Karl Völker (artist)
Karl Völker (born October 17, 1889 in Giebichenstein near Halle an der Saale , † December 28, 1962 in Weimar ) was a German painter , graphic artist and architect .
life and work
Völker was the son of a master painter from Halle, in whose company he received training as a decorative painter from 1904 to 1910. After two years of professional activity in Leipzig, he attended the Dresden School of Applied Arts from 1912 to 1913 in Richard Guhr's master studio for wall painting . In 1913 he returned to Halle and has been working independently since then.
In 1914, Karl Völker received the first public commission for the dome frescoes of the large chapel on the Gertraudenfriedhof from the city building officer of the city of Halle (Saale), Wilhelm Jost . This is the only work of wall painting by Völker that is still preserved in Halle (Saale) today. However, due to poor lighting conditions, it was barely noticed for many decades. A lighting system that contradicts the character of the building and was installed during the restoration in 1979/80 - there was even the intention of installing a false ceiling - finally almost completely blocked the view into the dome. It was only in the course of the renovation work that began in 1991 thanks to the activities of the non-profit cremation association Halle eV that the work could be made accessible to viewers.
In 1919, Karl Völker founded the Halle artist group with Richard Horn , Martin Knauthe , Paul Horn and the sculptor Karl Oesterling, which was connected to the November groups . In the 1920s he mainly created expressive wood carvings with socially critical content and industrial images influenced by constructivism . He also worked with Otto Haesler on social housing projects .
The interior of the village church of Schmirma (town of Müuellen (Geiseltal) in the Saalekreis ) was colored by Karl Völker in the 1920s. There are also 14 expressive ceiling paintings by Völkers in the church. A registered association was founded in June 2006 to preserve and restore these and other works by the artist that are threatened with decay, which not least pursues the goal of making Karl Völkers work better known to the public. In 1926 he also designed the interior of the St. Georg Church in Gimritz .
During the National Socialist era , some of Völker's works were ostracized as degenerate art . Wolfgang Willrich's National Socialist propaganda pamphlet “Purification of the Art Temple” , published in 1937, names him; one of his “industrial pictures” was shown in the “ Degenerate Art ” exhibition. He survived this time not least by commissions to design churches, etc. a. the very well preserved parapet painting in the church of Holleben on the western edge of Halle. In 1944 Völker was drafted into the Volkssturm , when he was a prisoner of war in the American internment camp in Bad Kreuznach .
After the war, Völker initially concentrated on architecture-related work again. He took part in competitions for the urban redesign of the city of Halle and created wall paintings for the Halleschen Kammerspiele, stained glass windows for the Erfurt Thomaskirche and other designs on public buildings. In the 1950s, chalk ground drawings were created, which are to be regarded as the late work of Karl Völkers. In 1961, Karl Völker received the City of Halle Art Prize.
Color design
In 1920 the town hall and other houses on Halle's market square were colored. In cooperation with Bruno Taut , the color design of the Magdeburg town hall followed in 1922. In this context, I made my first contact with Otto Haesler . Karl Völker provided the blue and red color scheme for Haesler's Italian Garden in Celle . From 1928 to 1932 he worked as an architect in the Haesler office in Celle, working on a number of housing projects (Berlin-Haselhorst, Karlsruhe Dammerstock , Kassel Rothenberg, Blumläger Feld estate in Celle, Rathenow Friedrich-Ebert-Siedlung). In 1931 he and Haesler took part in the Berlin building exhibition. In 1932 he left the Haesler office and returned to Halle.
reception
The Moritzburg Foundation - Art Museum of the State of Saxony-Anhalt offered a major retrospective of Karl Völker and his work with an exhibition from March 25 to June 17, 2007 under the title “Utopia and Objectivity. Karl Völker 1889–1962 ”. This exhibition of Karl Völker's life's work was accompanied by smaller thematic exhibitions in several galleries in Halle, such as his Halle landscapes, his chalk drawings and his beach pictures. On the website of the Moritzburg Foundation exhibition, it says: " Karl Völker is one of the most interesting German artistic personalities of the mid-20th century, although even connoisseurs can often only see his work in single images ."
In the Moritzburg Art Museum in Halle / Saale, from October 17, 2013 to January 5, 2014, the panels with the elaborately restored ceiling paintings of the Schmirma church were shown. They had been badly damaged by moisture from a leaky church roof, soot from the heating system and thick layers of cobweb.
literature
- Karl Völker . In: Birgit Dalbajewa (ed.): New Objectivity in Dresden . Sandstein Verlag, Dresden 2011, ISBN 978-3-942422-57-4 , p. 312-313 .
- Moritzburg Halle Foundation (Ed.): Karl Völker. Painter graphic artist architect. Utopia and objectivity . Hall 2007.
- Gallery art pieces, Halle (ed.): From beach castles and promenades. Karl Völker beach pictures . Hall 2007.
- Jürgen Jankofsky: Jesus RED - Heaven WIDE. A Karl Völker story . Dorise-Verlag, Burg 2007, ISBN 978-3-937973-32-6 .
- State Gallery Moritzburg Halle (Ed.): Karl Völker. Chalk ground drawings . Hall 1999.
- State Gallery Moritzburg Halle (Ed.): Karl Völker. Life and work . Hall 1976.
- Sabine Meinel: Karl Völker. Life and work. Dissertation, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, 2008 ( available online on the website of the ULB Saxony-Anhalt )
- Ingrid Schulze: Karl Völker. Series "World of Art." Henschelverlag Art and Society, Berlin 1974.
Individual evidence
- ^ The Gertraudenfriedhof in Halle - Monumental architecture and landscape garden ( Memento from October 8, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Cited as co-founder in: Christoph Wilhelmi: Artist groups in Germany, Austria and Switzerland since 1900: a manual. Stuttgart: Hauswedell, 1996 ISBN 3-7762-0400-1 , pp. 174-175, No. 94 Hallische Künstlergruppe.
- ↑ As a member named in: Christoph Wilhelmi: Artist groups in Germany, Austria and Switzerland since 1900: a manual. Stuttgart: Hauswedell, 1996 ISBN 3-7762-0400-1 , pp. 274-284, No. 165 Novembergruppe.
- ^ Karl Völker Initiative
- ^ Sabine Meinel (2008): Karl Völker - Life and Work. Dissertation to obtain the academic Doctor philosophiae (Dr. phil.) Submitted to the Philosophical Faculty I of the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg online
- ↑ Moritzburg Foundation: Karl Völker special exhibition ( page no longer available , search in [backPid = 20 & tx_ttnews [pointer] = 3 & tx_ttnews [tt_news] = 17 & cHash = 69e7894928f0a65cb7f87b3ee08bd4d0 web archives]) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Karl Völker. Holy stories. The expressionist treasure trove of images from Schmirma . Flyer for the exhibition, hall 2013
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Völker, Karl |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German painter, graphic artist, sculptor and architect |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 17, 1889 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Giebichenstein near Halle (Saale) |
| DATE OF DEATH | December 28, 1962 |
| Place of death | Weimar |