Karl Christian Klasen

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Karl Christian Theodor Klasen (born November 19, 1911 in Güstrow , † February 21, 1945 in Königsberg (Prussia) ) was a German painter and graphic artist.

Life

Karl Christian Klasen was born in 1911 as the son of Güstrow wood merchant Emil Ernst Wilhelm Klasen (1880–1931) and his wife Maria Johanna, born. Rong (1877–1953) was born and grew up with three siblings. He attended the Güstrower Realgymnasium, where his drawing talent was promoted by the drawing teacher Friedrich Schult , a close friend of Ernst Barlach . In 1931 he had to leave high school because his father had committed suicide as a result of the economic crisis and the loss of his business. He did an apprenticeship with a Bützow cabinet maker for two years and then decided to work as a painter. He received support from a fatherly friend, the Güstrow architect Adolf Kegebein .

In 1932 Klasen came to the island of Poel near Wismar in the Baltic Sea for the first time , and in 1933 he chose Kirchdorf as his place of residence. He began, initially as an autodidact , to capture the landscape and the people of the island in his pictures. He was successful and in 1935 he was awarded the Boldt Foundation's scholarship for Mecklenburg artists . This scholarship enables him to study two semesters at the art academy in Düsseldorf , followed by two more semesters at the Berlin academy , here with Franz Lenk and Adolf Strübe . His works now more followed the academic rules, his spontaneity ceased and he tended to perfectionism.

Klasen was very respected by the islanders, went out with the fishermen, was at home with them and in the manor houses. In the plant breeder and landowner Hans Lembke he again had a fatherly friend. Acknowledgments followed, in 1938 the Lord Mayor of Rostock awarded him the painter's prize of the Foundation for the Promotion of Low German Art and in 1939 he received the John Brinckman Prize .

With the beginning of the Second World War he was drafted into military service, but was still able to paint alongside the service. In 1939 he was represented with five works at the exhibition "Contemporary Mecklenburg Painters" in the Mecklenburg State Museum in Schwerin and in 1940 in the Munich House of German Art at the " Great German Art Exhibition " with the work "Poeler Eisfischer". In 1942, when he took part in an exhibition in Cracow , he was awarded the Veit-Stoss Prize by the management of the General Government there.

In 1940 he married the dancer and choreographer Rita Bütow (1908–1994) in Rostock, their daughter Antje Rita Klasen was born in 1942 (died in 1970). In 1943 he was wounded and was on hospital stays in Litzmannstadt and Bad Mergentheim and in 1944 on convalescent leave on Poel. Klasen died on February 21, 1945 as a sergeant in the infantry after suffering a serious wound near Königsberg and was buried in the cathedral cemetery in Königsberg.

Klasen mainly painted the landscape around Wismar, the harbor, Poeler Fischer and Fischerkaten, but also his hometown Güstrow. There is evidence of around 450 works by Klasen; the Mecklenburg Foundation in Ratzeburg (today in Schwerin) took over 100 works in 1982. These are now on permanent loan from the Karl Christian Klasen Gesellschaft eV and can be seen in changing exhibitions in the Heimatmuseum der Insel Poel in Kirchdorf. In 2008, the company was able to acquire additional works and parts of the estate that will be incorporated into further research on the artist's work and the island of Poel.

The German sculptor, photographer and painter Peter Klasen (* 1935), who lives in France, is a nephew of Klasen .

Works (selection)

  • Self-Portrait , 1935
  • Ferry house on Poel , 1936
  • Fisherman's house with nets , 1939
  • View of Kirchdorf , 1940
  • Willows in the morning mist , 1941
  • Clouds and sun over Poeler Land , 1942

Exhibition: “Contemporary Mecklenburg Painters” in Schwerin, October 29 to November 19, 1939

  • Farmer's wife peeling potatoes , oil
  • Winter on Poel , oil
  • Gray day , watercolor
  • Weeping willows , colored chalk
  • The bridge (Poel) , watercolor

Great German art exhibition in Munich, 1940

  • Poeler Eisfischer , oil

Further exhibitions of Klasen's works were in Wismar (1941), Ratzeburg (1961, 1975), Güstrow (1991) and Kirchdorf (2005).

literature

  • Grete Grewolls: Who was who in Mecklenburg and Western Pomerania. The dictionary of persons . Hinstorff Verlag, Rostock 2011, ISBN 978-3-356-01301-6 , p. 5033 .
  • Hasso Reschenberg:  Klasen, Karl Christian Theodor. In: Sabine Pettke (Ed.): Biographical Lexicon for Mecklenburg. (= Publications of the Historical Commission for Mecklenburg : Series A). Volume 4, Schmidt-Römhild, Lübeck 2004, ISBN 3-7950-3741-7 , pp. 128-131.
  • Hans-Jürgen Klug; Matthias Ebert: Karl Christian Klasen: paintings, watercolors, drawings, prints. City administration Güstrow (Ed.), Güstrow 1991
  • Werner Timm : Mecklenburg landscapes - Karl Christian Klasen. Ostdeutsche Galerie Regensburg (Ed.), Regensburg 1986, ISBN 3-89188-040-5

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Klasen, Karl Christian, Fährdorf : No. 596, Poeler Eisfischer. (Oil), In: Great German Art Exhibition in the House of German Art in Munich, Catalog 1940, p. 51
  2. ↑ The year information follows the Biographical Lexicon for Mecklenburg , the German Dance Archive Cologne mentions bequests and personal collections: "Rita Bütow (1918–1993) dancer, gymnastics teacher" (signature: DTK-TIS-13) ( Memento from August 8, 2014 in Internet Archive )
  3. ↑ Peter Klasens website (French)
personal data
SURNAME Klasen, Karl Christian
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Klasen, Karl Christian Theodor (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter and graphic artist
DATE OF BIRTH November 19, 1911
PLACE OF BIRTH Guestrow
DATE OF DEATH February 21, 1945
Place of death Königsberg (Prussia)