Marie von Malachowski-Nauen

Marie von Malachowski-Nauen (born May 3, 1880 in Hanover ; † October 9, 1943 in Kalkar ) was a German painter of Rhenish Expressionism and wife of the artist Heinrich Nauen . Her works include paintings, ink works, drawings and prints.

Fire lilies, around 1912

Life and artistic creation

Education; Stay in Berlin

Clara Anna Marie von Malachowski comes from an aristocratic family that had its headquarters in Kleinmachnow near Potsdam. Her training began in 1899 at Wilhelm Claudius' private art school in Dresden. In 1900 she switched to Leopold von Kalckreuth in Stuttgart, where she met the Kalckreuth master student Heinrich Nauen in 1902 . After the wedding, the young couple made a trip to Paris in 1905 and studied there for a few months at the Académie Julian . In 1906 Berlin became the first joint residence. After the tragic death of their first son Heinrich, their daughter Nora was born in 1908. Marie von Malachowski-Nauen did not appear artistically during the Berlin years.

Life at Dilborn Castle

Dilborn Castle

With the move to Dilborn Castle near Brüggen in 1911, the year of flourishing Expressionism began the most successful creative period for the artist couple Nauen. Marie von Malachowski-Nauen, equally gifted as a visual artist and musically, delighted her visitors with castle music, including Elisabeth and August Macke , Maria and Franz Marc (1911), Siddi and Erich Heckel (1914). A colorful creative period began for the painter. The First World War brought financial worries. An illness after the birth of his son Joachim in 1916 and a marital crisis put a strain on the artistic work, which did not begin again until around 1918 with pictures of the castle rentier, flower still lifes and portraits. A series of woodcuts with philosophical and religious content followed in 1922/24.

Her husband Heinrich Nauen worked as a professor at the Düsseldorf Art Academy . Since the children attended the educational reform school home school on the North Sea island of Juist , led by Martin Luserke , from 1925 onwards, Marie von Malachowski-Nauen was a little quiet in the seclusion of the Dilborn forest. In the last years of the castle she was mainly active as a portraitist : “The painter is best in her portraits, among which the children's portraits deserve an excellent place,” wrote the Gelsenkirchener Zeitung on July 1, 1928 with a view to an exhibition “M . v. Malachowski - M. Zix ”in Gelsenkirchen.

Last years in Neuss and Kalkar

With the move to Neuss in 1931 a creative crisis occurred. Only a few works were created. In 1937 Marie von Malachowski-Nauen had to accept the loss of pictures that the National Socialists called degenerate art . In 1938 the couple moved to Kalkar . Heinrich Nauen died in 1940. In 1942 her creative power blossomed for the last time, especially in the lyrical work "The Taubenturm in Kalkar under blossoming apple trees".

As a Rhenish expressionist, Marie von Malachowski-Nauen was a member of the Young Rhineland , the Düsseldorf artists' association and the Cologne GEDOK . As an artist, she signed her pictures with MvM, vM, Marie von Malachowski or Malachowski. Her art lives up to the present day mainly from the language and the historical value of her portraits of children and women; her landscapes and floral still lifes express Rhenish expressionism. She died in Kalkar on October 9, 1943. The Viersen district honored the artist couple's life's work in 2006 with a commemorative medal.

Selected Works

Bowl of apples

• Vase with nasturtiums (around 1910). Private ownership, Düsseldorf
• Fire lilies (around 1912). August Macke House , Bonn
• Child portrait of Carola Rassaert (1912). Private ownership, Gerlingen
• Path in the Park (around 1912). August Macke House, Bonn
• Gladioli in a dark vase (around 1915). Private property, Hilden
• Swallow Landscape (around 1918). Private property, Brüggen
• Pension building (in 3 versions around 1918). Among others: Galerie Remmert and Barth, Düsseldorf
• Fire lilies in a light vase (around 1919). Private ownership, Grevenbroich
• Portrait of a child by Irmgard Hackspiel (1919). Private property, Neustadt
• Portrait of a woman by Katharina Smeets (around 1920). August Macke House, Bonn
• Portrait of a child Mathilde Ix (1928). Sparkassenstiftung Krefeld. Permanent loan from the municipality of Brüggen
• Girl in a Blue Apron (1928). Municipal Museum Abteiberg , Mönchengladbach
• Still life with a newspaper and a bowl of fruit (around 1928). Katharinenhof Museum , Kranenburg
• White lilies in a yellow vase (around 1941). Private property, Kleve
• Pigeon tower in Kalkar under blossoming trees (1942). August Macke House, Bonn

Solo exhibitions

• 1998/99 August Macke House , Bonn
• 1999 Kalkar Municipal Museum
• 2003 Dilborn Castle

Literature / sources

• Fritz Malcomess: Marie Nauen von Malachowski. Life and work . Typescript. Bonn 1986
• Klara Denker-Nagels (editor): Heinrich Nauen. Retrospective . Art Museum Bonn. Wienand Verlag, Cologne 1996
• Anke Münster (Editor): Malachowski, (Clara Anna) Marie von . In: Dictionary of Women Artists (Volume 2, pp. 902-904). London and Chicago 1996
• Hildegard Reinhardt u. a .: Marie von Malachowski-Nauen. A Rhenish expressionist . August-Macke-Haus, Bonn 1998, ISBN 3-929607-26-3
• Friedr.-W. Stroucken (editor): Wasserschloß Dilborn . Brüggen municipality, Brüggen 1999
• Otto Lehmann: 20 years of art at Dilborn Castle . Dilborner Kunstblätter, Brüggen 2001
• Hildegard Reinhardt. Marie von Malachowski-Nauen. "... very busy creating beautiful pictures." In: Magdalena M. Moeller (Ed.). August Macke and the Rhenish Expressionists. Works from the Kunstmuseum Bonn and other collections . Munich 2002
• Magdalena M. Moeller: August Macke and the Rhenish Expressionists . Hirmer, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-7774-9540-9
• Otto Lehmann: Marie von Malachowski-Nauen. Gleanings . Bruggen 2003
• Klara Drenker-Nagels: In the rhythm of nature. Landscapes in Rhenish Expressionism . August-Macke-Haus, Bonn 2006
• Otto Lehmann: The wife of the Rhenish painter Nauen . In: Home book of the district of Viersen . Viersen 2007

Web links

Commons : Marie von Malachowski-Nauen  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Marie von Malachowski-Nauen in the catalog of the German National Library
• Nauen-Malachowski page with pictures
• Portrait pictures by Marie von Malachowski-Nauen