Kurt Seligmann (artist)

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Kurt Seligmann, Italian museum pass from 1927

Kurt Seligmann (born July 20, 1900 in Basel , † January 2, 1962 in Sugar Loaf , New York ) was a Swiss - American surrealist painter, graphic artist and writer.

Life

Basel and Geneva 1900–1929

Kurt Seligmann was born in Basel as the second child of the Jewish furniture dealer Gustav Seligmann and his wife Helene Seligmann-Guggenheim. A distant relative of the mother was the art patron Peggy Guggenheim (1898–1979). During his time as a student at the grammar school, Kurt Seligmann worked in 1917/1918 as a temporary worker in a Basel printing company as a colorist for glass projection images; even then he began to develop his own glass painting with colored inks, in which he would later master. After Kurt Seligmann had already taken private art lessons in Basel from the painters Ernst Buchner (1886–1951) and Eugen Rudolf Ammann (1882–1978), he began studying art in Geneva in 1919 at the École des Beaux-Arts . There he also met another local art student, Pierre Courthion (1902–1988), who became known as a poet, art critic and art historian and with whom he had a lifelong friendship. Another student colleague of Seligmann was Alberto Giacometti (1901–1966). In February 1920 he had to drop out of his studies to reluctantly work in his parents' furniture business. In 1927 he managed to get rid of this obligation. In 1928 he traveled to Florence , where he resumed his artistic training at the Accademia delle Arti . Threatening food poisoning, which he contracted on a trip to Naples via Rome, forced him to return to Basel at the end of 1928.

Paris 1929-1939

In February 1929, Seligmann took up quarters in the simple Hotel des Écoles in Paris. Left to his own devices, he hoped to be able to participate in current developments in Paris, the center of art. He visited various art institutes in order to catch up with current developments and to continue his education. In self-chosen, almost ascetic solitude, he worked according to models that he brought to the hotel and visited the museums of Paris, especially the Louvre , to study the famous pictures. In November 1929 he saw an exhibition with works by Jean Arps (1886–1966) in the Galerie Goemans , in December of the same year he witnessed the presentation of the pioneering work La femme 100 têtes by Max Ernst (1891–1976) in the Galerie Jeanne Bucher. . Both of these exhibitions brought about an indelible rooting of Seligmann's artistic work in the surrealist aesthetic.

In January 1930 he took courses at the Académie moderne in the class of Fernand Léger (1881–1955), which he gave up again disappointed after a few weeks. He turned away from the Parisian art industry, which consisted of many divided and fragmented groups, and tried to substantiate his artistic statements with more or less unoriginal cubist-naturalistic images. In the course of 1930, Seligmann's artistic development showed greater clarity of presentation and stylistic security, which was rooted in the intensive preoccupation with Arp's work. In October 1930, Seligmann had the opportunity to exhibit his work in the Salon des Surindépendants , and was thus able to gain initial recognition from artist colleagues. Seligmann found contact again with Courthion, who had been based in Paris since 1927, and he encouraged him to continue on the path he had chosen. At the instigation of Jeans Arp, Seligmann became a member of the Parisian artist group Abstraction-Création in early 1931 , thereby overcoming his artistic isolation. Seligmann's pictures from this period show influences from Arp and Miro and testify to Seligmann's conflict between the antifigurative doctrine, as it was advocated by the Abstraction-Création , and figurative surrealism to find its own style. This conflict culminated in Seligmann's attempt, together with the Japanese Taro Okamoto (1911–1996), to proclaim neoconcretism , which, however, was unable to assert itself as an independent movement.

In February 1932 Seligmann exhibited in the Parisian gallery Jeanne Bucher, in May 1932 various works by Seligmann were shown in Basel on the occasion of the opening of the Kunsthalle . With these exhibitions, Seligmann's artistic breakthrough was achieved. During this time Seligman became a member of the Basel Group 33 . Several exhibitions followed in France and England. At the end of 1933 / beginning of 1934 the Paris publisher Les chroniques du jour published two portfolios with etchings by Seligmann: first the Protubérances cardiaques with 15 sheets, later the folder Les vagabondes héraldiques , also with 15 sheets, each of which was assigned to a poem by Courthion. In November 1934, André Breton (1896–1966) took Seligmann, together with Hans Bellmer (1902–1975) and Richard Oelze (1900–1980), into the surrealist movement.

In 1935 further exhibitions followed in Milan, Rome and again in Paris. On November 25, 1935, Seligmann married the French Arlette Paraf, who was six years his junior and the niece of the influential art dealer Georges Wildenstein , in Paris ; Max Ernst and Jean Arp appeared as witnesses. The subsequent six-month honeymoon took the couple to New York and via San Francisco to Tahiti . In the spring, the Seligmanns traveled via Australia to Hong Kong and Shanghai , only to be received by Taro Okamoto's family in Tokyo ; In March 1936, through the mediation of his father Ippei Okamoto, Seligmann showed the pictures he had taken with him and those he took en route in the renowned Tokyo gallery, Mitze-koshi, and thus sparked great interest in the Japanese art scene. In May the couple ended their honeymoon and in October 1936 moved into their Paris domicile, house no. 1 in the "Villa Seurat".

At the now famous Exposition Internationale du Surréalisme , which opened on January 17, 1938 in the Parisian Galerie des Beaux-Arts , Seligmann was one of the most prominent artists represented after Max Ernst and Joan Miró with 13 works on display. In June 1938 the Seligmanns took a trip to Canada and Alaska . There Kurt Seligmann dealt scientifically with the totem poles of the north-west American natives of the Pacific coast, which was also reflected in an art and cultural-scientific treatise. Because of this activity, Seligmann was awarded the honorary diploma of the "Paris Society for American Studies".

On September 2, 1939, one day after the Germans invaded Poland, the Seligmanns left France to emigrate to the USA on the Île de France ocean liner . On September 9, 1939, the Seligmanns arrived in New York.

New York since 1939

During his trip to Canada in October 1938, Seligmann sought out the New York gallery owner Karl Nierendorf (1889–1947), a German art dealer who came to the USA in 1936 to examine exhibition options for himself. On September 27, 1939, two and a half weeks after the Seligmanns arrived in New York, Seligmann's first US exhibition opened in the rooms of the Nierendorf Gallery; Since Seligmann at that time had already sharply distanced himself from Salvador Dalí (1904–1989), who was recognized in the USA as a "top surrealist" because of his pro-Nazi statements, Seligmann's work was not perceived by American art critics as belonging to Surrealism.

On January 17, 1940, the fourth international surrealism exhibition opened in the Galeria de Arte in Mexico City with Seligmann's participation; in March of that year he had a solo exhibition at New York's New School for Social Research . After buying a printing press, Seligmann gave graphics lessons in New York. Meyer Schapiro (1904–1996), professor of art history at the New School, whom Seligmann met in 1939, sent students to Seligmann and recommended him for a position as an art teacher at Briarcliff Junior College, 40 km north of New York City on the Hudson River.

In May 1940, the Seligmanns were naturalized by the US immigration authorities, not least because of their solid financial situation. In the same year, the American writer Charles Henri Ford (1913-2002) became aware of Seligmann and gave him the opportunity to publish his essay Terrestrial Sun in the yearbook of the literary magazine New Directions in Pose & Poetry , which deals with the anthropocentric concept of Hermetism busy and thus touches on occult issues.

In June 1941 André Breton and André Masson (1896–1987) arrived with their families in New York. Seligmann introduced the newcomers to his gallery owner Nierendorf in order to give them the opportunity to contribute to their livelihood with their artistic work. Due to the immobility of Breton, the relationship turned out to be very difficult, and the friendship between the two had been severely disrupted since March 1943 after Seligmann had publicly corrected Breton in a discussion about the Tarot. In 1945, after Breton returned to Paris, there was a final break.

In March 1942, the Seligmanns bought a dilapidated 250-year-old farmhouse and outbuildings in Sugar Loaf, a village about 50 miles northwest of New York City. In the 1940s, Seligmann was at the peak of his art work and was considered a recognized artist in the USA. He continued to occupy himself with occult topics and wrote a book on the history of occult iconography, The Mirror of Magic , published in 1948 by Pantheon, New York .

Visit to Paris in 1949

The great response to Seligmann's book The Mirror of Magic encouraged him to accept an invitation from the Parisian gallery Maeght to exhibit in the rooms of the gallery owner Aimé Maeght (1906–1981). The Seligmanns embarked on the Queen Elizabeth in New York on February 18, 1949, and were received in Paris with mixed feelings, also caused by the conflict with Breton, who was again residing in post-war Paris. The art magazine Arts praised Seligmann as "le peintre, qui importa le totem du Musée de l'homme ...". On March 25, 1949, the opening of the Seligmann exhibition with 22 paintings, 4 glass pictures and other works took place in the Maeght Gallery. The gallery's in-house magazine, Derrière le miroir , dedicated its 19th issue to Seligmann as a publication to accompany the exhibition.

Seligmann resumed old contacts in Paris, for example with Pierre Courthion, and on April 24, 1949 also met Jean-Paul Sartre . Despite the undeniable success of Seligmann, the great rifts that arose between the successful US emigrant and the artists who stayed behind in the devastated post-war Europe, who had to deal with their traumatic experiences through war and persecution, could not be denied. Seligmann, who had been back in New York since May 1, 1949, broke away from his European roots both artistically and mentally and became part of the New York School , which wanted to stand out from European art.

1950s and early 1960s

After his return from Europe, Seligmann got into a serious health and life crisis that manifested itself in heart problems and made it necessary to give up caffeine and nicotine. The causes of the crisis were undoubtedly emotional causes, the controversies with European artists in Paris and the realization that with emigration, one had also lost one's roots and the possibility of returning to Europe. In November 1950 he exhibited his newer works at the Durlacher Bros. Gallery in New York, which were created during the crisis and which approached American abstract expressionism ; as a result, Seligmann dealt receptively with the New York School and with the art of Jackson Pollock (1912–1956).

Since 1951 Seligmann took on Schapiros teaching at the New School for Social Research , since 1953 he gave courses at the Department for Design at Brooklyn College ; on his farm in Sugar Laof he offered summer courses in graphic techniques. He continued teaching at Brooklyn College until 1961. In November 1956 Seligmann went on another trip to Paris, which he extended until May 1957; it was his last, although he booked another passage to Europe for the summer of 1958, which he had to cancel for health reasons. In March 1958, Seligmann received notice of termination for his studio on Bryant Park , which he finally gave up with a heavy heart at the end of 1959, and has only lived in Sugar Loaf since that time. On March 31, 1958, he suffered a heart attack from which he recovered after six weeks. In June 1958, however, a planned solo exhibition by Seligmann was opened in the Walker Art Center , Minneapolis, which was shown slightly modified at the Pennsylvania State University. Also in 1958, Seligmann separated from his long-time art agent Kirk Askew (1903–1974). With the support of his new agent Otto M. Gerson (1902–1962), Seligmann was given the opportunity again after five years to show his new pictures in a solo exhibition at Fine Arts Associates, Inc., of which Gerson acted as managing director.

In April 1961, Seligmann exhibited in the D'Arcy Galleries in New York, a few months after the first surrealist comprehensive exhibition in America since 1942 was shown in the same rooms, in which Seligmann was not allowed to take part at Breton instigation. The exhibition was very extensive and already had the character of a retrospective honor of Seligmann's life's work. In November 1961, a delegation from the Whitney Museum of American Art visited Seligmann in Sugar Loaf to select an image for the upcoming annual exhibition of contemporary American painting. The choice fell on Fantoche , an oil painting from 1961.

January 2nd, 1962: A mysterious death

On the morning of January 2, 1962, Seligmann stepped onto the rear terrace of his farm in the icy cold and was annoyed by the rodents that feasted on the birdseed strewn in the garden. He wanted to drive away the rodents with a 22-caliber rifle at hand, but slipped on the icy steps of the terrace and, when he fell, shot himself in the head, which penetrated above his right eye. His wife, startled by the gunshot and hurried up immediately, found her husband dead in the snow. The coroner diagnosed an accidental death; But there is also a persistent rumor that Seligmann might have staged his suicide as an accident.

post mortem

In 1991, shortly before her death in 1992, Kurt Seligmann's widow Arlette Seligmann bequeathed her husband's entire estate to the Orange County Citizens Foundation . The corporation manages Seligmann's estate and uses the 22 hectare Seligmann farm in Sugar Loaf as its headquarters. The etcher and collage artist Jonathan Talbot (* 1939) was commissioned with the restoration of Kurt Seligmann's gravure press, which is located on the property in Sugar Loaf is located.

Works

Graphics

  • Protubérances cardiaques , 1933/1934. Series of 15 etchings
  • Danse macabre , 1937. Etching
  • Maldoror , 1938. Pen and ink drawing

painting

  • Phantom of the Past , 1942.
  • Isis , 1944.
  • Initiation , 1946.
  • Game of Chance No. 2 , 1949.
  • Turquerie , 1958.
  • Leda , 1958.
  • The Pod , 1959.
  • Effervescent / Corn Spirit , 1959.
  • The Escorte , 1959.
  • Fantoche , 1961

Fonts

  • Le mât-totem de Gédem Skandísh. In: Journal de la Société des Américanistes. Vol. 31, 1939.
  • The Mirror of Magic. Pantheon Books, New York 1948. (German translation: Das Weltreich der Magie. Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, Stuttgart 1958.)

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Seligmann, Kurt
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss-American graphic artist and painter
DATE OF BIRTH 20th July 1900
PLACE OF BIRTH Basel
DATE OF DEATH 2nd January 1962
Place of death Sugar Loaf , New York