Margit Schötschel-Gabriel

Margit Schötschel in Biesenthal with the chicken sculptures she created, November 2012

Margit Schötschel-Gabriel (artist name), real name Margit Schötschel (born March 26, 1933 in Berlin-Weißensee ; † August 21, 2017 in Biesenthal ) was a German artist who painted and worked as a sculptor .

Live and act

From parental home to finished art studies

Margit Schötschel is the daughter of the Weissensee architect Johannes Gabriel. As early as 1947, she took on practical work in agriculture to improve the family's food supply. At the age of 16 she began to study home economics. This was followed by training as a kindergarten teacher in the Central-Diakonissenhaus Bethanien , which she was able to complete in 1952 with the qualification as a kindergarten teacher. Margit Gabriel then got a job at a children's facility in Eisenach, and later in a BVG children's weekend home in Berlin-Weißensee . At the same time, she made a “proper school leaving certificate” as a prerequisite for career advancement.

She had already dealt with art autodidactically and intended to study at the Berlin-Weißensee School of Art . When she applied, she was offered a preliminary anatomy course in order to be well equipped for life drawing , which Margit Gabriel accepted. From 1954 to 1960 she studied sculpture with Heinrich Drake , Arno Mohr and Waldemar Grzimek . The first small sculptures were made under her hands as early as 1958 .

practical work

After she met and married Friedrich Schötschel , both joined the Association of Visual Artists of the GDR Berlin (VBK) at the same time . They moved to Biesenthal together in 1964 and worked there as freelance artists .

In 1969 Margit Schötschel took over the management of a lay circle for plastic design / sculpture in the then district town of Bernau . During this activity she came into contact with the Hope Valley Institutions in Lobetal and their residents. In 1979 she gave up the leadership of the circle and began to work voluntarily with the people who were housed there, mostly disabled people, in Lobetal. She founded a modeling circle for young people, which initially did not even have its own permanent work space, but which later got a tiny workshop. The circle developed into a "creative workshop", whose work soon became known beyond the institution. Margit Schötschel headed the creative workshop until 1992. In the meantime, this workshop has become an integral part of the therapy for the elderly, sick or handicapped people housed in the Lobetal Institutes. Artists have also emerged from among the participants.

In addition, Margit Schötschel has been collecting dress-up dolls made of paper and cardboard since a chance find and now has numerous collector's items. She published her research on a manufacturer of such cultural-historical objects ( Meißner & Buch ) as part of a conference.

Works (selection)

Pfauenbrunnen , Berlin

• 1975: This year Schötschel-Gabriel took part in an art competition “Animals on the Spree” organized by the VBK for the design of the social area in the new Holzmarktstrasse / Alexanderstrasse development in Berlin-Mitte .

The model of three peacocks spraying water on a fountain stele , submitted by Margit Schötschel, convinced the jury. The actual production of the plaster model, the molding and the bronze casting then lasted until 1978. The peacock fountain was inaugurated in 1979, with a fountain house next to it for its operation.

Description: Three peacock cocks on a column, one of them with set up decorative feathers (when "beating the wheel", ie courtship) and long tails stand next to each other. From the feather crowns on the heads, fine jets of water spray onto the plumage, which, when the sun is in the correct position, ensures a rainbow-colored glitter of the animal body, similar to the appearance of peacock feathers. The birds are made of bronze and stand on a 3.50 meter high natural stone fountain. Since the 2000s, the operators of a neighboring restaurant have been taking care of cleanliness and maintenance together with a local residents' initiative.

Family , Bernau

• 1970–1977: Family , a commission for the Bernau city ​​administration ;

Bronze on granite slabs: a mother, a father and a small child are sitting on a bench, each figure looking in a different direction. The work with larger-than-life figures must be completely circled in order to see it as a whole. The family complex is in the Pushkin district in Bernau.

• 1982: Commemorative plaque for the 750th anniversary of Bernau ("1232 BERNAU 1982")

Couple , Bernau

• 1982/1983: Standing couple , bronze on stone slab. The sculpture is located in the Bernauer Stadtpark at the Elysium pond near the stone gate .

• 1987: Two tarsier , in Berlin-Friedrichsfelde , in the Alfred-Brehm-Haus of the zoo , at the lower end of a banister.

Boy , Bernau

• 1980–1987: Boy , bronze, a reclining, unclothed child figure in natural size. Three casts: One was installed in the Berlin Zoo , in the Karl Förster Garden. The second casting is in the “Regine Hildebrand” retirement home in Bernau (see picture). The third cast was made into a fountain and set up in the Lankow district of Schwerin .

• 2012: Two- cent- pecking chickens , commissioned work for the Sparkasse Barnim , Biesenthal branch. Bronze, each animal about 40 centimeters high (see photo above).

• Small sculptures made of clay, tin, bronze, occasionally also made of wood

• Landscape watercolors

Exhibitions (selection)

solo

• 2003: Sculptures, drawings, collages, watercolors in Biesenthal
• 2008: Sculptures, drawings, collages, watercolors in Bernau
• 2018: The cultural office of Bernau near Berlin opened a special exhibition on March 2, 2018 in memory of Margit Schötschel-Gabriel.

Community (selection)

• 1987/1988 in the art exhibition in Dresden : family , couple
• 1989 in an exhibition of the Association of Visual Artists at the Berlin TV tower : Family
• In 1998, an exhibition of selected works by the disabled people from the Lobetal Institutions took place in the Panketal administrative building (district of Zepernick ), which Margit Schötschel had supervised. In the meantime, the exhibition could also be seen in other German cities, such as Düsseldorf , Bielefeld and Radolfzell . Even in Bordeaux , individual works by the Lobetal creatives were shown.
• In 2008 the exhibition Art is Art was opened in the Kulturbahnhof Biesenthal . It showed pictures and sculptures from the creative workshop Lobetal, which Margit Schötschel kept in the Lobetal art archive.
• Some of her works have been shown in joint art exhibitions in the following cities and countries: Gera , Frankfurt (Oder) , Fürstenwalde / Spree , Warsaw , New Delhi , United Arab Emirates and Abu Dhabi .

Publications

• The little housewife. A picture book for handicrafts. Children's book publisher Berlin 1990, ISBN 3-358-01547-5 . Texts by Margit Schötschel.
• Portraits from Lobetal. Ed. Hope Valley Institutions. 1999 (without ISBN); Photos by Margit Schötschel.

Web links

Commons : Margit Schötschel-Gabriel  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Margit Schötschel-Gabriel on bildhauerei-in-berlin.de

Individual references and sources

1. ↑ Obituary in the Märkische Oderzeitung (MOZ) , September 26, 2017.
2. ↑ "Qualification as a kindergarten teacher" is formulated in this way on the final certificate from Bethanien.
3. ↑ BildKunst Werkschau Kreative Werkstatt Lobetal ( Memento of the original from February 13, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 3.3 MB); Retrieved November 15, 2012. 
4. ^ Margit Schötschel: Dress-up dolls by Meißner & Buch , 2002, Waxmann Verlag Münster; DNB 1032062479
5. ↑ Presentation of the Pfauenbrunnen on luise-berlin.de
6. ↑ ^{a b} Information from the Bernau town hall, u. a. on the renovation of existing monuments , accessed on November 2, 2012.
7. ↑ Koboldmakis on bildhauerei-in-berlin.de ( Memento of the original from March 16, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
8. ↑ Knabe on bildhauerei-in-berlin.de ( Memento of the original from June 5, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
9. ↑ Information about the special exhibition on the works of Margit Schötschel in Bernau , accessed on December 19, 2018.
10. ↑ Therapy sessions with parlor game character. Disabled people exhibit at the Panketal office. , Märkische Oderzeitung , April 22, 1998
11. ^ Art is Art , Märkische Oderzeitung , June 13, 2008; Retrieved November 15, 2012
12. ↑ Information sheet from the Kreissparkasse Bernau (around 1992)