Kurt Harald Isenstein

Sculpture Give me my ball in Vorsfelde

Kurt Harald Isenstein (born August 13, 1898 in Hanover , † February 3, 1980 in Copenhagen ) was a German sculptor , painter, graphic artist, press illustrator, art teacher and writer.

Life

live in Germany

As a child, Isenstein attended the innovative children's modeling courses at the private Jewish arts and crafts school in Reimann. From 1917 to 1920 he studied at the art academy in Berlin as a student of Hugo Lederer . He then worked as a freelance sculptor and art teacher (1921–1925) as well as a teacher at the Reimann Art School in Berlin. In 1925 he was a co-founder of the Volks-Kunstschule Berlin. He had his first exhibitions in Berlin in 1917.

In 1933, with the beginning of National Socialism, Isenstein's art school on Lützowstrasse in Berlin was destroyed, as were two of his works: the bust of Magnus Hirschfeld and a plaster model of Heinrich Heine for the bronze monument in Cleveland, Ohio. His portrait bust of Albert Einstein was also affected by the Nazi regiment. This stood in front of the Einstein Tower in Potsdam since 1928 and was removed during the Nazi era . It was kept in a laboratory and later presented in the tower. Allegedly, a fist-sized field stone served the employees as a replacement and reminder of the Einstein bust during this time. In addition, in 1937 the work "Arbeiter" was confiscated by the National Socialists in the course of the confiscation campaign "Degenerate Art" and is recorded as destroyed in the Nazi inventory. It is unclear whether the work was a sculpture or a plastic.

Life in exile

Isenstein was arrested in 1933 and then emigrated to Denmark as a Jew and politically persecuted . The following year he appeared as a guest at the "Free Exhibition" in Copenhagen and three years later, in 1937, himself organized a collective exhibition in Odense. In addition to own works, works by the painters Johannes Larsen and Fitz Syberg, as well as works by Käthe Kollwitz, were exhibited there. The occupation of Denmark by the German Wehrmacht in 1940 and the subsequent deportation of the Jews finally forced Isenstein to flee to Sweden in 1943 . After he founded a new elementary art school in Denmark in 1935, he opened another art school in Lund, Sweden in 1943. There he worked as a freelance artist and music teacher and returned to Denmark in 1945, where he worked in Copenhagen until his death. Based on the model of the Berlin Reimann School, he built a school of arts and crafts in Copenhagen.

Works

In exile, Isenstein dealt with the illustration of books and created around 2000 drawings. In addition, he continued to work as a sculptor and, in addition to new works, also made second versions of statues and reliefs that he had lost during his escape. Isenstein's artistic estate - more than 7000 sculptures, drawings, paintings and sketches - is kept in the Museum of Korsør in Denmark.

His work includes busts of Friedrich Ebert , Paul von Hindenburg , Alfred Döblin , Ernst Cassirer , Emil Ludwig , Magnus Hirschfeld (bronze bust thrown into the fire when the books were burned on May 10, 1933, re-cast in 1984 based on a preserved plaster model), Ernst Toller , Arno Holz , Wilhelm Dörpfeld (for the 1936 Olympics, Isenstein's name plaque on the bust was removed by Goebbels himself), Käthe Kollwitz (with whom he was friends).

Busts of many well-known personalities were also made in Denmark. a. Niels Bohr , Karen Blixen , Queen Margrethe II , Victor Borge , Asta Nielsen , Martin Andersen Nexø .

Other works are:

• Heine Monument from Cleveland / Ohio (portrait bust, placed in the German Cultural Garden in 1931)
• Jewish cemetery art with memorial paintings in Trondheim and Oslo
• Illustrations of books by Arno Holz
• Draft of the German Heinrich Hertz stamp in 1957

Fonts

• Art of Modeling , 1966
• Käthe Kollwitz . Schultz, Copenhagen 1949. DNB 850523486

literature

• Detlef Lorenz: The sculptor from Mahlow . On the life story of Kurt Harald Isenstein . In: Heimatjahrbuch Teltow-Fläming 2004 , Landkreis Teltow-Fläming, 2004, pp. 36–40, 5 figs.
• German Biographical Encyclopedia , Volume 5, p. 263.
• Hugo Thielen : ISENSTEIN, Kurt Harald. In: Dirk Böttcher , Klaus Mlynek, Waldemar R. Röhrbein, Hugo Thielen (eds.): Hannoversches Biographisches Lexikon . From the beginning to the present. Schlütersche, Hannover 2002, ISBN 3-87706-706-9 , p. 318; online through google books
• Hugo Thielen: Isenstein, Kurt Harald. In: Klaus Mlynek, Waldemar R. Röhrbein (eds.) U. a .: City Lexicon Hanover . From the beginning to the present. Schlütersche, Hannover 2009, ISBN 978-3-89993-662-9 , p. 318.
• Ludwig Lazarus : Kurt Harald Isenstein. In: Landeshauptstadt Hannover, press office, in cooperation with the Jewish community Hannover eV (Ed.): Leben und Schicksal. For the inauguration of the synagogue in Hanover . Richard Beek, Hannover 1963, pp. 173-175.

Web links

• Isenstein collection in Kongegaarden Museum in Korsør
• Literature by and about Kurt Harald Isenstein in the catalog of the German National Library
• Harald Isenstein Collection in the Archive of the Academy of Arts, Berlin

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Swantje Kuhfuss-Wickenheiser: The Reimann School in Berlin and London 1902-1943. A Jewish company for international art and design education up to destruction by the Hitler regime , Aachen 2009, ISBN 978-3-86858-475-2 , p. 537
2. ↑ Hugo Thielen : Isenstein, Kurt Harald. In: Hannoversches Biographisches Lexikon , p. 318; online through google books
3. ↑ Esther Elbin Family Collection. Retrieved February 6, 2020 . 
4. ↑ Esther Elbin Family Collection. Retrieved December 11, 2019 . 
5. ↑ Ludwig Lazarus: Kurt Harald Isenstein . In: Landeshauptstadt Hannover, press office, in cooperation with the Jewish community Hannover eV (Ed.): Leben und Schicksal. For the inauguration of the synagogue in Hanover . Richard Beek, Hanover 1963, p. 173 .
6. ↑ Margo Wolff Collection 1904-1990. Retrieved April 9, 2020 . 
7. ^ Database on the confiscation inventory of the "Degenerate Art" campaign. In: Research Center "Degenerate Art". FU Berlin, accessed on February 7, 2020 . 
8. ↑ Dirk Böttcher: Hannoversches Biographisches Lexikon: from the beginnings to the present . Schlütersche, 2002, ISBN 978-3-87706-706-2 ( google.de [accessed on November 14, 2019]).
9. ↑ Ludwig Lazarus: Kurt Harald Isenstein . In: Landeshauptstadt Hannover, press office, in cooperation with the Jewish community Hannover eV (Ed.): Leben und Schicksal. For the inauguration of the synagogue in Hanover . Richard Beek, Hanover 1963, p. 175 .
10. ↑ Ludwig Lazarus: Kurt Harald Isenstein . In: Landeshauptstadt Hannover, press office, in cooperation with the Jewish community Hannover eV (Ed.): Leben und Schicksal. For the inauguration of the synagogue in Hanover . Richard Beek, Hanover 1963, p. 175 .
11. ↑ Swantje Kuhfuss-Wickenheiser: The Reimann School , p. 537.
12. ^ Günter Witt: Isenstein, Harald . doi : 10.1515 / AKL_00062591 ( degruyter.com [accessed on 14 November 2019]).
13. ↑ Ludwig Lazarus: Kurt Harald Isenstein . In: Landeshauptstadt Hannover, press office, in cooperation with the Jewish community Hannover eV (Ed.): Leben und Schicksal. For the inauguration of the synagogue in Hanover . Richard Beek, Hanover 1963, p. 175 .