Magnus Zeller

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Magnus Zeller (born August 9, 1888 in Biesenrode , Mansfelder Gebirgskreis , † February 25, 1972 in Berlin ) was an expressionist painter and graphic artist .

Self-portrait 1926

biography

Before 1933

Beer table Kallmuenz 1935

Magnus Zeller grew up as the child of a Protestant pastor family in Biesenrode in the southern Harz region and moved with his parents to Magdeburg in 1901, before moving to Berlin from 1906. In Berlin he studied painting and sculpture with Lovis Corinth from 1908 to 1911 . In 1912 he exhibited works in Berlin for the first time. From 1915 to 1918 he was in the military. There he got to know the madness of war " from the bottom of the fire zone and from the top of the stage " (Arnold Zweig). From 1913 he was a member of the Free Secession Artists' Association and the Association of Visual Artists in Berlin and at that time already had contacts to Karl Schmidt-Rottluff and a friendship with Arnold Zweig . In 1918 he was a member of a soldiers' council of the highest army command and took part in the general assembly of the Berlin workers' and soldiers' councils on November 10, 1918.

His daughter Susanne was born on October 12, 1918.

In 1920 Zeller published the portfolios "Entrückung und Aufruhr" together with Arnold Zweig and "Revolutionszeit" about the revolutionary year 1918, which were created in the years 1917/1918. In 1921 he published book illustrations for the first time.

From 1923 to 1924 he taught at the State Art School in Tartu (Dorpat), Estonia . In 1926 he traveled to Paris to study the works of Honoré Daumier and Eugène Delacroix in particular . From 1929 Zeller participated in numerous exhibitions.

From 1924 to 1942 regular participation in the Berlin Academy exhibitions.

From 1924 to 1937 he lived in Berlin or in Blomberg / Lippe and from 1937 in Caputh .

time of the nationalsocialism

Farm girl with cows ca.1937

In 1937, Zeller's works were defamed as degenerate . In the summer of 1935 he spent almost three months in the painter's town of Kallmünz . He then stayed in Rome from autumn 1935 to 1936 at the Villa Massimo , financed by a grant. In 1937 he returned to Germany. There he was hindered in his artistic work by the city authorities because he was not allowed to buy painting material. His exhibition possibilities were not affected by this measure. From 1938 onwards, his artistic confrontation with the National Socialists took place and numerous sculptures were created, the discovery of which would have led to life-threatening persecution.

After 1945

After the end of World War II , Zeller joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), but later switched to the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED). In the years from 1946 to 1947 other exhibitions took place; in 1948 his second wife, Helga, moved to Hamburg with their son Conrad; he and his daughter Helga stayed in Caputh. In 1951 he was voted out of office as board member of the Association of Visual Artists of the GDR , the background may have been the dispute over the formalism / realism debate.

In 1962 he accepted a medal for his works of art and participation in the workers' struggles from 1918 to 1923. Until his death in 1972 Zeller participated in numerous other exhibitions.

His daughter Helga Helm gave the archive of the Akademie der Künste Berlin her father's written estate with sketchbooks, autobiographical notes and correspondence etc. a. with Klaus Richter , Karl Schmidt-Rottluff and Arnold Zweig.

In 1968 he received the Patriotic Order of Merit in silver. Magnus Zeller is an honorary citizen of Caputh.

plant

Self-portrait-1970

Zeller belongs to the second generation of Expressionists in Germany. In his early work he used cubist shapes and arranged colors in prismatic form. Due to his choice of colors with a tendency towards the uncanny and surreal, this earned Zeller the nickname ETA Hoffmann of the color around 1920 . He paints against the war with grotesques and satire. But he also looks for beauty in images of people and nature. From 1935 onwards he began to use his painting and drawing technique in time-critical themes, which manifested themselves in images against the National Socialist state, which he had to keep hidden. After 1945, his work is characterized by anti-militarist works, images of everyday life, people and animals.

Works (selection

  • Entrückung und Aufruhr (1917): Portfolio with 12 lithographs with poems by Arnold Zweig
  • Fight for the corpse of Patroclus (1917/18): watercolor
  • Lovers (1919)
  • Drinker (1920)
  • Woman in nocturnal street (1920): Etching
  • Sewing girls (1920): etching
  • People's Orator (1920)
  • Revolutionary period (1919/20): graphic cycle
  • Reading Rabbi (1920): watercolor
  • Captured (1922): watercolor
  • Hawdoloh and Zapfenstreich: Memories of the East Jewish Stage, 1916-18 (1924): Written by Sammy Gronemann , illustrated by Zeller
  • Philistine (1925)
  • Rider in a Thunderstorm (1926)
  • Angler (1926)
  • Three Hunters (1926)
  • Makeover of “BZ am Mittag” (1928) - hangs in Springer-Verlag
  • Harzbauer Worch (1935)
  • State funeral (1944/45)
  • The Sick Machine (1949)
  • Future landscape: oil painting
  • Flamingo in the jungle (1950): oil on wood
  • At the Bierstein in Munich
  • Couple at the lake: etching

Works: Confiscated Works

  • Wedding: watercolor
  • Two men: watercolor
  • Drunk man: printmaking
  • Infirmary: prints
  • War correspondent (1917/18): Print
  • Riot: prints

Works: dealing with National Socialism

Exhibitions (selection)

  • 1973: Exhibition of the late pictures in the Kreiskulturhaus Berlin-Pankow
  • 1978: Exhibition of the Socialist Art Gallery at the Potsdam District Museum on the occasion of the 90th birthday
  • 1988: Exhibition on the occasion of the 100th birthday in the Staatliche Galerie Moritzburg Halle
  • 1991: Exhibition in the community center Blomberg / Lippe
  • 1997: Exhibition in the City Museum Schwalenberg / Lippe
  • 2002: Exhibition on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of death in the Ephraim-Palais of the Stadtmuseum Berlin Foundation

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Alscher: Art Lexicon. 5th volume (see literature)
  2. ↑ "Who was who in the GDR?" Helmut Müller-Enbergs, 2006, accessed on November 1, 2019 (German).
  3. ↑ Neues Deutschland , June 21, 1968, p. 2
  4. ^ Database on the confiscation inventory of the "Degenerate Art" campaign, Research Center "Degenerate Art", FU Berlin: Database on the confiscation inventory of the "Degenerate Art" campaign. Retrieved November 14, 2019 .
  5. ↑ All of the works listed here are recorded as destroyed in the Nazi inventory.
  6. ^ Official website of the artist, supervised by Johanna Ziems. Retrieved November 28, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Zeller, Magnus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter and graphic artist
DATE OF BIRTH August 9, 1888
PLACE OF BIRTH Biesenrode , Mansfeld Mountains
DATE OF DEATH February 25, 1972
Place of death Berlin