Karl Oppenrieder

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Oppenrieder in his workshop, 1989

Karl Anton Josef Oppenrieder (born March 13, 1923 in Munich ; † February 20, 2017 there ) was a German stonemason and sculptor .

Life

Karl Anton Josef Oppenrieder's parents were the master stonemason Karl Oppenrieder d. Ä. († 1940) and his wife Maria geb. Liebich. The father was a so-called "backpack master", a master stonemason without permanent employment. In 1924, he founded his own stonemasonry in an allotment near the then new Nordfriedhof in Munich. For Karl Knappe he had worked on the war memorial in the Hofgarten .

Karl Oppenrieder the Elder J. grew up as the only child in modest circumstances in Schwabing . His father instructed him as a stonemason and recognized his artistic talent early on. At the age of 14, he arranged for him to take private sculpting lessons from Friedrich Lommel (1883–1967), who campaigned for the artist group Die Welle . His health was badly damaged by the long English prisoner of war in the First World War , and his father Oppenrieder died in 1940. The 17-year-old son had to take over the business with his mother. Two years later he was drafted into the army of the Wehrmacht. With the tank destroyers , he took part in the Wintergewitter operation near Stalingrad . As a member of the crew of a 7.5 cm anti-tank test gun seriously wounded on first contact with the enemy , he came to German hospitals for months of treatment at Christmas 1942 . During this compulsory break he educated himself through private lessons a. a. with Daniel Greiner in drawing and painting. Somewhat recovered, he experienced the destruction of his parents' business in 1944 during one of the air raids on Munich . He immediately started rebuilding.

In the post-war period in Germany he continued his training at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich . As a master student of Anton Hiller he graduated with the diploma of academic sculptor . In 1956 he married the academic graphic artist Barbara Herrlen (1924-2019), with whom he had four children. All the children became stonemasons and sculptors. His second son Konrad runs the business today.

Artistic creation

Oppenrieder worked according to the motto "Modern, but not fashionable". Shaped by childhood and youth and inspired by Hiller, Lommel and his friend Knappe, he developed his own art style between archaic and expressionism . Hiller's influence is still clearly recognizable in early concrete sculptures of female nudes . Lommel's influence as a medalist is reflected above all in numerous small sculptures from the second half of his career. Knappe shaped Oppenrieder's handling of stone. His graphic and painterly oeuvre tends to take a back seat to the outside world, but gives a clear overview of his artistic development. His early works were created under the influence of Lommel's art during National Socialism . In the early 1950s he turned to moderate expressionism. Later forms and expressions become milder and more forgiving. In his older work he concentrated entirely on painting . No exhibition has yet been devoted to this extensive work.

As a sculptor and painter, Oppenrieder limited himself to a few motifs and themes, above all to the relationships between men and women and Christian art . Much of the work is dedicated to the Mother of God . The fact that the company was in the vicinity of the cemetery encouraged him to turn to grave monuments. It was important to him that the personality of the deceased was reflected in the grave monuments. Almost every tomb was unique .

Oppenrieder's history fountain in Perlach
Detail of the octagonal fountain basin with a self-portrait of Karl Oppenrieder sitting in the wash tub and signature 1991

He also had a particular artistic preference for fountains . He created u. a. the history fountain on Pfanzeltplatz in Perlach or the granite fountain for Basler Versicherung in the old town of Munich. His two large fountains in the Planegg cemetery near Munich have almost been forgotten, first and foremost the fountain The human being leaves his human shell . In his later creative years he was supported in the sculptural execution of his designs by his daughter Barbara and his son Bernhard, who also selected the Epprechtstein granite used together with his father and quarried in his own quarry.

In addition, Oppenrieder designed monuments and memorial plaques in public spaces , including a. the memorial stone for the victims of the Nazi tyranny or the memorial plaques for Richard Wagner and Lenin's stays in Munich. The granite memorial stone, dedicated to "The Victims in the Resistance to National Socialism", was initially erected in 1962 as a temporary measure on the Square of the Victims of National Socialism in Maxvorstadt and is now located on Freedom Square in Neuhausen .

As a sculptor, he also worked with bronze and wood , experimenting with old and new materials and techniques. He was one of the few in Bavaria who still mastered the traditional technique of death masks . He took them from Karl Richter , Josef von Ferenczy and others. When silicone and epoxy resin were still largely unknown, he experimented with these plastics as early as the late 1970s and early 1980s . 34 years before Hubert Gerhard's Bavarian Lion was replaced in front of the Munich Residence, Oppenrieder cast it in original size for the Wittelsbach exhibition in silicone and epoxy resin in 1980 . The copies and forms are lost.

Services

In addition to his artistic work, Oppenrieder devoted himself to training the next generation. From 1964 to 1989 he was a lecturer at the Munich Master School for the stonemasonry and stone carving trade . He fought vehemently against what he saw as the rampant kitsch of gravestones in Munich and Bavaria. So he had an aversion to uniform gravestones, for example. B. made of imported, polished black granite with porcelain portraits of the deceased, as they are often found in rural areas, and instead preferred stone-like processing from local tuff , shell limestone or granite . He valued Epprechtstein granite from the Fichtel Mountains for its special color and weather resistance . From this material he created z. B. the rabbit fountain in Munich. Oppenrieder's commitment was reflected in the restrictive Munich cemetery law in the second half of the 20th century . He restored old fountains (such as the Fischmarkt fountain) and grave monuments, especially at the Old South Cemetery in Munich, and collected old grave crosses. As a collector and connoisseur of Asian and African art , he created many expert reports .

Working in public and sacred space (selection)

Fountain

Memorial stones

Memorial plaques

Sacred art

  • Baptismal font with a labyrinth base of the Allerheiligenkirche Munich-Alte Heide
  • Wall hanging church 14 Nothelfer Munich
  • Tabernacle 14 helpers in need; Munich
  • Wall hanging poor school sisters Erding
  • Tabernacle Poor School Sisters Erding
  • Altar poor school sisters Erding
  • Composite relief Sparkasse Treuchtlingen
  • Apostle lights St. Rupert (Munich)

Works

  • Granite tomb - nature and processing

  • Granite tomb for the actor Wolfgang Mascher

  • Steel sculpture on half of the boulder

Solo exhibitions

Awards

literature

  • Otto Bistritzki: Fountain in Munich. Living water in a big city. 2. revised Edition Callwey-Verlag, Munich 1980, ISBN 3-7667-0504-0 (illustrated book).
  • Steffi Roettgen: Sculpture and plastic on Munich's streets and squares. Art in public space 1945–1999. IDEA Verlag, ISBN 978-3-88793-150-6 .

Web links

Commons : Karl Oppenrieder  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Karl Oppenrieder's memorial page. Retrieved February 23, 2017 .
  2. ↑ Barbara Oppenrieder's memorial page. Retrieved November 19, 2019 .
  3. ↑ a b Fountain in the Ramersdorf - Perlach district: Pfanzeltplatz. Retrieved November 5, 2019 . near Munich and its fountains
  4. ↑ The Perlach History Fountain. Retrieved November 5, 2019 . , on neuperlach.info
  5. ^ Well of the Basler Versicherung - Oppenrieder Karl. Retrieved May 11, 2017 .
  6. ↑ Planegg fountain. Retrieved March 4, 2018 .
  7. ↑ Commemoration on the stone. Retrieved May 11, 2017 .
  8. ↑ Memorial plaque for Richard Wagner. Retrieved May 11, 2017 .
  9. ↑ a b Karl Stankiewitz: Karl Stankiewitz on the red Schwabing story: In the footsteps of Lenin and other Russians . In: Kulturvollzug . March 14, 2017 ( kultur-vollzug.de [accessed on May 11, 2017]).
  10. ↑ Kulturgeschichtspfad 9: Neuhausen-Nymphenburg , 4th edition 2009, p. 44.
  11. ↑ GEWOFAG: Rabbit Fountain - GEWOFAG. Retrieved May 11, 2017 .
  12. ↑ Fountain in the Maxvorstadt district: Sandstr. 49. Retrieved November 5, 2017 . near Munich and its fountains
  13. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Unknown masterpieces by Karl Oppenrieder. Retrieved November 5, 2019 .
  14. ↑ Memorial stone for Muhammed Iqbal. Retrieved March 6, 2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Oppenrieder, Karl
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Oppenrieder, Karl Anton Josef (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German sculptor and stonemason
DATE OF BIRTH March 13, 1923
PLACE OF BIRTH Munich
DATE OF DEATH 20th February 2017
Place of death Munich