Karl Leyhausen

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Karl Leyhausen (born September 28, 1899 in Bedburg , † May 9, 1931 in Paris due to suicide) was a German expressionist painter .

Live and act

Leyhausen grew up in an educated family. The father was the headmaster of the secondary school in Bedburg (Rhineland). In 1906 the family, Karl still had three sisters, moved to Ahrweiler-Neuenahr, where he graduated from high school in 1917. Even as a schoolboy he liked to paint a lot. His artistic talent was recognized early on by parents and teachers. Portraits of the parents, sister Martha and numerous self-portraits were created. After graduating from high school in 1917, he joined the army, where he stayed until the end of the war in 1918. After completing his military service, he began a commercial career, which he broke off after a few months.

In 1919 he began studying at the Kassel Art Academy . He studied painting with the important academy teachers Curt Witte , Ewald Dülberg and others. The student circle of friends included u. a. Teo Otto , Cecil ffrench Salkeld and the later founder of the documenta in Kassel, Arnold Bode . At the beginning of Leyhausen's training there were a few portrait and numerous nude studies. A dynamic and broad line already gave an idea of ​​his painterly temperament. From 1923 to 1927 he belonged to the artists' association The Five . In 1925 Leyhausen passed the state examination as a drawing teacher. He never did this job. He lived from commissioned work, including paintings in various smaller churches in North Hesse such as in Hünfeld and portraits. He put his thoughts on art and painting down in notes and extensive correspondence. In 1927 he founded a. a. with Arnold Bode the Kassel Secession . The art historian Paul Westheim tried to support him as an art writer by nominating Leyhausen's contribution on Georges Braque to an art criticism competition in 1930 in Das Kunstblatt as one of the best three contributions out of 60 entries.

In 1928 Leyhausen undertook his first study trip to the south of France, during which a series of landscape paintings were created that are reminiscent of Paul Klee's style , whom he admired, but also of Paul Cezanne and Max Beckmann . During this time Leyhausen painted Peggy Sinclair , Samuel Beckett's childhood sweetheart, several times . Beckett immortalized Leyhausen in 1932 as the painter Sauerwein in his novel Dream of more to less beautiful women . Another trip to southern France and Paris followed in 1929. Back in Kassel, from 1930 on, graphic works with themes from salons and the red light district were created. In a farewell letter to Paul Westheim from Paris, Leyhausen wrote: "Today I know better than ever how incredibly beautiful and thankful this gift of life is. I don't throw it away with pleasure, but rather it is taken from me. It is an unspiritual, barbaric time broken in. " In 1931 there were exhibitions of Leyhausen's works at Paul Westheim in Berlin and at Schames in Frankfurt am Main. An exhibition in the winter of 1933 at Westheim in Berlin was closed after the " seizure of power ".

Exhibitions

  • Karl Leyhausen, exhibition of the municipal art collections and the Kunstverein Kassel, 1952
  • Karl Leyhausen 1899–1931, exhibition on the 50th year of the artist's death, Neue Galerie Kassel, 1981/82
  • Karl Leyhausen (1899–1931) - Academy and Secession of the 1920s in Kassel, Neue Galerie Kassel 1995
  • documenta 14 , Kassel 2017 (nine paintings and drawings)

Works in museums

  • New gallery, Kassel

swell

  • Karl Leyhausen, paintings, watercolors, pastels, hand drawings. Exhibition by the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Kassel on the 50th anniversary of the artist's death in 1982 (catalog)
  • Sabine Fett: Karl Leyhausen 1899–1931, Staatliche Museen Kassel (catalog) 1995
  • Samuel Beckett Society Kassel (ed.): Samuel Beckett and Kassel, Göttingen 2006
  • Dirk Schwarze: Leyhausen estate to new gallery . HNA, August 6, 1994
  • http://www.vorderer-westen.net/131/ (with Leyhausen's painting of Peggy Sinclair)
  • Nine paintings and drawings by Leyhausen at documenta 14 (2017) in Kassel (Neue Galerie)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kunstblatt Price: 500 marks for the best art criticism, in: The Art Journal XIV.4 (April 1930), p 97
personal data
SURNAME Leyhausen, Karl
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Painter Sauerwein, but also Sauerschwein (Bei Beckett)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter
DATE OF BIRTH September 28, 1899
PLACE OF BIRTH Bedburg
DATE OF DEATH May 9, 1931
Place of death Paris