Konrad Westermayr

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Self-Portrait, Standing I, 1912

Konrad Westermayr (born January 11, 1883 in Ramsau near Berchtesgaden ; † August 2, 1917 in Ypres ) was a German painter of late impressionism .

Life

Konrad Westermayr was only 34 years old. He fell in Flanders on August 2, 1917 . His home was the Berchtesgadener Land , where he was born in Ramsau on January 11, 1883 as the youngest and fourth child of a teacher. At the age of 14 he began a 4-year apprenticeship in the glass art workshop Karl Ule in Munich, then he attended the arts and crafts school there under Maximilian Dasio and the Academy of Fine Arts for one semester . During these years in Munich, Westermayr made friends with Anton Kerschbaumer , who was two years his junior and who was very similar in nature and who later also became his brother-in-law. The two loners were linked by a deep friendship and mutual stimulation for creative work. When Westermayr received a scholarship to the Bruno Paulsche Kunstgewerbeschule in Berlin in 1907 , Kerschbaumer followed him to the capital of the Reich in 1908. In 1910 Westermayr left the arts and crafts school and from then on lived alternately in Berlin and in Ramsau near Berchtesgaden. In addition to Kerschbaumer, the painters Martin Bloch and Otto Freytag were his friends.

In January 1914, the first exhibition of Westermayr's pictures took place in the JB Neumann graphic cabinet. Immediately before the outbreak of war, Westermayr married the merchant's daughter Sofie Fleischmann in Munich on July 28, 1914. Daughter Barbara was born on June 9, 1915. Westermayr was drafted in February 1915, deployed to the garrison for two years and sent into the field in the spring of 1917. On August 2, he was killed near Ypres in Flanders.

Work and reception

Blue washing dishes, 1917

The subject of many of Westermayr's pictures is the person in the room. The artist liked to portray himself or his immediate surroundings: father and sister, his wife and their family, the rooms in which they lived and his home town of Ramsau. His self-portraits as a soldier are haunting documents of the First World War. He was a talented draftsman, his graphic work is mentioned in the Thieme-Becker artist lexicon as "[...] sometimes approaching Menzel " .

As a later impressionist, Westermayr can also be counted among the early expressionists , the beginning experiments in converting space into color and surface. His oil paintings show him as a confident designer of the color space graduated in fine values and in the chalky style typical of him. The richly colored still life “Blue Washware” from 1917 represents the high point of his painting shortly before the end in Flanders.

Exhibitions

Self-portrait with a raised brush, 1913

In 1919 the first major commemorative exhibition took place in the JB Neumann graphic cabinet in Berlin. In the series “JB Neumanns Bilderhefte” an exhibition brochure with a catalog raisonné and 26 illustrations was published. Israel Ber Neumann , who represented artists such as Max Beckmann , Lyonel Feininger , Erich Heckel , Ernst Ludwig Kirchner , Franz Marc , Edvard Munch , Karl Schmidt-Rottluff , acquired from Westermayr, in addition to numerous watercolors and drawings, the painting “Self-portrait with a raised brush”. The exhibition in Berlin was followed by exhibitions by the Kestnergesellschaft Hanover and the Kunstverein Hamburg in 1920 . In 1923 Westermayr was shown at the jury-free art show in Berlin and in 1925 at the New Secession in Munich . The Staatsgalerie München acquired the oil painting “Tischrunde”, the Museum Behnhaus in Lübeck the painting “Morgentoilette”.

Cover of the magazine Jugend with the painting "Self-Portrait with Field Cap"

In 1927, drawings and pictures by Westermayr were printed in the magazine Jugend , including the painting “The Smoker” as a color reproduction. For the 32nd edition of 1930 the “Self-Portrait with Field Cap” was used as the cover picture.

In 1929 the Graphisches Kabinett Günther Franke organized another commemorative exhibition, which was also shown at the Augsburger Kunstverein from March 10th to April 3rd, 1929, and an exhibition brochure was published. In 1931, Israel Ber Neumann, who had meanwhile emigrated to New York, gave the Folkwang Museum a self-portrait - probably the one with a raised brush - at the time the painting was on loan to the exhibition Young Art from Munich in the Gemäldegalerie Bochum.

In the years after 1933, Westermayr's pictures were also ostracized, and some were taken abroad. The aforementioned paintings Round Table and Morning Toilet were confiscated as " Degenerate Art " and have since been considered lost. The self-portrait from the Folkwang Museum was also expropriated on August 25, 1937 and transferred to Berlin, probably to be destroyed there.

In the 1980s, the Berlinische Galerie acquired the paintings “Woman of the Artist” and “Self-Portrait with Field Cap”. Another self-portrait “backward lit” is on loan from the Berlinische Galerie. There are graphic sheets in the art halls of Hamburg and Bremen .

The self-portrait with field cap is on loan in the exhibition “Stars are falling. From Boccioni to Schiele. The First World War as the end of European artist paths ”will be shown in the Kunsthalle zu Kiel from October 2014 to February 2015.

gallery

  • The mother reading in bed, 1904

  • Ramsau, two ladies with a parasol, 1911

  • Girl writing, 1913

  • The smoker, 1915

  • Vanity unit with self-portrait in the mirror, 1915–16

  • Freezing soldier, 1916

  • Batzenhofen in winter, 1917

  • Muster scene

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Konrad Westermayr. in the matriculation database of the Academy of Fine Arts Munich (accessed on June 18, 2009).
  2. ↑ Westermayr, Konrad . In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General lexicon of fine artists from antiquity to the present . Founded by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker . tape 35 : Libra-Wilhelmson . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1942, p. 450 .
  3. ↑ JB Neumann's picture books Konrad Westermayr 1883-1917. Berlin 1920/21.
  4. ↑ Jugend Heft 43, published on October 22, 1927 in the online edition of the magazine Jugend. Published by the Klassik Stiftung Weimar et al. (Accessed on January 26, 2015).
  5. ↑ Jugend Heft 32, published on August 2, 1930 in the online edition of Jugend magazine. Published by the Klassik Stiftung Weimar et al. (Accessed on January 26, 2015).
  6. ↑ Page no longer available , search in web archives: "Tischrunde" at Lost Art , Coordination Office for Cultural Losses (accessed on May 29, 2009).@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.lostart.de
  7. ↑ Page no longer available , search in web archives: “Morgentoilette” at Lost Art, Coordination Office for Cultural Losses (accessed on May 29, 2009).@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.lostart.de
  8. ^ Self-portrait in the database of the confiscation inventory of the "Degenerate Art" campaign, Research Center "Degenerate Art", FU Berlin (accessed on January 6, 2011).
  9. ↑ Stars fall ( Memento from May 9, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) From Boccioni to Schiele. The First World War as the end of European artist paths. Exhibition in the Kunsthalle zu Kiel from October 11, 2014 to February 8, 2015. (accessed on January 26, 2015).

Remarks

  1. ↑ Inspection of the birth certificate in the Ramsaus parish office on May 22, 2009 revealed that Konrad Martin Westermayr was born on January 11, 1884. However, since the year 1883 is given as the year of birth in all available publications, and was probably given differently during Westermayr's lifetime, we refrained from changing it here.
  2. ^ Written information from Museum Folkwang from December 13, 2010.
  3. ^ Written information from Museum Folkwang from December 13, 2010.

Web links

Commons : Konrad Westermayr  - album with pictures, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Westermayr, Konrad
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter of late impressionism
DATE OF BIRTH January 11, 1883
PLACE OF BIRTH Ramsau near Berchtesgaden
DATE OF DEATH August 2, 1917
Place of death Ypres