Josef cake

Josef Kuchen (born October 10, 1907 in Mariadorf ; † February 12, 1970 in Neuss ) was a German painter, member of the Rhenish Secession.

Life

Kuchen was born as the son of police officer Heinrich Kuchen and his wife Therese in Mariadorf in the Aachen mining district. Despite a physical handicap (his left arm was missing from birth), he quickly discovered his artistic talents as a schoolboy and spent a lot of time drawing in the vicinity of the industrial and mining town. After graduating from high school, he began studying philology in Bonn and Munich in 1927 , which he postponed two years later in favor of art. In the spring of 1929 he was accepted as one of the very few applicants at the Staatliche Kunstakademie Düsseldorf and first entered Wilhelm Schmurr's drawing class , later he switched to Max Clarenbach's painting class . In February 1934, Josef Kuchen finished the academy as a master class student .

In 1937 Josef Kuchen married Maria Reichert, a former fellow student from Bonn's student days, and stayed with her until his death. The couple had two daughters, Evamaria and Miriam.

After completing his studies, the painter initially moved back to his parents, who had lived in Büttgen near Neuss since 1934 . After the wedding, the young couple moved into an apartment in Neuss . Evacuated to Alsdorf in the last two years of the war , the Kuchen family first moved to Holzbüttgen after the war and then finally settled in Neuss again from 1953.

The painter was honored by the city of Neuss on his 60th birthday with a solo exhibition in the town hall. A special exhibition in the Clemens-Sels-Museum in Neuss was dedicated to the 10th anniversary of his death in February 1980 . In addition, the Josef-Kuchen-Straße in Kaarst was named after the artist.

plant

Kuchen is closely associated with the Düsseldorf School of Painting and belongs to the circle of artists around Max Clarenbach, Theo Champion , and Robert Pudlich . With them he carried out a variety of exhibitions at home and abroad, including in Berlin , Stuttgart , Vienna and Florence .

His art developed over the years from a late impressionist style to the expressive, sometimes with a hint of the surreal. Mostly, Kuchen did not paint his works in front of nature, but in the studio on the basis of quickly made sketches beforehand. The delicate and distant choice of color and composition was influenced more by his feelings than by the actual circumstances.

The early painterly work was almost completely lost in a bomb attack on Neuss harbor in 1944. The later works were initially mainly executed in oil, then increasingly in tempera from the 1960s onwards .

Due to various purchases and orders, part of the work is owned by the city of Neuss and the Clemens Sels Museum. Further works can be found in schools, churches and privately owned. Of particular note are 14 stations of the cross in chalk for the Catholic Church in Holzbüttgen from 1951.

swell

• The painter Josef Kuchen, edited by Maria Kuchen, Verlag der Galerie am Bismarckplatz Krefeld 1975
• Painter of the inconspicuous, Grevenbroicher local newspaper February 12, 1980
• The message from Josef Kuchen, Grevenbroicher Lokal-Zeitung 10 May 1975
• On the death of the painter Jo Kuchen, Grevenbroicher local newspaper February 17, 1970

literature

• The painter Josef Kuchen, edited by Maria Kuchen, Verlag der Galerie am Bismarckplatz Krefeld 1975

Web links

• Painting "rider"
• Painting "Child with Flowers"