Julius Bretz

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Julius Bretz (born January 26, 1870 in Wiesbaden , † December 26, 1953 in Bad Honnef ) was a German landscape painter from the Düsseldorf and Hague Schools , a lithographer and one of the founders of the Sonderbund in Düsseldorf .

Life

Shortly after the birth of Julius Bretz, his father died and his mother moved with him to Düsseldorf. He began to study painting at the Düsseldorf Art Academy , but was soon dismissed there as untalented. He then took private lessons with Helmuth Liesegang . During his studies in Düsseldorf and afterwards he moved to Holland several times for a few months each time . There he worked with the marine painter Hendrik Willem Mesdag in 1890 . He also received his graphic training from a representative of the Hague School , the lithographer Jacob Maris .

In 1898 Julius Bretz married and moved with his wife to Donrath near Siegburg, today a district of Lohmar . During this time, Bretz maintained contact with his painting colleagues in Düsseldorf, Cologne and Bonn. In 1902, after a fire in the house in Donrath and the loss of large parts of his early work, the family moved to Düsseldorf, where Julius Bretz set up a studio. He became a member of the Malkasten Artists 'Association and a member of the Cologne Artists' Association . The exhibition opportunities associated with it soon paid off for him, and from 1904 he achieved noticeable sales successes. Bretz again traveled to Holland for months and tried to paint his early works on site again.

In 1909 he worked on the founding manifesto of the Sonderbund Westdeutscher Kunstfreunde und Künstler and took part in the annual Sonderbund exhibitions in Düsseldorf until 1911 and in Cologne in 1912.

During the First World War , Bretz worked as a technical draftsman (draftsman) in the light metal industry. In 1917 he was made an extraordinary member of the Düsseldorf Academy because of his services and he was offered membership in the Bonn Artists' Association from 1914 .

In 1921 Bretz inherited a house in Bad Honnef ( Luisenstrasse 19 ), in which he lived until his death.

In order to benefit from public funding, in particular to free exhibition opportunities, independently of the long-established art institutions, their application and jury system, Julius Bretz founded the Rheinische Sezession , a reunion of "Rheingruppe" and "Junge Rheinland" , together with some painter friends. , In Dusseldorf. In 1936 he was awarded the Cornelius Prize of the city of Düsseldorf.

As in 1933 also with the rise of Hitler DC circuit of the different artistic trends and styles in the sense of German Art loomed, he early on an application for transfer to the Reich Chamber of Fine Arts in Berlin. The request was granted. When the Nuremberg Race Laws were promulgated in 1935, Bretz was affected. His wife and daughter were half-Jews. Formal proceedings were initiated against him and he was expelled from the Reich Chamber and in fact received a professional ban and thus also an exhibition ban. The "Rheinische Sezession" was dissolved in 1938 by order. When the war broke out in 1939, Julius Bretz went into hiding with his wife and daughter with friends until the end of the Second World War .

Shortly after his return to Germany, Bretz was one of the 204 visual artists who were supported by funding purchases from the state of North Rhine-Westphalia . Julius Bretz received honorary membership of the Malkasten Artists' Association in 1947 and in February 1949 was the first of the North Rhine-Westphalian artists to receive more than 1,000 DM for the purchase of one of his paintings.

At the end of 1953 Julius Bretz died at the age of almost 84. He was buried in the cemetery in Bad Honnef.

plant

Bretz emerged exclusively as a painter and draftsman of landscapes and pieces of flowers. He saw himself as an autodidact and is outside the polarity of tradition and modernity.

Sonderbund

Bretz is particularly important because of his role in founding the Sonderbund, which initially appeared to be just one of the numerous exhibition associations in Düsseldorf. Under the simple name of a special exhibition in the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf in 1908, Max Clarenbach , Joseph Maria Olbrich , Walter Ophey , Wilhelm Schmurr , Alfred Sohn-Rethel (1875–1958) and his brother Otto took part in addition to Bretz . With the exception of Olbrich, the architect of the Tietz department store , which was under construction in Düsseldorf at the time , all of them had studied at the Düsseldorf Academy. At a second exhibition, which took place again in the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf in 1909, the group called itself the “Sonderbund” for the first time. The painters Otto von Wätjen and Ernst te Peerdt as well as two teachers from the Düsseldorf School of Applied Arts, the sculptors Rudolf Bosselt and the graphic artist Fritz Helmuth Ehmcke, had already joined this group. The painter Christian Rohlfs only joined the Sonderbund during the exhibition; the painter Max Liebermann only took part as a guest. In this exhibition, their works were deliberately contrasted with the works of the French artists Paul Cézanne , Vincent van Gogh , Claude Monet , Camille Pissarro , Pierre-Auguste Renoir , Georges Seurat , Paul Signac , Alfred Sisley and Édouard Vuillard , a novelty in the Düsseldorf exhibition system which had shown works of the international avant-garde in the spatial separation of nations in 1892 in the Eduard Schulte art dealer and in 1904 in the Kunstpalast . The Eduard Schulte gallery then showed the Sonderbund exhibition of 1909 in its Berlin gallery, where the press spoke of “the secessionists of the old painterly town” who diligently lead to Paris and know exactly what is important. Further exhibitions followed (Kunstpalast 1910, Kunsthalle 1911), which showed a comparison of German and French art. Today, these events are seen as a sign of a connection between the Rhenish artists and modern art as well as an entry into internationalization, stylistic pluralism and the individualization of the actors in the Rhenish art scene.

Works (selection)

  • Village in the Siebengebirge , oil on wood, no year, RheinRomantik Collection, Bonn
  • Windmill by the Canal , oil on canvas, 1905
  • Seascape , colored chalk on drawing paper, 1921
  • Barn in Harperscheid , oil on panel, 1937
  • Moorland with Kate in Spring , oil on fibreboard, 1950
  • View of the park , India ink drawing on cardboard , 1945
  • White poppy seeds , oil on canvas, no year, bought in 1949 by the Ministry of Culture of North Rhine-Westphalia, Düsseldorf

Further works by Julius Bretz were purchased by the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum in Cologne , the Barmer Ruhmeshalle and the Kunsthaus Zürich .

Exhibitions (selection)

  • 1892/1896: Berlin
  • 1901: Dresden
  • 1907: Munich, Düsseldorf
  • 1908: Special exhibition , Kunsthalle Düsseldorf
  • 1909: Participation in the first Sonderbund exhibition, Kunsthalle Düsseldorf
  • 1912: International art exhibition of the Sonderbund of West German Art Friends and Artists in Cologne
  • 1919: Solo exhibition at the Flechtheim Gallery , Düsseldorf
  • 1947: Participation in the exhibition West German Artists Association , Karl Ernst Osthaus-Museum in Hagen
  • 1949: German painting and sculpture of the present , "State House" of the fair in Cologne
  • 1950: Honorary exhibition for the eightieth birthday of Julius Bretz , Kölnischer Kunstverein
  • 1965: Retrospective on the 95th birthday of Julius Bretz , Galerie Paffrath, Düsseldorf
  • 1970: Julius Bretz - drawings, pastels, paintings , Clemens-Sels-Museum , Neuss

Awards

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ alfredflechtheim.com: Julius Bretz (accessed on August 31, 2014)
  2. ^ Karl Günter Werber : Honnefer walks . 2nd revised edition. Verlag Buchhandlung Werber, Bad Honnef 2002, ISBN 3-8311-2913-4 , p. 99 .
  3. ↑ Nicole Roth: How modern is the Düsseldorf School of Painting? In: Bettina Baumgärtel (Hrsg.): The Düsseldorf School of Painting and its international impact 1819–1918. Volume 1, Michael Imhof Verlag, Petersberg 2011, ISBN 978-3-86568-702-9 , p. 257 f.
  4. ↑ Illustration on the website of the RheinRomantik Collection ( Memento from February 25, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
  5. ^ Artnet.de: Julius Bretz (German, 1870–1953) - auction results
  6. ↑ Artist funding of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia - continuity since 1945 ( memento of October 2, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
  7. ↑ Julius Bretz . In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General Lexicon of Fine Artists of the XX. Century. tape 1 : A-D . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1953, p. 311 .
  8. ↑ alfredflechtheim.com: Alfred Flechtheim and Julius Bretz (accessed on May 15, 2015).
  9. ↑ Julius Bretz . In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General Lexicon of Fine Artists of the XX. Century. tape 5 : V-Z. Supplements: A-G . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1961, p. 338 .
personal data
SURNAME Bretz, Julius
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German landscape painter and lithographer
DATE OF BIRTH January 26, 1870
PLACE OF BIRTH Wiesbaden
DATE OF DEATH December 26, 1953
Place of death Bad Honnef