Lina von Schauroth

Lina von Schauroth (left) during the war relief service in 1914

Lina von Schauroth , b. Holzmann (born December 9, 1874 in Frankfurt am Main ; † November 6, 1970 ibid) was a German artist and craftswoman who became known to a wide public primarily for her design of glass windows and mosaics . In addition to her artistic work, she was particularly active in social and sociopolitical terms between the world wars, and later she became involved in animal welfare .

The beginning

Lina Holzmann came from the wealthy Frankfurt building contractor family Holzmann. Her father's company, Philipp Holzmann, was involved in the construction of the Baghdad Railway and the Suez Canal . The youngest daughter grew up in an environment shaped by adults and developed an intense relationship with animals at an early age. Animals should play an important role both in their artistic work and in their lives.

Lina Holzmann did not succeed in school, who, by her own admission , could not gain anything from the bloodless lessons . She had to repeat a class three times. The father explained the failure to the daughter with the lack of skills of her teachers. The girl's artistic talent was recognized by her parents, and she received her first drawing lessons from Heinrich Hasselhorst at the Städel Institute at the age of 13 . In addition to art, Lina Holzmann devoted herself to riding. The study visit to Paris, which is usual for budding artists, with studio visits and academic discussions, did not appeal to her, whose center of life remained her home town of Frankfurt throughout her life.

Marriage to Hans von Schauroth

At the age of 21, Lina Holzmann married Lieutenant Hans von Schauroth , who came from the old Prussian nobility, at her own request . This in the formerly free imperial city of Frankfurt, which had lost its status through the Prussian occupation in 1866. Lina von Schauroth accompanied her husband during his garrison stays at various stations across Germany. The couple shared a love for horses; Lina von Schauroth rode in tournaments and impressed the audience with her riding skills, which she demonstrated in the men's saddle. In 1905, their son and later Frankfurt architect Udo von Schauroth was born. Soon afterwards, Hans von Schauroth fell unhappily during a maneuver. After long stays in a sanatorium, he died in 1909. Lina von Schauroth now turned completely to art.

Advanced studies

The first study visit to expand her artistic skills took Lina von Schauroth to Munich. The artist learned new working techniques from the graphic artist, photographer and painter Emil Orlik , the poster artist, graphic artist and architect Ludwig Hohlwein and the Düsseldorf sculptor Karl Jansen . At the Bugra in Leipzig in 1914 she was responsible for furnishing the poster rooms and was again represented at the Leipzig Trade Fair in 1919. She was mainly known for her patriotic posters. From 1919 she was a member of the DWB. After his return, von Schauroth initially worked as a sculptor. In Frankfurt's main cemetery she made the tomb for her deceased husband from a granite block. Von Schauroth will expand, develop and develop her artistic abilities and skills throughout her life.

She acquired the craftsmanship to practice glass art in the early 1920s in the Treptower glass cutting workshop with August Wagner . With this skill she was perceived as an artist far beyond Frankfurt's borders. She received a variety of commissions from both church and private clients. Initially, however, poster art was in the foreground of her activity, which she, as a staunch patriot and supporter of the monarchy, placed entirely at the service of the cause she supported.

Artist, patriot, loyal to the emperor - the time of the world wars

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Cenotaph for the fallen of the First World War at the Christ Church in Oberursel, formerly for the Church of the Women's Peace

Poster about donation aid for prisoners of war by Lina von Schauroth 1915

During the First World War , the German national patriot Lina von Schauroth saw her place on the home front . On one occasion, she provided this support as the designer of posters, postcards and other printed works that supported the war operations, which, due to their massive flatness, are devoid of all the lightness of the previous Art Nouveau era. The other side of her commitment consisted of practical support for survivors of the war and prisoners, a trip in a pair to the western front, where she delivered relief supplies, the management of a soldiers' home, and a work assignment in the Bockenheim ammunition factory. In 1915 Lina drove from Schauroth to the combat area in East Prussia, making it possible to transfer the body of her slain nephew and to bury him in her native soil.

She did not accept the end of the empire. She was a co-founder of the German National People's Party (DNVP) in Frankfurt and was a member of the board there. As a supporter of the Kapp Putsch , she was sentenced to prison. She defended her position before the court with the utmost tenacity and without understanding the illegitimacy of her actions. Only an amnesty saved the artist from serving her prison sentence. Her social position, both as grande dame and artist, was not endangered by these political escapades; she received large orders in the late 20s and early 30s. Including the equipment of the ballroom in the Poelzig building , with whose builder, Hans Poelzig, she also had a private friendship. In addition, orders for the administration building of the Farbwerke Hoechst AG , numerous glass windows for church clients as well as the design of several windows in the Berlin Hohenzollern crypt.

Lina von Schauroth was also supposed to carry out some of the furnishings for the Frauenfriedenskirche , but due to the different conception of design between her and the architect Hans Herkommer , it was not carried out, an already completed column was brought to Oberursel.

Because of her German national attitude, Lina von Schauroth was a member and country leader in the Bund Königin Luise , the women's organization of the steel helmet, Bund der Frontsoldaten . When this was brought into line by the National Socialists in 1934, von Schauroth left the association.

In the 1930s, there was a turning point in their German-national attitude. As a member of GEDOK , she experienced how Jewish women artists were successively ousted from the female artists' association. She was able to observe the same in Frankfurt society, with von Schauroth maintaining constant contact with his Jewish friends. The fate of the von Weinberg family of industrialists, Carl von Weinberg, is linked to the artistic work of Schauroth in a special way. Before the art objects in the Weinberg estate were confiscated by the National Socialists, Lina von Schauroth arranged for the valuable glass windows to be removed from the house chapel and their safe storage in Limburg an der Lahn Cathedral . The artist herself supervised the installation of the windows in the old Nikolaikirche in Frankfurt in 1951. She added more glass motifs to the four windows above and below and created three new windows in the apse of the church with motifs of the four evangelists. For them it was a contribution to the rebuilding of their hometown.

On June 9, 1955, Lina von Schauroth provoked a political scandal on the occasion of the inauguration of the restored Frankfurt Kaisersaal. As an invited guest, she made a toast to the German Emperor in the presence of the Federal President. After the Second World War, Lina von Schauroth brought her socio-political commitment primarily to animal welfare.

Active animal rights activist

Animals played a central role in the artistic work of Schauroths. The motif of the first sketches she made under the guidance of her first teacher Heinrich Hasselhorst were animals. The last work, the draft for a mural, was created three years before her death: a group of horses for a riding stable. Already during the time of inflation, the then well-known artist is said to have known and fed all of the Frankfurt cab horses. Later she got involved institutionally in animal welfare. For several years she was President of the World Association for the Protection of Animals against Vivisection and sponsor of the Frankfurt Cat Protection Association at whose 1st ordinary general meeting in 1965 she was welcomed as a guest of honor. Even at an advanced age, she took part in demonstrations for animal rights, personally looked after found animals, and was friends with the animal lover and long-time director of the Frankfurt Zoological Garden, Bernhard Grzimek .

controversy

At no point in her life did Lina von Schauroth hide her extremely conservative, if not revanchist, orientation. An interpretation of her work from this point of view is out of the question because of the breadth of her work. Recently, two of her works have been discussed controversially from this very point of view: One is a large glass window originally made around 1930 for the Evangelical Michaeliskirche in Groß-Schneen / Friedland , a souvenir for the person killed in the First World War on the Suez Canal Wilhelm von dem Hagen. It shows a praying knight in armor wearing a steel helmet. The knight is surrounded by a frame made of iron crosses. The window also bears a word of Jesus as an inscription ( Joh 15,13  LUT ): Nobody can have a greater love than that he gives up his life for his friends . In the 1980s the window was removed from the church. The glorification of war contained therein was seen as unsuitable for a church building. In the meantime the work has been restored and has found its place as a historical document in the local museum of Groß-Schneen.

In the other case it is a similarly designed mural with the motif of the praying knight. It can be viewed in the Protestant valley church in Eppstein im Taunus. The work was created around 1925. The inscription is from the Lutheran Reformation song. A strong castle is borrowed from our God and says: The kingdom must remain with us . Against the theological background of the doctrine of the two kingdoms , the statement may seem unspectacular, but with regard to the artist and the motif, another reading is possible. The bitter public discussion in Eppstein in 2004/2005, which was also reported in the FAZ , did not result in any changes in the structure of the church.

Evaluation

The oeuvre of Lina von Schauroth is particularly noticeable due to the enormous variety of techniques used. The list of works compiled for the anniversary exhibition in 1984 includes around 250 works. The beginnings in poster art and the smaller printed works are often provided with contemporary Art Nouveau elements. In the course of the artistic career, the animal drawings reveal an increasing concentration on the essentials, on lines and movement. As a glass artist, Lina von Schauroth gained notoriety far beyond the Frankfurt area and here, too, the multitude of techniques that she was able to apply is striking. Many of her glass windows, as well as her house and studio, were completely destroyed by the bombing. Against this background, the ruins of the city of Frankfurt made around 1946/47 are of particular importance; they illustrate the artist's deep emotional bond with her hometown.

After losing her house and studio, Lina von Schauroth also created an old work in glass art, above all the windows in the Wiesbaden market church . Many wall mosaics were installed in Frankfurt am Main and the surrounding area in the 50s and 60s, including an ensemble of horses and bulls in the passage of the Frankfurt Zurich House . Lina von Schauroth also made animal mosaics for the cafeteria of the Limburg an der Lahn train station in 1960/64. These are no longer available today. In 1960 the Frankfurter Kunstverein presented her work. Today, Lina von Schauroth is primarily perceived as an artist and craftswoman anchored in the Frankfurt region. Many of her prints and designs of war-torn glass art are kept in the Historical Museum in Frankfurt am Main.

The artist Lina von Schauroth is inconceivable without her specific character traits. In addition to Prussian discipline and assertiveness, this also included perseverance in difficult situations. She developed her artistic skills in a goal-oriented manner after the death of her husband. Due to inflation, she lost a large part of her fortune and could no longer hold her horse. From then on she rode her bike. After the destruction of her studio and house in March 1944 and the move to a modest apartment in Frankfurt's Westend, she started all over artistically at the age of almost 70. She worked for another quarter of a century until she died in her hometown of Frankfurt on November 6, 1970 after a brief illness. Lina von Schauroth is buried in Frankfurt's main cemetery next to her husband, whose grave she had carved out of granite 60 years before her death.

Works (selection)

• Advertising card for the Frankfurt a. M., 1919
• Equipment of the Frauenfriedenskirche in Frankfurt (not executed)
• Window in the Alte Nikolaikirche in Frankfurt
• Choir window in the Wiesbaden market church
• Mosaics in the Frankfurt Zurich House
• Mosaic of the memorial at the Christ Church in Oberursel (Taunus), 1930

literature

• Gerda Breuer and Julia Meer (eds.): Women in Graphic Design . Jovis, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-86859-153-8 .
• Irma Hildebrandt: Let's take the next step . 18 Frankfurt women portraits. Diederichs, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-89631-400-9 .
• Edith Dörken: Famous Frankfurt women . Lembeck, 2008, ISBN 978-3-87476-557-2 .
• Karl Heinrich Rexroth: Old Nikolaikirche on the Römerberg, studies of the town and church history, church windows by Lina von Schauroth . Waldemar Kramer, Frankfurt am Main 1992, ISBN 3-7829-0291-2 .
• Helene von Schauroth (Ed.): Lina von Schauroth. A Frankfurt artist . Waldemar Kramer, Frankfurt am Main 1984, ISBN 3-7829-0291-2 .

Web links

Commons : Lina von Schauroth  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Lina von Schauroth, short biography at frankfurter-hauptfriedhof.de
• Biography of the German Photo Library of the Saxon State Library
• Notes on biography
• Dispute in parishes over memorial plaques for war dead
• Compromise in Eppsteiner parish in sight?

Individual evidence

1. ↑ http://www.dhm.de/ausstellungen/kkv/Kuenstlerbiographie1.htm
2. ↑ ^{a b} Frankfurt main cemetery: Lina von Schauroth
3. ↑ http://www.mutter-vom-guten-rat.de/htm/06_publikationen/gemeindeinfos/08_winter_gembrief.pdf  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
4. ↑ Doors open ... Church guide Die Alte Nikolaikirche, Römerberg, Frankfurt am Main o. J. (2012)
5. ↑ Helene von Schauroth, 1984, p. 10
6. ↑ http://www.katzenschutzverein.de/wir_machen/gruendungsgeschichte/index.html
7. ↑ http://alte-nikolaikirche.de/book/export/html/4
8. ↑ http://www.ehrenmal-oberursel.de/page3/files/Fakten_Ehrenmal.pdf  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.