Joseph Mader

This article is about the painter Joseph Mader. For other people see Josef Mader .

Joseph Max Jodok Mader (born September 20, 1905 in Landshut ; † May 27, 1982 ibid) was a German painter and graphic artist.

life and work

Childhood and youth

Joseph Mader was born in Landshut as the second child of the teacher Lorenz Mader and his wife Anna. His parents' house was near the Isar and its riparian forests. The large variety of animals and plants in the midst of which the boy grew up aroused great botanical and zoological interest.

School of Applied Arts Munich

In 1922, the 17-year-old came to the Munich School of Applied Arts , where he began training as a graphic designer in October. His teachers were u. a. Richard Riemerschmid and Fritz Helmuth Ehmcke . There he also got to know the painter Max Wendl and the sculptor Fritz Müller, with whom he had a lifelong friendship. During this time he produced numerous etchings and pen and ink drawings, a number of which were reproduced in the magazine Jugend between 1922 and 1927 . And the magazine "The Studio", published in London, drew attention to the talented young animal painter with an illustration.

Cologne factory schools

In 1926 Richard Riemerschmid became director of the Cologne factory schools . But he kept in touch with some of his Munich students, including Mader, who left the State School of Applied Arts in 1927 with a degree in graphic design. He invited him to come to the Cologne factory schools and made this possible for him through a scholarship. In March 1927 Mader began his advanced studies at the Werkschulen and entered the painting class of Matisse's pupil Friedrich Ahlers-Hestermann . Under its influence, his painting took a decisive turn away from naturalism towards a visual language influenced by Cubism. "I gave up painting after nature, to which I paid homage for a while, as a stupid waste of time. You feel very intensely that a picture can never be created that really has inner life. Today it means the picture entirely out of the imagination build up or let the matter stay. ... "So Mader in a letter of June 10, 1928 to his brother, in which he also reports in detail about the strong impression that the Beckmann pictures made on him at an exhibition in Düsseldorf . Various pictures of the following period reveal echoes of form and content to Max Beckmann . Mader takes over Beckmann's compact collection of figures in a space that is far too small. But from the "angular, sharp and inexorable" that z. B. Reinhard Piper particularly noticed in Beckmann's pictures, Mader has rounded, milder forms. During the course of his studies in Cologne, Mader's first exhibition opportunities arose, for example in the Becker Newman gallery in Cologne. He also becomes a member of the German Association of Artists . and participates in their exhibitions. In 1931 he finished his studies with the appointment as a master student at the Cologne factory schools and went back to Munich.

Freelance painter in Munich in the early 1930s

In 1931 Mader settled back in Munich and had a studio in Schwabing . The leap into independence of the freelancer turned out to be ambivalent. His letters give detailed information about this. On the one hand there was self-doubt and the greatest economic tightness, on the other hand there were well-known advocates and friendships, such as with the publisher Reinhard Piper or the gallery owner Günther Franke . “As he said, Franke has been very busy with my work lately. He actually said very good things to me about her, so I was amazed. ”Günther Franke was at the young painter's side with advice and action and finally made the group exhibition Mader Müller Wendl possible in his gallery in 1932.

Exhibition Mader Müller Wendl in the Günther Franke gallery

In January 1932 Richard Riemerschmid opened the exhibition of the young artists Joseph Mader, Max Wendl and Fritz Müller in the Graphisches Kabinett Günther Franke on Briennerstrasse in Munich. This exhibition attracted extraordinary attention. It was discussed in the Munich daily newspapers and specialist magazines, whereby Wilhelm Hausenstein recognized Joseph Mader's affinity for Max Beckmann and wrote: “... Joseph Mader, born in 1905, seems to have an ideal connection with Max Beckmann. The fact that he is one of the few who has the courage to face this strongest painting talent in younger Germany is evidence of strong initiative. But it is not just a question of a succession. The pastel of a reclining woman is an example of a personal talent for painterly and constructive image form. ” Konrad Weiß , Hermann Eßwein and Hans Eckstein also discussed the exhibition. Günther Franke also made Eberhard Hanfstaengl aware of Mader. Hanfstaengl then stood up for Mader and endeavored to have a show of young Munich artists in the Nierendorf Gallery in Berlin. He also acquired the drawing "Encounter" for the National Gallery in Berlin . But the support of Hanfstaengl ended with his dismissal as director of the National Gallery by the National Socialists.

National Socialism and World War II

When the National Socialists came to power, Joseph Mader's ascent in the German art scene ended, even though he was awarded the Albrecht Dürer Prize in 1936 . His desperate attempts to be included in public exhibitions were unsuccessful. During the twelve years of the Third Reich there was only one exhibition in 1937, again with Günther Franke. She went completely unnoticed by the public. Mader's survival ensured fresco commissions for churches in Lower Bavaria. In terms of content, during this time of the impending war - in addition to religious motifs - the theme of the struggle and the threat to the people of Mader's imagery predominantly determined. In 1941 Mader was called up for military service and trained as a medic. In August 1942 he married Cilly Kellner and moved with her to her hometown Moosburg an der Isar because of the beginning of the bombing war . In January 1945, his Schwabing studio was finally destroyed by bombs. A son was born to the couple in September 1945.

post war period

In the post-war period Mader lived and worked in his house in Moosburg, apart from the publicly recognized painting, and under great economic hardship. Nevertheless, in 1947 he joined the New Munich Artists' Cooperative, which was newly founded after the Second World War, and from 1949 took part in their annual major art exhibitions in the Haus der Kunst . In 1960, at the instigation of an artist colleague, he also joined the Dachau Artists' Association. From then on he was also represented at their annual exhibitions in Dachau Castle. In Mader's post-war subjects, the cold planning of the surface, as it was invented by the Cubists, merges with his own sensitive experience of nature. As much as the Cubists eradicated the personal part of the picture, Mader tried to give graphic expression to his distinctly personal world experience. Even if these pictures only occasionally evoked an echo, there were some connoisseurs among them, such as the 81-year-old Richard Riemerschmid, who had come to Mader's collective exhibition at the Lenbachhaus in 1955 . He wrote to his former student: “I was standing in front of some of your pictures very excited, excited with joy and with a need to express it.” He compares this feeling with the “joy that one can have in wonderful poems, even if one The language in which they are written cannot be understood in every detail. ”The more painterly the gouaches or tempera pastels became in the later years, the more poetic Mader's painting became.

Last years

In the last years of his life, more and more interested parties and collectors became aware of the very withdrawn and humble painter. Public institutions, including the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung , the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlung and the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus have acquired a number of Mader's works over the years. In 1962 he was awarded the Water Lily Prize of the City of Munich. In 1980 the book Painting of the Lost Generation by Rainer Zimmermann was published , in which the latter undertook a re-evaluation of the art of the 20th century and in which Mader is also represented. Mader remained true to his line, the object as the starting point for the means of expression, throughout his life. That there are no more genres for Mader, that the boundaries between depiction and fantasy form blur, that they are suspended between symbolism and the decorative, between the real and the surreal, all this may be a sign of his idea of ​​an all-embracing harmony of the world, the artificial , the intellect does not know categorization. Such a confession can be clearly found in his letters: “What I feel is largely lacking today is a feeling of attack against things. To relate to each other, the intellectual division and assembly predominates today and above all, love is missing, I mean. Everywhere the artistic is seen and placed in the foreground, but it never results in an art that speaks more comprehensively and impresses the soul ”.

On May 27, 1982, Joseph Mader died of a stroke.

Exhibitions (selection)

• 1929: Cologne, exhibition grounds: Exhibition of the Cologne factory schools
• 1931: Essen, exhibition halls: Exhibition by the German Association of Artists
• 1931: Cologne, Galerie Dr. Becker-Newman (Kurt F. Cramer - Heinz Hehmann - Joseph Mader)
• 1932: Munich, Galerie JB Neumann and G. Franke (Joseph Mader - Fritz Müller - Max Wendl )
• 1937: Munich, Graphisches Kabinett G. Franke (Ferdinand Filler, sculpture - Joseph Mader, drawing)
• 1947–1982: Large Munich art exhibitions
• 1955: Munich, Lenbachhaus (Eduard Aigner - Joseph Mader - CO Müller - Reinhold Pallas)
• 1960–1982: Dachau Artists' Association
• 1962: Munich, Kunstverein (Carl Crodel - Marianne Henselmann - Joseph Mader - JK Nerud)
• 1967: Munich, Kunstverein (Kinner v. Dresler - Erwin Henning - Josef Loher - Joseph Mader)
• 1969: Erlangen, Kunstverein
• 1970: Moosburg, large retrospective
• 1975: Landshut, city residence
• 1975: Dachau, Dachau Forum
• 1982: Ettlingen Museum Society
• 1984: Munich, Abercron Gallery
• 1990: Munich, Galerie Hierling
• 1995: Passau, Art Association
• 2003: Eisenach, Thuringia, museum in the city palace
• 2005: Marburg, University Museum
• 2005: Landshut, Museum im Kreuzgang (Museums of the City of Landshut)
• 2005: Moosburg, Zehentstadel
• 2014: Schweinfurt, Kunsthalle
• 2014: Dachau, Picture Gallery

Working in museums and collections

• Berlin, Nationalgalerie (drawing "Encounter", missing since 1945)
• Dachau, picture gallery
• Cologne, Letter Foundation
• Landshut, the city's museums
• Marburg, University Museum for Art and Cultural History
• Munich, Bavarian State Painting Collection
• Munich, State Collection of Graphics
• Munich, Municipal Gallery in the Lenbachhaus
• Nuremberg, the city's museums, graphic collection
• Schweinfurt, Kunsthalle, Hierling Collection

Awards

• 1936: Albrecht Dürer Prize of the City of Nuremberg
• 1962: Water Lily Prize of the City of Munich

Individual evidence

1. ↑ kuenstlerbund.de: Full members of the Deutscher Künstlerbund since it was founded in 1903 / Mader, Joseph ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (accessed on November 22, 2015)  

literature

• Eichler Richard W .: artists and works . Lehmanns, Munich 1962, p. 158.
• Kießling Hans: Painting Today. Munich art scene 1958-1978 . Langen Müller, Munich Vienna 1976, p. 140, ISBN 3-7844-1746-9 .
• Wittstock Jürgen: The Expressive Realism Foundation in the Marburg University Museum . P. 91, ISBN 3-925430-39-3 .
• Zimmermann Rainer: Expressive realism. Painting of the Lost Generation. Hirmer, Munich 1994, p. 413.
• Dollen Ingrid vd Joseph Mader. From the richness of visibility and the love for things. ISBN 3-925430-44-X .
• Rainer Zimmermann, Hans Mader: Joseph Mader . Edition Joseph Hierling, Munich, ISBN 3-925435-09-3 .

Fonts

• Youth number 46, published November 16, 1937, p. 723
• Christoffel Ulrich in, Die Kunst, Volume 40, Number 4, January 1939, p. 125
• Zimmermann Rainer in, Weltkunst, published on October 15, 1995, p. 2803

Web links

• Joseph Mader's website
• Literature by and about Joseph Mader in the catalog of the German National Library