Leonore Vespermann

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Leonore Vespermann (born August 13, 1900 in Kiel , † April 23, 1974 in Kiel) was a German painter in the field of late expressionism and the new objectivity in Schleswig-Holstein.

Life

Youth and education

Leonore Vespermann was born as one of three children to parents Fritz and Luise Vespermann, who both worked at the Kiel shipyard and, as social democrats, were heavily involved in the workers' building association. After finishing school, Vespermann studied music as a talented violinist at the Kiel Conservatory. At the same time, she sat in at the Kiel School of Crafts and Applied Arts until 1923. In addition, she learned a civil profession as a lawyer and notary's assistant, which gave her an income with which she was able to finance her full studies at the arts and crafts school from 1923 to 1926. She received recognition for her work at an early age; In 1922, some of her works were exhibited for the first time as part of an exhibition by Schleswig-Holstein artists in the Kiel Kunsthalle. During the same period (1921/22) she received several awards for her landscape studies.

As a freelance artist until the end of the war

Werkgemeinschaft Kieler Künstler with (from left): Erwin Hinrichs , Leonore Vespermann and Hans Rickers

From 1928 she was able to regularly show her works at exhibitions. After completing her studies, she worked intensively on her painting and at the same time as an office worker in various companies. It was only from 1935 that she was able to concentrate fully on painting. Around this time she founded the watercolor group of the “Werkgemeinschaft Kieler Künstler” together with the painters Erwin Hinrichs and Hans Rickers . In 1938 Erich Duggen was added. The artists often worked together, especially on the North Sea on the Eiderstedt peninsula. They mainly used the wet-on-wet technique for watercolors . The work results were shown at joint exhibitions in Liegnitz, Kiel, Hamburg and Wilhelmshaven. The Kieler Werkgemeinschaft existed until the outbreak of war, when the men were called up for military service.

Compared to other Expressionists, Vespermann was initially only slightly restricted by the Nazi rule, was able to continue exhibiting, but had to take care to avoid "offensive" pictures at their exhibitions. In a letter shortly after the end of the war, she wrote: “In any case, I saved over 100 watercolors, most of which I have not yet exhibited, including works that I had given to our former cultural administrator, Dr. I couldn’t expect him, who described already much tamer pictures of me as degenerate ”. In 1944, her apartment in Kiel was hit in an air raid and burned out. Vespermann lost most of her work since then.

After the war and until his death in 1974

After the bombing, Vespermann initially stayed with a befriended family in Bovenau near Kiel. In a letter to her friend, painter Erwin Hinrichs, she describes her situation: “[I] don't paint at all at the moment because I don't have a heated room. I don't have a stretcher frame or canvas for oil painting, I still have 2 frames ... But the question of paper is catastrophic. There hasn't been anything in this area for years… ”It wasn't until 1952 that she was able to move into her own apartment again in Kiel.

Despite the difficult situation, Vespermann was able to exhibit again in 1946. The list of her exhibitions and participation in exhibitions includes around 150 mentions, around 2/3 of them in the post-war period.

From 1952 to 1965, the Schleswig-Holstein State Women's Council organized a so-called women's exhibition for the state's female artists. Vespermann was involved as a member of the exhibition board of trustees and was also involved with his own works. In addition, she was represented as an exhibitor of her own work and as a juror at the “Landesschauen” held annually by Schleswig-Holstein artists.

The last exhibition during her lifetime - a first retrospective of her work - took place on the occasion of her 70th birthday in 1970 in the Schleswig-Holstein State Library in Kiel. Around this time she became seriously ill with Parkinson's disease and died in Kiel in 1974. A large retrospective of her work was shown in 1990, also in Kiel, Schleswig-Holstein State Library. A large part of her estate is also located there.

Works

Vespermann found her motifs mainly in the coastal and moorland landscapes of Schleswig-Holstein, but also in the Harz, in Vorarlberg and other areas. She often emphasized the contour line in her multiple attempts to capture the wet, overcast and somewhat cloudy natural mood of northern Germany. In doing so, she was “concerned with the painterly illusionary enhancement of the impression of nature” without transfiguring nature. In terms of style, the art historian Bärbel Manitz sees Vespermann's work as a “skilful combination of slightly abstract objectivity with elements of a moderate expressionism”. There is also "a cooling overtone of new objectivity".

After the war, the painter also took up the emergency issues of the time with sheets such as “University ruins” or “Nikolaikirche”. It is noticeable that these pictures are always deserted. In the later years Vespermann was not unaffected by the art development of the time; in the opinion of the art historian Bärbel Manitz she stood u. a. clearly also under the influence of Fauvism .

literature

  • Bärbel Manitz: Leonore Vespermann. An artist between times. With a directory of watercolors and oil paintings . Westholsteinische Verlagsgesellschaft Boysen & Co., Heide in Holstein 1992, 216 pages, ISBN 3-8042-0559-3 .
  • Wilhelm Wessling: Erwin Hinrichs. Painting against the times. An artist's life in Schleswig-Holstein against the background of political and art-historical upheavals in the 20th century . Husum Verlag, Husum 1996, 112 pages, ISBN 3-88042-790-9 .
  • Ulrich Schulte-Wülwer: Leonore Vespermann . In: same: Kiel artist. Volume 3: In the Weimar Republic and National Socialism 1918-945 (special publications by the Society for Kiel City History; 88), Heide: Boyens 2019, ISBN 978-3-8042-1493-4 , pp. 401-405.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Letter from Leonore Vespermann to Walter Passarge dated December 27, 1945, reproduced by Bärbel Manitz: Leonore Vespermann , p. 28
  2. ^ Letter from Leonore Vespermann to Erwin Hinrichs from January 1, 1947, quoted from Wilhelm Wessling: Erwin Hinrichs , p. 47
  3. ↑ For a complete list of exhibitions and participations in exhibitions by Leonore Vespermann, see Bärbel Manitz: Leonore Vespermann . Pp. 212-214
  4. ^ A review in the Schleswig-Holsteinische Volkszeitung 1953, quoted in Bärbel Manitz: Leonore Vespermann , p. 12
  5. ↑ Bärbel Manitz: Leonore Vespermann , p. 17
  6. ↑ Bärbel Manitz: Leonore Vespermann , p. 32
personal data
SURNAME Vespermann, Leonore
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Late expressionist painter
DATE OF BIRTH August 13, 1900
PLACE OF BIRTH Kiel
DATE OF DEATH April 23, 1974
Place of death Kiel