Lena Maas

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Helene Minna Eleonore Maas (born April 6, 1891 in Friedrichroda , † September 12, 1978 in Coburg ) was a German painter and poet .

Live and act

Lena Maas, as she called herself since her student days, was born in Friedrichroda in 1891. Her father Reinhold Maas was a businessman, factory manager and shipowner, her grandfather a painter. In 1895 the family moved to Weimar . From 1897 to 1907 Lena Maas attended the Grand Ducal Sophienstift and then received an education in a little daughter's home in Kassel . She had to break off the art studies she began in Berlin in 1909 after a serious accident, the consequences of which continued to tie her to the bedside. From 1910 to 1919 she studied painting at the Grand Ducal Saxon University of Fine Arts in Weimar with Professors Fritz Mackensen , Walther Klemm and Max Thedy , had her own studio in Klemm's graphic department and took part in the Weimar art exhibition in the spring of 1919. After that she was a student at the Staatliches Bauhaus in Weimar. She once took part in Theo van Doesburg's De Stijl course . She was refused admission to the Bauhaus graphics workshop because of her “delicate constitution”.

In the years from 1918 onwards, Lena Maas also increasingly turned to poetry and literary work, published articles in magazines, was a co-founder of the Weimar Society in 1918 and moved in various Weimar cultures. After meeting the philosopher and anthroposophist Rudolf Steiner , she worked at the Goetheanum in Dornach near Basel until his death in 1925 . During this, a very productive time, many pictures and literary works with an anthroposophical background were created. With the English painter and art teacher Gladys Mayer (1888–1980) she also devoted herself to marionette play. Due to illness she returned to Weimar.

Lena Maas ran a marionette stage here from 1927 and, as in Dornach, worked with the composer Leopold van der Pals . She had exhibitions in Erfurt, Leipzig, Berlin, Hamburg, Basel, Freiburg and Jena, gave lectures and organized readings. In 1935 her nativity play was premiered in the city ​​church of Weimar with the music of Adolf Fecker, Kapellmeister at the German National Theater Weimar . Due to her anthroposophical attitude, the National Socialists refused to continue practicing her art. Letters from the notorious Ilse Koch played an important role against her. She was excluded from the Imperial Chamber of Fine Arts and the Imperial Literature Chamber .

After the death of her mother in 1941, Lena Maas left her hometown and moved to Rottenbach near Eisfeld , where she ran a summer resort with Margarethe Topf (1891–1987), the owner of the so-called Eichenschlösschen, and pursued her art on the side. At the end of 1944 she moved to Coburg, where she worked as a teacher at the adult education center in the post-war years . She had a studio at Falkenegg Castle for ten years and ran a summer school for young art students. She participated in the local art exhibitions - the last time at that of the Coburg Art Association in 1961. The conversion of Falkenegg Castle into a children's home brought her into existential difficulties. From 1957 onwards she lived in a city retirement home. In close quarters it was now almost impossible for her to pursue her art. Sporadically she made paintings and drawings, mainly portraits, for citizens of Coburg.

In 1978 she died in the Ernst-Faber-Haus , an old people's and nursing home run by the Diakonie . Most of her artistic work is privately owned. Her literary work, which with the exception of a few poems was never published, has been almost completely lost.

Works

  • Pictures in private ownership: Young woman (oil, 1920), guild picture of the glass guild (oil, 1952, Third German Art Exhibition, Dresden 1953), walking couple (oil), Dr. T. (coal).
  • Pictures in collections: portraits (himself, Rudolf Steiner, Gladys Mayer), untitled (3), posters (exhibition Lycemclub Basel 1926, puppet play Arlesheim)
  • Draft cover for Karl Heyer: The Miracle of Chartres , 1926.
  • Books (selection, unpublished): The Wanderer , Thurat , The Great Masters , The Poet's Earth , You, Michael , From the Meaning of Life , Spring in the City , Pentecost Hymn to Coburg .
  • Poems: About art (from the epic The Wanderer ), ... striding towards their high goals , Early Birches .

literature

  • –E–: Creative home - Lena Maas . Coburger Tageblatt , April 7, 1951.
  • Dr. Richard Wicke: The world - seen through women's eyes ... Coburger Tageblatt, No. 89, April 18, 1961, p. 5 .
  • Dr. Richard Wicke: Earthly images with a cosmic sound . Coburger Tageblatt, No. 80, April 6, 1966, p. 9 .
  • Lesch law firm: Art calendar 2018 - charcoal drawings by the Coburg artist Lena Maas . Coburg 2018.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Landesarchiv Thuringia - Main State Archive Weimar : Grand Ducal Saxon University of Fine Arts in Weimar . No. 147 and 159.
  2. ↑ Volker Wahl : The controversy about modern art in Weimar 1919. The beginning of the "Bauhaus dispute" . In: Hellmut Th. Seemann , Thorsten Valk (Ed.): Classic and Avantgarde. The Bauhaus in Weimar 1919–1925. Yearbook of the Klassik Stiftung Weimar 2009 . Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 2009, ISBN 978-3-8353-0451-2 , p. 287-303 .
  3. ^ A b Landesarchiv Thuringia - Main State Archive Weimar: State Bauhaus Weimar . No. 153 .
  4. ↑ Bernd Finkeldey (Ed.): Constructivist International Creative Working Group, 1922-1927, Utopias for a European Culture . Catalog for the exhibition in Düsseldorf, Halle / Saale, 1992, ISBN 978-3-7757-0376-5 .
  5. ↑ Lena Maas: A new book: Hermann von Boetticher , Sonnets of the returned . Weimarer Blätter: Zeitschr. d. German National Theater in Weimar, 1 (1919), p. 701-702 .
  6. ↑ Lena Maas: One more word about empathy . Weimarer Blätter: Zeitschr. d. German National Theater in Weimar, 1 (1919), p. 355-360 .
  7. ↑ Irmgard Heidler: The publisher Eugen Diederichs and his world (1896-1930) . Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden 1988, ISBN 978-3-447-04029-7 , pp. 109 .
  8. ↑ a b c d Coburg State Archives : District Court Coburg 43655, files with personal records . 1959.
  9. ↑ a b Goetheanum - Free University for Spiritual Science, Dornach (Switzerland), Art Collection, M.8737, M.8739 – M.8745.
  10. ↑ S. v. S: The Weimar Marionette Stage . Weimar Newspaper, No. 117, Weimar December 20, 1928.
  11. ↑ -n .: Lena Maas lecture evening . Allgemeine Thüringische Landeszeitung Deutschland, No. 105, Weimar April 17, 1934, p. 4 .
  12. ^ The Weimar Nativity Scene 1935 . Allgemeine Thüringische Landeszeitung Deutschland, No. 353, Weimar December 22, 1935, p. 4 .
  13. ↑ Adolf Fecker: Handwritten sheet music for “Das Weimarer Krippenspiel” by Lena Maas, set to music by Adolf Fecker. First performed in the Herderkirche in Weimar . Adolf Fecker's estate, 1935.
  14. ↑ Dr. Richard Wicke: Condensed dream images in the earthly ... Coburger Tageblatt, No 78, April 5, 1961, p. 7 .
  15. ^ Leo Frick: Coburg artists exhibit: for the 900th anniversary of the city of Coburg . Coburger Tageblatt, 1956.
  16. ^ Coburg Art Association: From the work of Coburg artists: Lena Maas, Gerda v. Freymann-Knispel , Annemarie Kirchner-Ronniger, Traute Rudolph, Aneliese Schemmel-Bäne . 2nd annual exhibition of the Coburger Kunstverein eV from April 16 to May 22, 1961.
  17. ↑ Obituary notice. Coburger Tageblatt, September 14, 1978.
  18. ↑ a b Art as a contribution to the peaceful world . Coburger Tageblatt, April 5, 1971.
  19. ↑ Lena Maas: Guild picture of the glass guild. SLUB / Deutsche Fotothek , 30122269, accessed on November 22, 2019 .
  20. ^ Karl Heyer: The miracle of Chartres . Cover design by Lena Maas. Rudolf Geering Verlag, Basel 1926, ISBN 978-3-922551-06-5 .
personal data
SURNAME Maas, Lena
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Maas, Helene Leonore Minna (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter and writer
DATE OF BIRTH April 6, 1891
PLACE OF BIRTH Friedrichroda
DATE OF DEATH September 12, 1978
Place of death Coburg