Joseph Oppenheimer
Joseph Oppenheimer , (born July 13, 1876 in Würzburg , † August 31, 1966 in Montreal , Canada ), was a German landscape and portrait painter .
Life
Joseph Oppenheimer was born on July 13, 1876, the son of Sigmund and Cäcilie Oppenheimer, née Schwabacher, in Würzburg. Both parents were of Jewish descent. He had two siblings with whom he grew up at Ludwigstrasse 29 in Würzburg. However, his sister Dora died of typhoid in May 1891 .
Oppenheimer discovered his talent for drawing as a child. Since his maternal great-uncle, Louis Neustätter, was already working as a genre painter , he was able to convince his parents to want to study art. At the age of 14 he took painting lessons from the Würzburg artist Franz C. Fischer. In August 1890, on a trip to Bad Kissingen , he had the opportunity to portray Otto von Bismarck , who was spending one of his numerous spa stays there. In a personal letter dated August 29, 1890, Bismarck thanked his young portrait artist.
After completing his school days at the Würzburg secondary school, Oppenheimer moved to Munich in 1891 and began an artistic training at Conrad Fehr's private school , as he was not yet admitted to the Royal Academy at the age of 15. In addition to the director of the private school, who taught him painting in front of nature, Oppenheimer was probably also trained by the other teachers at the school, such as the graphic artist Gustav Eilers and the sculptor Adolf Brütt . In Munich he was able to live with the family of his great-uncle Sigmund Neustätter at Ainmüllerstraße 5, where a studio was set up for him in the billiard room.
Oppenheimer often went on trips to Lake Starnberg to visit his other great-uncle and painter Louis Neustätter in Tutzing . There he practiced landscape painting . For his portrait studies he already used one of the first Kodak cameras to support the composition of the pictures.
In 1893 Oppenheimer was able to take up his dream course at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, which he ran until the summer of 1895. His teachers there included Paul Hoecker , Gabriel Hacker and Johann Leonhard Raab .
After completing his art studies in Munich, Oppenheimer made a trip to Italy from October 1895. Here he trained on the works of the old masters in the museums of Florence , Rome and Naples . In Fiesole he met Arnold Böcklin . In Rome, with a stay in the Villa Strohl-Fern , a first impressionist work “Horses and Carriages on Monte Pincio ” was created at the end of 1895 .
In 1896 Oppenheimer returned to Munich and set up a studio in Schwabing in the house of Professor Adolf Furtwängler . In addition to many portraits, he created numerous plein-air studies on excursions. His native city of Würzburg was one of his favorite places for landscape painting, where he made the residence , the court garden, the market square, the Main promenade and the prince-bishop's summer residence in Veitshöchheim the subject of his painting.
Presumably in the winter of 1896/97, Oppenheimer made a trip to the Middle East with his uncle August Schwabacher and Hedwig, the daughter of his other uncle Emil Schwabacher, which took them to Egypt , Crete , Greece and Turkey . A year later he visited his mother's cousin Michael Schwabacher in London to make a portrait of his daughter Diana.
In April and May 1899 Oppenheimer took part in the first annual exhibition of the Secessionists in Berlin with his own works, which were kept in a realistic style.
On a trip together with his brother Arnold, among others, to Venice in the early autumn of 1899 , he caught a typhoid infection. He used the time of his recovery in Moderno for landscape painting.
At the end of December 1899, he accepted an invitation from his cousins Florence and Alice Oppenheimer to New York . There he stayed in the house of his uncle Isaac Oppenheimer at No. 31 West 71st Street until July 1900. For the execution of several portrait assignments (including Army General MacDonald Moody and Grenville M. Dodge ) he rented a studio near Madison Square on 5th Avenue, south of 23rd Street .
At the end of July 1900, Oppenheimer interrupted his return trip to Germany in England in order to carry out a portrait commission through Julius Spier , an art collector and relative of his aunt Ida Schwabacher. Spier would later campaign for a promotion of Oppenheimer and thus contribute significantly to his career. After a detour to Bexhill on the English south coast, Oppenheimer returned to Germany.
In autumn 1900 he was exempted from military service for health reasons and lived alternately in Würzburg, Munich and Berlin . In January 1902 he rented a studio there at Königin-Augusta-Strasse 51 and exhibited in the Paul Cassirers gallery in Hamburg. He was president of the Berlin Secession and was one of the supporters of modern art in Germany.
In August of the same year, Oppenheimer gave up his Berlin studio and settled in London. From March 1903 he had several studios one after the other, most recently in Pheasantry House in Chelsea, King's Road No. 152, where he also lived from March 1905 to 1908. Through the mediation of Julius Spier, Oppenheimer received numerous portrait commissions, so that he was able to acquire a reputation as a sought-after portraitist. He became a member of the Chelsea and St. John's Wood Art Association and, thanks to the support of his relatives and the Jewish community in London, was able to quickly connect with the local artistic circles.
Until about 1905 he mainly painted portraits, now he began to paint more and more interiors and also turned to landscape painting. In 1907 he was elected an extraordinary member of the International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Graphic Artists. For a semester he also accepted a teaching position at the London Art Academy.
In 1906 Oppenheimer got engaged to his second cousin, Fanny Sternfeld, whom he married on July 8, 1908. The young couple spent their honeymoon in Bourne-End-on-Thames. Since his wife wanted to return to Berlin, they took a new apartment with a studio there at Kurfürstenstrasse 126. In December 1909 their son Hans Alfred was born. In October 1912 the daughter Eva Sophie followed (who also became a painter).
In Berlin, too, Oppenheimer maintained his connection with the London art scene and took several opportunities to exhibit there and in Liverpool . In Germany he produced a. a. in Berlin, Düsseldorf, Dresden, Munich, Mannheim and Nuremberg.
At the beginning of the First World War , Oppenheimer was drafted and served in the cartographic service of the German Army, first in Berlin and then on Rügen . His father died in November 1916, so that from then on he regularly visited his mother in Würzburg. During the war, due to material limitations, it turned to graphics, to which it remained true to painting until around 1930. So he created u. a. lithographic portraits by Adolf Harnack and Alfred Adler . However, after the end of the war, he resumed portrait painting as the main focus of his work and created a new group of clients from the upper class of society. Albert Einstein , Alfred Adler, Adolf Harnack, Otto Klemperer and Lil Dagover were among the most prominent of his hundreds of customers .
He was also a sought-after artist for cover pictures of magazines such as “Elegant World”, “Die Dame”, “Jugend” etc. Oppenheimer again traveled all over Europe for commissions and also used these trips for landscape designs, which he recorded in his sketchbook.
With the beginning of the Third Reich , Oppenheimer quickly became convinced that sooner or later he would have to leave Germany. He therefore decided to go back to London in 1933, where he could use his family and other relationships for a new beginning. In 1939 he received English citizenship , which enabled him to have his mother and brother come to England from Würzburg. In October 1941 his mother died as a result of an accident.
Oppenheimer built on the connections from his earlier time in London and in 1934 moved into a studio in St. John's Wood Queens Grove 32B and continued to work as a respected and sought-after portraitist of the English upper class. Despite the economic crisis, he was able to lead a materially relatively carefree life with a high standard of living. Film stars like Deborah Kerr , James Mason and the violinist Yehudi Menuhin were among those portrayed .
Oppenheimer stayed in London during the Second World War . In 1949, however, his daughter Eva and her family decided to emigrate to Canada . She was able to convince her father to join her. He therefore followed her with his wife to Montreal . In the future, Oppenheimer spent the time either with his daughter in Canada or with his son who had stayed behind in London. To do this, he crossed the Atlantic twice a year in a passenger ship.
Joseph Oppenheimer died of heart failure on August 31, 1966 shortly after his 90th birthday in Montreal.
plant
The Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Munich was a center of realism in the 1870s , as developed by Franz Lenbach and Wilhelm Leibl , among others . This style also influenced Oppenheimer's early work. The works of French Impressionism , which he saw at exhibitions as a student in Munich, also had a strong impact . The same applies to the works of the German impressionist Max Liebermann . Contrary to the French variety of Impressionism, Oppenheimer used strong dark colors such as brown and black, but joined the new movement in the choice of themes and the alla prima method. In particular, his first trip to Italy contributed to adopting the plein-air method for landscape painting as appropriate. In England he joined the “new romantic movement”, which was influenced by French impressionism, instead of a purely objective rendering of nature that wanted to interpret atmospheric qualities.
With his graphic work after the First World War, Oppenheimer also included expressionist elements in his style repertoire for the first time , which later also appear in his paintings. Over time, his portrait technique developed into a style that combined a free and relaxed treatment of background, clothing, etc. with a lifelike reproduction of facial features.
Oppenheimer's artistic spectrum ranged from drawings, gouaches, small-format oil paintings on wood to large-format landscape, portrait and interior paintings.
Selection of works, paintings
- Horses and carriage on Monte Pincio, Rome, 1895
- Espaliers in the Würzburg Court Garden, 1897/98
- Portrait of Cilly Oppenheimer, 1899
- Alice Oppenheimer in New York, 1901
- Houseboats on the Thames, 1904
- Würzburg - Hall of Mirrors in the Residenz, 1905
- Old cranes in Würzburg, 1905
- Würzburg Court Garden
- At the regatta, Henley, 1906
- Fanny in a blue dress, 1908
- Portrait of Sigmund Oppenheimer, 1909
- The Wannsee, 1910
- My mother, 1917
- Würzburg - market square with Marienkapelle, 1917/18
- Trafalquer Square, London, 1923
- Portrait of the artist's daughter, Eva, 1926
- Dolomites landscape, 1930
- Portrait of Yehudi Menuhin, 1946
- Colorful flowers in a vase, 1955
literature
- Joseph Oppenheimer. Life and work. Städtische Galerie Würzburg, Bremen 1998, ISBN 3-931737-72-1
- Joseph Oppenheimer travel pictures. Erich Kips : Exhibition from April 27 to June 30, 1996 in Kampen on Sylt, Galerie Pels-Leusden Berlin and Kampen on Sylt, catalog, year of publication: 1996
- Oppenheimer, Joseph , in: Joseph Walk (ed.): Short biographies on the history of the Jews 1918–1945 . Munich: Saur, 1988, ISBN 3-598-10477-4 , p. 289
Web links
- Literature by and about Joseph Oppenheimer in the catalog of the German National Library
Individual evidence
- ↑ For details on the picture see Hildegard Quandt
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Oppenheimer, Joseph |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German landscape and portrait painter |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 13, 1876 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Wurzburg |
| DATE OF DEATH | August 31, 1966 |
| Place of death | Montreal , Canada |