhibition in Munich in 1937. In the jury, it was up to Sommer, together with other German artists, including his confidante Arno Breker, to select the artists and works of art for the exhibition in the Haus der Deutschen Kunst . In the House of German Art, which Sommer had already exhibited, nude and genre pictures, still lifes, landscapes, mythological scenes as well as workers and industrial pictures by German artists were shown. Participation in an exhibition at this “art show” from 1937 to 1944 was almost indispensable for an artist's career in National Socialist Germany.

Teacher at the Düsseldorf Art Academy

Aviator memorial on the Wasserkuppe , 1923

It is not known exactly when Josef Sommer was appointed professor and head of the sculpture class at the Düsseldorf Art Academy . At this art college, at which he himself learned sculpture at the age of around 20, he brought art to newcomers, possibly since around 1925. In addition to his teaching activities, he created numerous sculptures, such as a stone relief depicting the Pantocrator in 1928 , flanked by Saints Meinolphus and Mauritius , as a supraport for the main portal of the Catholic parish church of St. Meinolphus-Mauritius in Ehrenfeld . Pictures that Sommer created together with Jupp Rübsam for the interior of the Catholic Church of St. Georg von Leipzig-Gohlis also fall during this period. As his work for exhibitions such as B. the Great German Art Exhibition in 1937, teaching at the academy became increasingly difficult for the summer. On September 13, 1938, Josef Sommer left the teaching staff at the art academy.

Works

National Socialist Art

Sommer created a large number of public works that are assigned to art under National Socialism . This assignment justifies his work for the propaganda exhibition “Schaffendes Volk” in Düsseldorf. A plaque with the names of those missing and fallen in World War I in the cultural office of the city of Düsseldorf also belongs in this area. National Socialist idealized depictions of farmers, soldiers and girls formed his thematic focus during the National Socialist era . A sculpture depicting two girls that he brought from Düsseldorf to Schlehdorf Abbey is also evidence of this. A flag that the right of the two girls once carried was subsequently removed. According to the inscription, the carved wooden figures were created in 1940 and are almost one meter high. The hairstyles of the two young women as well as their uniform clothes, their upright posture and the proud, forward-looking gaze represent ideals of the National Socialist Association. Similar motifs can be found on the artist's reliefs and in other sculptures. Political symbols such as depictions of the imperial eagle are also part of his work. In the holdings of the Museum Kunstpalast , the bronze sculpture of a “Striding Worker” acquired in 1938 is preserved, which also shows the National Socialist conception of art.

Working for the Schlehdorf Monastery

In the course of his later life, Sommer changed his motives. Instead of depictions of soldiers and standing figures - at the latest when he moved to Schlehdorf in Bavaria - Christian subjects were in the foreground again. Turned away from his home in Düsseldorf and the artistic goings-on there, he worked in his studio for the Schlehdorf Abbey. An example is the way of the cross of the monastery that he created , which illustrates the stations of suffering and sacrifice of Jesus Christ before and during the crucifixion in 14 stations. The artist created these 14 stations commemorating Christ's ordeal on the grounds of the monastery in 14 woodcuts (each 20 × 28 cm in portrait format). Other works in the monastery are a life-size wooden "saint", which was created in 1956 shortly after he moved into the monastery. The wooden bust of “Katharina von Sienna” from 1957 represents the patroness of the monastery. Furthermore, two large-format wooden reliefs with Christian motifs of a “harvest helper” (dimensions 44.0 × 79.0 cm, portrait), one of the Fourteen helpers in need can be found and a "saint with protégés" (dimensions 49.0 × 60.0 cm) can be found in the corridors of the monastery building.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Stone relief St. Meinolphus-Mauritius (1928) , website in the portal artibeau.de , accessed on February 22, 2015
2. ^ Catholic parish of St. Georg: History of the parish church . Website in the portal leipzig-st-georg.de , accessed on February 22, 2015
3. ^ Werner Alberg: Düsseldorfer Kunstszene 1933-1945 . Stadtmuseum Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf 1987, p. 93