Karl Sitzmann

Karl Sitzmann (born January 18, 1883 in Forchheim , Upper Franconia ; † January 2, 1963 in Bayreuth ) was a German art historian, professor in Bayreuth and a pioneer in researching Franconian art history.

Life

Karl Sitzmann was a son of the Forchheim builder Thomas Sitzmann. After attending grammar school in Bamberg, he studied at the then Kunstgewerbeschule in Nuremberg and at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich . From 1913 until his retirement in 1945 he worked as a teacher and study Professor in Bayreuth. From around 1910 he devoted himself to researching the art and cultural history of Franconia . In 1922 his first book Forchheims Kirchen, a Spiegel Bamberger Kunst , was published, in which he proved that the four most important works of art in the parish church of St. Martin , the large relief of Jesus' farewell , the stone mount of olives , the crucifix in the east choir and the Gothic Vesper image in the Marienkapelle by the sculptor Hans Nussbaum , who moved from Nuremberg to Bamberg , and almost all other works of art in Forchheim were created at least under Bamberg's influence.

His assignment of the so-called Lindenhardt Altarpiece as a work by the painter Matthias Grünewald is controversial to this day, but in 1926 earned him an honorary doctorate from the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Erlangen . In 1951 he published his studies on the Bamberg carver Hans Nussbaum, but many of the attributions contained therein were not recognized by the professional world. Karl Sitzmann's most sustainable publication is probably the encyclopedia of artists and artisans in East Franconia , which appeared in two volumes in 1957 and 1961 and was completed in 1962 with additions and corrections in an index volume edited by August Gebeßler . In 1959 Sitzmann was awarded the Ludwig Gebhard Prize of the Upper Franconian Foundation for his scientific life's work. He died on January 2, 1963, two weeks before he would have turned 80, in his adopted home Bayreuth.

Fonts (selection)

• Art and artists in the Bayreuth area. A contribution to the history of Franconian art. Scientific supplement to the annual report of the humanistic high school in Bayreuth, 1919.
• Forchheim's churches, a mirror Bamberg art , Forchheim 1922.
• The Lindenhardt panel paintings, an early work by Matthias Grünewald , Bayreuth 1926.
• Hans Nussbaum. A Bamberg carver of the Dürer period. With notes and attributions by Heinrich Mayer. In: 90th report of the Historisches Verein Bamberg, Bamberg 1951, pp. 279-320, 12 panels.
• The building history of the City Church of the Holy Trinity, before St. Marie Magdalene, in Bayreuth , in: Journal for Bavarian Church History 23 (1954), pp. 111-143.
• Artists and craftsmen in East Franconia , published in the series "Die Plassenburg, Writings for local research and cultural maintenance in East Franconia", Volume 12 (1957), Volume 16 (1962) and Volume 37, Kulmbach 1983.

estate

Karl Sitzmann's estate is in the Kulmbach city ​​archive . After a large portion was lost its library and its documents to the bombing of Bayreuth in World War II, the material still present includes his scientific correspondence until 1963, which goes back in some cases even in the period before 1945, as well as the extensive preparatory work and typescripts to his lexicon about artists and artisans in Eastern Franconia . Particularly noteworthy is the photographic estate, which includes photos from over 400 locations in Franconia and all of Germany.

literature

• Konrad Kupfer : Karl Sitzmann - An obituary . In: 99th report of the Historisches Verein Bamberg 1963, pp. IV – IX (with a portrait photo of Sitzmann)
• Wilhelm Müller: Karl Sitzmann: Arts and craftsmen in Eastern Franconia . In: Archive for the history of Upper Franconia . Volume 37, Issue 3. Bayreuth 1957. pp. 169-173.

Web links

• www.freunde-der-plassenburg.de