Karl Wolf (painter)

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Karl Wolf (* 1901 in Munich ; † 1993 ) was a German painter . The focus of his artistic activity was the representation of animals and flowers.

biography

Wolf grew up in Munich's Adalbertstrasse . After graduating from high school, Wolf was looking for a job. He himself aspired to painting; early, but artistically finished and typical landscapes of the "Burglauer Cycle" are dated to 1924, but his father preferred to see him in a solid job and got Wolf to study agriculture and forestry in Weihenstephan . But he was not up to the physical exertion of this job and finally his father let himself be changed. At the beginning of 1926, Wolf applied to the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich and was accepted into Franz von Stuck 's painting class . Stuck died in 1928, so Wolf was one of the artist's last pupils.

The city of Munich offered to stand up for him at the academy so that he could get his own professorship. Wolf refused and took up drawing lessons from the portraitist Ludwig Angerer , in which he became a lifelong friend. The portrait that Ludwig Angerer made of Karl Wolf comes from these years.

Exhibitions from 1929 to 1942

During this time, when monstrous things were honored, Wolf preferred the small format, when the watchword was folkish and heroic, Wolf's pictures of the rural working world showed their poverty and hardship. Wolf's animals were not proud and powerful, as the Nazi greats liked to hunt, but simple and natural. He reduces his external contacts to a few reliable friends. A limited exhibition activity is still possible for him. In 1940 and 1942 he also took part in the invitation to tender for the Lenbach Prize . As a tolerated freelance artist, Wolf led a life in the shadows.

In 1942 Wolf met his future wife, Walburga, whom he married in 1943. The young couple lived with their parents-in-law in Obermenzing, their son Ingo was born in 1944 and baptized in Munich's Blutenburg chapel. In 1942/43 Wolf was commissioned to portray Countess Arco-Zinneberg, and in 1944 also her son. In between he wins the Lenbach Prize with the portrait "Maria Adelmüller", which the city of Munich bought. During these short years, Karl Wolf made several ink drawings of the Blutenburg , Pippinger Kirche and Würm ensemble . In 1944 the family was bombed out and evacuated to farms in Chiemgau.

post war period

Wolf's family is spread over two courtyards and a place for painting can only be found in another courtyard a good distance away. In the period from 1944 to 1953, which the family spent in the vicinity of Trostberg, they created impressive watercolors of the Chiemgau farming region, often with a view of the chains of the Bavarian mountains.

Even after returning to Munich, where the family found an apartment in Sendling in 1953, the spatial conditions did not allow for a studio in the apartment. Wolf makes do with a room in his parents' apartment on Amalienstraße. He moved there with his family in 1960 and lived there until his death.

During this time, Wolf is mainly active in fresco painting and also receives orders for glass windows. He also takes on the artistic refinement of everyday objects such as fabrics, porcelain, furniture, especially cupboards and chests. Here Wolf proves his artistry in completely new fields. Today, frescoes from his hand adorn several houses in the Allgäu. He donated a large mural to the Munich Animal Welfare Association, for which the city awarded him its golden badge of honor in 1957. In the mid-1960s he equipped two churches with stations of the cross, St. Joseph in Selb / Plötzberg and St. Nikola in Landshut ; In the Church of the Redeemer in Landshut, he creates a dance of death.

In 1967, Karl Wolf turned with great intensity to the main theme of his artistic life, the pictorial capture of animals and flowers. His aim is to depict the floating, the not self-evident in living nature in the simplest possible visual language and to make it accessible to the viewer. He changes his means. The watercolors in their graduated tint become even lighter, but above all he continues to develop his pastel technique. In the flowers, horses and birds of his last creative period he reached the completion of his artistic work. Wolf no longer organizes exhibitions and shows his works almost exclusively to family and friends. Only the Kunsthaus Bühler in Stuttgart received paintings by Wolf until 1990.

literature

  • Monika Wolf, Ingo Wolf (Eds.): Karl Wolf. 1901-1993. Opus. Watercolors, pastels, drawings, illustrations, oils. Mohn Media Mohndruck GmbH, Gütersloh 2006, ISBN 3-00-019030-9 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Wolf, Karl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter
DATE OF BIRTH 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH Munich
DATE OF DEATH 1993