Kurt Wendler

Kurt Hans Hermann Adalbert Wendler (born June 20, 1893 in Magdeburg , † June 13, 1980 in Bad Nauheim ) was a German graphic artist , painter and photographer .

Early years (1893 to 1921)

His father Robert Wendler was a senior engineer in the railway department of Friedrich Krupp AG Grusonwerk (Magdeburg). The mother Auguste, née Koch, came from an intellectual circle. In 1909 Wendler worked as an intern at Gruson's greenhouses in Magdeburg. Between March 1911 and February 1912 he attended the horticultural school in Geisenheim ; then he began to study graphics and painting on his own. After the father's retirement, the family moved from Magdeburg to Wernigerode / Harz in 1914 . At the age of 21, Wendler became a soldier in World War I , was wounded and was awarded the EK II front fighter badge .

In August 1917 he moved again to Berlin , where he worked for a few months as a window dresser at Wertheim . In October 1917, Wendler's first exhibition took place at Erick Blydt's at Kurfürstendamm 50. In April the special exhibition "Dreams in Pictures" follows, also at E. Blydt.

It was there that Privy Councilor Philipp Rosenthal discovered him and won him over for decor designs (Indra porcelain, Asra porcelain, porcelain jewelry). The manufacturer Olgar Friedrich (company Korbkunst Hildburghausen ) won him over for designs to decorate his wicker goods, the storage areas on tea trolleys, tables and trays (padma inserts). In the same year Wendler returned to Wernigerode and showed there the exhibition "Dreams in Pictures" in the A. Tetzner Arts and Crafts House. He continued to produce decor designs for Rosenthal / Selb, for the wickerwork factory "Korbkunst Hildburghausen" and for the cardboard box factory Max. & Co. Armbruster / Hamburg-Bergedorf ("Asra luxury packs").

In 1919, the Wendler decors were presented for the first time on the "Indra porcelain" from Rosenthal during the Leipzig spring fair. Wendler took part in an exhibition in the Kunstgewerbehaus Halle (Große Steinstraße 11), among other things with the time-critical cycle "They dance over corpses". It was a fan with a representation of dancing devil figures, surrounded by chaos and rivers of blood. In the same year his mother Auguste died.

Success and Persecution (1922 to 1945)

In 1922, in Wernigerode, Wendler married Lucia Meyer, a freelance writer and journalist for a Harz daily newspaper. She should report on his artistic work. The couple moved into their own apartment in Wernigerode at Kreuzberg 20; Wendler set up his studio "Berliner Werkstätte fzaK" (for contemporary, applied art = spatial, surface, advertising and small art) there. Here he designed carpet, wallpaper and fabric samples, as well as other decors for porcelain and packaging for luxury items. In the 3rd trade fair booklet for the Leipzig Spring Fair in 1921 an excerpt from the "Fachzeitschrift für Kleinkunst, Kunsthandwerk und Keramik" (Dreika-Verlag, Weimar) appeared with several articles about Wendler and his artistic activities (biography, porcelain, graphics, luxury cardboard, Padma basket art) . In the "Tapetenzeitung" No. 16 of October 15, 1922, a special selection "Bizarre Form" from the Saxon wallpaper industry C. Wilh. Wulf (Leipzig-Plagwitz). These were six wallpaper patterns from Wendler for use in theaters, cinemas, entertainment venues and the like.

Ingeborg was born as the only daughter on August 7, 1926. Further exhibitions followed in Berlin, Hamburg, Munich and Halle. After the successful "Indra porcelain", Wendler designed the "Asra porcelain" with gold and salmon-colored motifs for Rosenthal.

In 1927 the father died in Wernigerode. Wendler moved with the family to Berlin. In November 1930, however, he separated amicably from his wife and daughter, who moved from Berlin to Aachen in 1938. He set up an apartment and a large, exotic studio in Berlin on the upper floor of Nollendorfplatz 6. The article "Kurt Wendler and his fabric paintings" by Franz Servaes was published in "Westermanns Monatsheft" from September 1927 (72nd year, pp. 101-108) . In 1928, the Wendler articles “Edle Porzellane” and “Fantastic Stage Art” were published in the Berlin monthly “Die Deutsche Elite”. From around 1929 Wendler worked as a portrait painter and photographer of the revue and stage stars and later the film stars. These included Brigitte Helm , Zarah Leander , Lil Dagover , Lydia Baarova and Heinz Rühmann . Between 1929 and 1940, over 40 posters were created in his studio for the flourishing foreign and German film industry, including for MGM , Fox , Nero , Tobis , Terra , AAFA and Deutsche Universal .

As a commercial artist he was in 1936 under the number G 1237 member of the " Reich Chamber of Fine Arts " and was there until 1939 as a photographer and poster painter. Wendler made no secret of his aversion to the totalitarian claims of the National Socialists. He supported and accommodated Jewish artist and painter colleagues such as Victor Weisz (1913–1966, suicide). This cartoonist fled to England in 1935 and drew there as "Vicky" for the most important daily newspapers against the Hitler and Stalin dictatorship, but also for daily politics and z. B. against nuclear war.

In 1941 Wendler published his first and only photo booklet with the title “The beautiful woman's face. A painter behind the camera. ”(16 pages, 17 photographs by the author). During a short hospital stay in the Karin-Göring-Stift Aachen in 1942 , Wendler was denounced by fellow patients and sentenced to 4 months imprisonment for "insidiousness". The existing court record of January 25, 1943 shows that he was employed by the UFA and headed a Berlin film theater. After serving the prison sentence in Berlin-Plötzensee , the release took place on condition that the identity papers were handed in and that the obligation to register had to be fulfilled. In January 1944, the house at Nollendorfplatz 6 in Berlin was totally destroyed by bombs. With the support of a senior employee at Philipswerke , Wendler managed to escape to Eupen in Belgium via Aachen . There he was placed under the protection of the Belgian resistance group "White Guard" until the end of the war.

Life and work after 1945

The Allied troops advancing to Germany in 1945 anticipated an arrest planned by the Gestapo in Eupen. After the end of the war, Wendler worked there as a photographer for the Allies and as a photo and picture reporter for the Eupen daily newspaper " Das Grenzecho ". He set up a photo shop in Eupen, but changed business location twice. The last photo shop (Gospertstrasse 92) with a studio was called "Starstudio". He also received numerous photo assignments from American soldiers. I created my own postcards and posters. Wendler made a significant contribution from 1945 with his photos of the Eupen "Stadtchronik". A flood in Eupen in October 1953 destroyed almost all newly created photographic and drawing documents in the photo shop and studio. At the same time, his work permit in Belgium was not renewed either, and so he tried to return to Germany.

In July 1954 he moved to Frankfurt / Main to live with his cousin Hilde Hunkel (Röderbergweg 217). Dr. After much back and forth from the compensation office, Hermann Hunkel obtained a modest unemployment benefit and a small amount of compensation as war and bomb victims for Wendler. Wendler set up a studio for advertising graphics on the outskirts of Frankfurt. The economic wonderland of Germany flourished. His first pictures in post-war Germany helped him to survive, because the earlier popularity and a few interviews on the radio were not enough. In June 1956 the company moved to Bad Vilbel . Wendler set up an exotic farmer's studio in a former butcher's and Äppelwoi store (Frankfurter Straße 90), where numerous graphic designs (including wallpapers and posters) as well as paintings were created. Some of the paintings were thematically a replacement for the objects burned in Berlin. The photographic work now took a back seat.

The Edelstein porcelain factory in Küps (Upper Franconia) brought vases, bowls and lidded boxes with modern Wendler decors on the market around 1957. In the Hessian Radio "Day Guest" in Bad Vilbel a radio interview took place on 28 February 1957 as Wendler. Topics here were: porcelain painting and technology, art through the ages, and the future development of the porcelain industry. The article "Kurt Wendler, a portrait of the shop" by Hans Dirr appeared in the monthly specialist magazine "Die Schaulade". Despite all his efforts, however, his great artistic breakthrough did not succeed.

In 1960 there was another change of residence within the city of Frankfurt (Syßmeierstrasse 23). The hustle and bustle of earlier years gave way to a quieter creative period. Wendler had kept in touch with his divorced wife Lucia, daughter Ingeborg and her stepfather over the years. Lucia Uebermuth, née Meyer, died in Wetzlar in 1960.

The eyesight of the 80-year-old decreased more and more from 1973; he could no longer paint or sketch. The daughter Ingeborg Fuhrmann furnished her father with her own apartment in Bad Neuheim (Höhenweg 22). In 1977 Wendler moved in with his daughter after a leg paralysis.

Kurt Wendler's grave is located in the Bad Nauheim municipal cemetery, to the left of the main entrance on the cemetery wall.

literature

• Kurt Wendler: The beautiful woman's face. A painter behind the camera. Bartels, Berlin 1941.
• Wilhelm Siemen (Ed.): Kurt Wendler - and women beckon forever . German Porcelain Museum, Hohenberg an der Eger 1998, ISBN 3-927793-49-3 (exhibition catalog)
• Heinz Hoever: Kurt Wendler - graphic artist, painter and photographer. In: Trödler & Sammeln , No. 211, June 1997, pp. 30-37. Gemi Verlags GmbH.
• Third trade fair booklet in Leipzig, spring 1919. (Small furniture, wicker and applied arts) Trade journal for cabaret, handicrafts and ceramics, lighting and luxury articles, Dreika-Verlag Weimar. Contribution: Kurt Wendler. Pp. 83-84; Indra porcelains. Pp. 85-89; Asra * The luxury pack. Pp. 90-92; Basket art and Parma. Pp. 93-95; Graphic and decorative work. Pp. 97-98; Padma from Kurt Wendler. P. 22.
• Franz Servaes: Kurt Wendler and his fabric paintings. In: Westermannsmonthshefte. September 1927, Volume 72, pp. 101-108.
• Porcelain cigarette cases. In: KERAMOS. 2nd year / issue 7 July 1923, p. 267.
• Paul Friedrich: Fantastic stage art. In: Die Deutsche Elite 1928. , p. 464.
• E .: Fine porcelain. In: Die Deutsche Elite 1928 , pp. 296–299.
• Sculptures made of flesh and blood. Otto Elsner Verlagsgesellschaft, Berlin 1940.
• Hans Dirr: Kurt Wendler - A Schaulade portrait. In: Die Schaulade 1957. Issue 12, p. 788 (Ed .: MA Meisenbach Bamberg).
• His decorative world is still young - Kurt Wendler for his birthday. On June 21, 1978 in a Bad Nauheim daily newspaper (AUS DER WETTERAU No. 140 p. 11).

Web links

• Literature by and about Kurt Wendler in the catalog of the German National Library
• Kurt Wendler in the Magdeburg Biographical Lexicon
• www.porzellan-selb.de
• Works by Kurt Wendler Photo collection on flickr.com