Karl Ortelt

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Karl Ortelt (born June 12, 1907 in Mühlhausen / Thuringia , † November 13, 1972 in Jena ) was a German painter and graphic artist . He is one of the artists of the " lost generation ".

life and work

After attending primary school, Karl Ortelt completed an apprenticeship as a building fitter from 1921 to 1923. Until 1927 he worked in his profession. He then became unemployed and did various odd jobs. In 1931 he got a job as a theater painter at a theater publisher in Mühlhausen. From 1932 to 1934 he took art and painting lessons at the evening school of the sculptor Walter Krause in Mühlhausen.

His first art commission was a three-part mural for a school in Mühlhausen, which was whitewashed in 1933 by order of the National Socialists. From 1934 to 1940 Ortelt studied at the State College for Architecture, Fine Arts and Crafts in Weimar. With Alfred Hierl he became a master student there. When he visited the touring exhibition “ Degenerate Art” in Weimar in 1939 , he was deeply impressed by the ostracized works of modernism. Ortelt was a soldier from 1940 and was a US prisoner of war until 1946. From there he moved to Engelrod in Hesse, where he worked as a freelance painter.

In 1950 he moved to the GDR and worked as a freelance painter in Erfurt. From 1950 to 1951 Ortelt was a lecturer in wall painting in the fine arts department of the Weimar University of Architecture and Construction . After they closed, he worked freelance in Weimar until his death. In 1952 and 1953 he stayed for study stays in Merxleben , where the first LPG in the GDR was founded, and in the industrial town of Unterwellenborn . In 1952 in Weimar he established his relationship with Lilo Michaelis, whom he had known since 1934 and whom he married in 1957. She was his companion, muse and model.

In the early 1950s, Karl Ortelt faced the war and its consequences thematically: the destroyed cities, the plight of the refugees, the fate of those returning home, the loneliness of the elderly. But he also celebrated the possible beauty of life in images of human warmth and closeness. Cityscapes were created in the late 1950s. He created his main work in Weimar. Over the years Ortelt withdrew from the official art scene. With this decision he followed his instinctive skepticism towards absolutized truths. His wife provided for both of them a livelihood and, as he noted in his diary in 1958, she was soon “the only person”.

Ortelt died after a serious operation. He left about 11,200 drawings and 1,100 paintings.

reception

"Karl Ortelt, who created his main work in Weimar under the specific conditions of an artistic existence in the GDR, contrasted the living conditions with a work in which the examination of existential questions of existence remained the criterion of his artistry."

Works (selection)

  • The painter and his wife, oil on canvas, 1958 (Ortelt with Lilo at the table)
  • Blue Tower, 1958, oil on cardboard

Exhibitions (selection)

  • 1986: Leipzig, Gallery South
  • 2007: Weimar, Weimar City Museum and Hebecker Gallery (retrospective)
  • 2017: Weimar, Galerie Hebecker (painting and drawings)

Works in museums and public collections (selection)

Literature (selection)

  • Helmut Scherf: Ortelt. Verlag der Kunst, Dresden 1986, ISBN 3-364-00010-7 . ( Painter and work series )
  • Klaus Hebecker, Susanne Kühne: Karl Ortelt, 1907–1972. Monograph and catalog raisonné of paintings. Wechmar Kunstverlag, Gotha 1995, ISBN 3-9803902-9-2 .
  • Ilona Habecker, Michael Hebecker (eds.): Karl Ortelt. From my time. Drawings. Hebecker Gallery, Weimar 2001.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Invitation text from Galerie Hebecker to the 2017 exhibition
  2. ↑ Michael Fiegle: Karl Ortelt left more than 11 000 works. In: Thüringer Allgemeine , June 13, 2012
  3. ↑ a b http://www.hebecker.com/ortelt2/Hebecker-Karl-Ortelt-8seiten-2017-web.pdf
  4. ↑ Image index of art & architecture
  5. ↑ Press release on the exhibition “The Art of Drawing” 2013 in Frankfurt / Oder
  6. ↑ Ortelt, Karl. In: Bauhaus University Weimar, Archives of Modernism, inventory overview. Retrieved August 29, 2020 .
  7. ↑ Karl Ortelt: Man with red blanket. In: Solingen Art Museum. Retrieved August 29, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Ortelt, Karl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter and graphic artist
DATE OF BIRTH June 12, 1907
PLACE OF BIRTH Mühlhausen / Thuringia
DATE OF DEATH November 13, 1972
Place of death Jena