Josef W. Keller-Kühne

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Josef Woldemar Keller-Kühne (born April 23, 1902 in Munich-Neuhausen ; † March 9, 1991 in Miesbach ) was a German painter , draftsman and graphic artist .

life and work

Josef Woldemar Keller-Kühne studied from 1921 to 1930 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich . Heinrich von Zügel and Angelo Jank were among his teachers at the time . During the semester break he traveled to Austria, Hungary, France, Latvia and Finland.

From 1922, Keller-Kühne was represented with paintings at exhibitions in Munich. Even then, his preferred subject was depicting animals. In 1925 he was offered a professorship in Budapest, which he refused. In the summer of 1926, Keller-Kühne traveled to Paris with Daisy Campi and Hermann Euler .

In 1930, Keller-Kühne was founded by Dr. Mond'sche Foundation funded by the Munich Art Academy. In the same year, Keller-Kühne finished his academic training. The academy certificate written by his teacher Heinrich von Zügel states: “The undersigned gives his former pupil Keller-Kühne the certificate that he was able to increase his outstanding talent to the utmost through diligence and perseverance in his studies. Munich, March 5, 1930. "

In 1931, Keller-Kühne joined the NSDAP . His membership number is 530.791. On July 6, 1931, eight Keller-Kühne plants were destroyed in the fire in the Glass Palace. On April 23, 1936, Keller-Kühne married Maria Stemplinger in Munich. The marriage had three children Tilman, Imma and Florentine.

In 1936, 1938 and 1940 Keller-Kühne designed a total of six illustrations for Jugend magazine . In the Second World War , Keller-Kühne was initially used as a soldier in the Air Force. In 1940 he was discharged from military service due to an injury. In June 1940 he was accepted into the Waffen SS (SS No. 279.124). On May 5, 1942, he was promoted to Hauptsturmführer (specialist leader of the Waffen SS).

Around this time, Keller-Kühne received the order in the barracks of the SS-Standarte Deutschland to decorate the casino there with murals. At the beginning of 1941, the exhibition "Kampfstätten der Waffen-SS" took place at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts. An art portfolio of the same name with reproductions of 16 landscapes by Keller-Kühne was published in 1943 for the exhibition. Their titles are: Skoplje , Vardar Valley , Bitolj , Between Resan and Ochrid , Ochrida Lake with Ochrid , Belgrade , Klidi Pass , Kastoria Lake with Kastoria , Votanase , Metsovon , Joanina , Messalongion , Lepantos, port , port of Patras , Patras and storage place of LAH I . On January 3, 1941, Heinrich Himmler and Keller-Kühne visited this exhibition. "Keller-Kühne had known Himmler for a long time [...]".

From 1942, Keller-Kühne worked as a front painter in Greece, Poland and France. In 1944 the apartment (Adalbertstrasse 78) and the studio (Adalbertstrasse 57) in Munich were destroyed by bomb attacks. Keller-Kühne then moved with his family to Großschwaig (district of Miesbach) and rented the historic smithy in Bach at the end of 1944 .

On May 17, 1945, US troops arrested Keller-Kühne. In 1947 the judicial chamber of the Moosburg camp classified him in group I of the main culprits . With regard to NSDAP membership, Keller-Kühne declared that he had joined “out of idealism and out of conviction that what it propagated was really and seriously aimed at”. The judgment was later revised, Keller-Kühne was classified as a minor offender (Group III) and received a fine of 2,000 RM.

In 1951 Keller-Kühne moved with his family to the Harzberg (Miesbach) , where he was based and worked from then on. He devoted himself more to the hunt and continued to work as a painter. In addition to animal motifs, landscapes, cityscapes and portraits were created.

Josef Woldemar Keller-Kühne was a member of the Munich artists' cooperative .

Exhibitions

  • 1922: Represented for the first time at the “Munich Art Exhibition” in the Glaspalast (with the oil study “Cows” (catalog number 890)). With the exception of the years 1926 and 1929, Keller-Kühne was represented at every “Munich art exhibition” until 1931, with mostly several works. In 1927 and 1928 he exhibited in the area of ​​the “Munich Secession” and in the remaining years at the “Münchner Künstlergenossenschaft (MKG)”.
  • 1929; Art Association Munich , Munich
  • 1931–1933: Participation in the Munich art exhibitions which, due to the fire in the Glass Palace, took place in the Deutsches Museum in Munich
  • 1932: Participation in the "Munich Art Exhibition" ( Kunstpalast Düsseldorf )
  • 1933: Participation in the exhibition "Special show of the Munich artists 'cooperative to promote donations for national work and winter aid " (Munich artists' cooperative, Munich)
  • 1934–1935: Participation in the "Great Munich Art Exhibition" ( Neue Pinakothek , Munich)
  • 1935: Participation in the exhibition "Munich Artists" ( Prussian Academy of the Arts , Berlin )
  • 1935: Special exhibition on Keller-Kühne in the Städtische Galerie Nürnberg (with a total of 56 works)
  • 1936: Participation in the exhibition “50 Years of Munich Landscape Painting and Portrait Sculpture” (Neue Pinakothek, Munich)
  • 1936: Participation in the exhibition “50 Years of Munich Landscape Painting and Portrait Sculpture” (Neue Pinakothek, Munich)
  • 1937: Participation in the "Munich Annual Exhibition" (Neue Pinakothek, Munich)
  • 1937: Participation in the exhibition "Figure and Composition in Pictures and on the Wall" (Neue Pinakothek, Munich)
  • 1937: Participation in the exhibition “The Work in Art” (Munich Exhibition Park)
  • 1937: Participation in the exhibition "Von deutscher Kind" (organized by the Nazi cultural community , exhibition building Lichtentaler Allee, Baden-Baden )
  • 1937: Participation in the "animal art exhibition" (organized by the Nazi cultural community, exhibition building Tiergartenstrasse, Berlin)
  • 1938: Participation in the "art exhibition" (organized by the Nazi community Kraft durch Freude , Hamburger Kunsthalle )
  • 1938–1944: Participation (with a total of 18 paintings) in the Great German Art Exhibitions in the House of German Art (Munich). Three paintings were bought by Adolf Hitler ("Nuthah" (1938), "Kälber im Stall" (1939), "In Feuerstellung" (1940)) and one by Martin Bormann ("Zenzerl").
  • 1938–1942: Participation in the "Munich Art Exhibition" ( Maximilianeum , Munich)
  • 1941: Participation in the exhibition "Munich Artists Experience the War" (Kulturamt München)
  • Beginning of 1941: Exhibition "Kampfstätten der Waffen-SS" (Academy of Fine Arts, Munich) An art folder of the same name with reproductions of 16 landscapes by Keller-Kühne was published in 1943 for the exhibition. Their titles are: "Skoplje", "Vardar Valley", "Bitolj", "Between Resan and Ochrid", "Lake Ochrida with Ochrid", "Belgrade", "Klidi Pass", "Lake Kastoria with Kastoria" , “Votanase”, “Metsovon”, “Joanina”, “Messalongion”, “Lepantos, Hafen”, “Port of Patras”, “Patras” and “Storage area of ​​LAH I”.
  • 1943: Participation in the exhibition "West German Artists - Munich Draftsmen" ( Städtische Galerie Munich )
  • Beginning of 1944: Participation in the exhibition “ German Artists and the SS ” (art exhibition of the Reichsführer SS and the supplementary office of the main office of the SS, Breslau ). Keller-Kühne was represented here with the painting “Manrico” (horse head of the famous SS jumping horse “Manrico”).
  • June – July 1944: Participation in the exhibition “German Artists and the SS” ( Salzburg (extended exhibition to the previous exhibition in Breslau)). Keller-Kühne was represented with six works, including the painting “My wife” for which he received the Leibl-Sperl Prize of the city of Rosenheim in 1943.
  • 1982: Anniversary exhibition in Miesbach, on the occasion of the 80th birthday

Prices

  • 1926: Art Prize of the City of Munich for the painting Bull in the stable
  • July 4, 1943: Leibl-Sperl Prize of the Rosenheim Art Association for his painting Meine Frau
  • 1990: Culture Prize of the City of Miesbach

Purchases

  • 1926: the Städtische Galerie München acquired the painting “Stier im Stall”, which was awarded the city's art prize in the same year. In the period that followed, the house acquired eleven more paintings by Keller-Kühne: “Pussta”, “Ziegen”, “Geflügelhof”, “Turkey”, “Near Brannenburg”, “Plowing Farmer”, “Roebuck”, “Near Würzburg”, “Auf der Willow ”,“ Grummeter Harvest ”and“ Goat with Cat ”.
  • 1930: the Bavarian State Painting Collections acquired the painting “Young Pigs”.
  • 1953: First of several acquisitions by the Ministry of Agriculture.

literature

  • General artist lexicon (AKL), online version, artist ID: 00002854
  • Jens Westemeier : Himmler's warriors. Joachim Peiper and the Waffen-SS in the war and the post-war period. Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn et al. 2014, p. 173, p. 690f. (Note 546).
  • Leaflet for a posthumous special exhibition by Keller-Kühnes. online [as of July 10, 2016]

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Leaflet for the 1982 special exhibition in Miesbach, at: http://artroots.com/art6/josefkeller-kuehne.htm [as of July 10, 2016].
  2. ↑ Leaflet for a posthumous special exhibition by Keller-Kühnes, at: http://artroots.com/art6/josefkeller-kuehne.htm [as of July 10, 2016].
  3. ↑ Leaflet for a posthumous special exhibition by Keller-Kühnes, at: http://artroots.com/art6/josefkeller-kuehne.htm [as of July 10, 2016].
  4. ^ Jens Westemeier: Himmler's warriors. Joachim Peiper and the Waffen-SS in the war and the post-war period. Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn et al. 2014, p. 173.
  5. ↑ Peter Witte et al. (Ed.): Heinrich Himmler's 1941/42 service calendar. Christians, Hamburg 2009, p. 102.
  6. ^ Jens Westemeier: Himmler's warriors. Joachim Peiper and the Waffen-SS in the war and the post-war period. Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn et al. 2014, p. 173.
  7. ↑ quoted from: Jens Westemeier: Himmlers Krieger. Joachim Peiper and the Waffen-SS in the war and the post-war period. Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn et al. 2014, p. 690 (note 546).
  8. ^ Jens Westemeier: Himmler's warriors. Joachim Peiper and the Waffen-SS in the war and the post-war period. Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn et al. 2014, p. 690f. (Note 546).
  9. ↑ Ines Schlenker (2007): Hitler's Salon, Oxford et al .: Peter Lang, pp. 242, 248.
  10. ^ Reichsführer SS / SS-Hauptamt (ed.) (1944): German artists and the SS, [catalog for the exhibition in Breslau 1944], Wilhelm Limpert, Berlin, unpag.
  11. ^ Reichsführer SS / SS-Hauptamt (ed.) (1944): German artists and the SS. Directory of artists and works, [catalog for the exhibition in Salzburg, June-July 1944], F. Bruckmann, Munich, p. 23.
personal data
SURNAME Keller-Kühne, Josef W.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Keller-Kühne, Josef Woldemar (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter, draftsman and graphic artist
DATE OF BIRTH April 23, 1902
PLACE OF BIRTH Munich-Neuhausen
DATE OF DEATH March 9, 1991
Place of death Miesbach