Martel Schwichtenberg

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Martel Schwichtenberg (actually Justine Adele Martha Schwichtenberg , born June 5, 1896 in Hanover , † July 31, 1945 in Sulzburg ) was a German painter and graphic artist .

Martel Schwichtenberg - Self-Portrait (1924)
Women at the Harvest (1922)
Two irises (between 1920 and 1930)

Life

After studying at the Düsseldorf Art Academy , in 1917 she worked for the architect Bernhard Hoetger , with whom she worked on the designs for the planned TET city of the Bahlsen-Werke . The plans were never turned into reality, but Martel Schwichtenberg stayed with Bahlsen in the years that followed and designed numerous packaging for the company's baked goods. In 1928 she designed a poster for Bahlsen's cheese waffles .

During the 1920s she incorporated artistic influences from expressionist Brücke graphics into her work. Somewhat financially secure through a permanent contract with Bahlsen, she set up her own studio in Berlin-Charlottenburg in 1920, joined the Werkbund and the revolutionary November group, gave herself the first name Martel after a well-known French brand of cognac and married fellow painter Willy Robert Huth ( * 1890; † 1977), from whom she divorced after three years. In 1929 she took part in the exhibition "The Woman of Today" organized by the Berlin Association of Women Artists. In the same year she showed her work in New York and in the following years in the major Berlin galleries. a. near Flechtheim am Lützowufer.

In early 1933 she emigrated from Germany to South Africa . Despite the geographical distance, she continued to work on a fee basis for the Bahlsenwerke, got a large order for wall paintings in the Haus des Rundfunks in Johannesburg and recorded her impressions in hundreds of watercolors. Six years later, the African dream ended in a tragic way: in 1938 a fire devastated Schwichtenberg's house and studio, along with around 400 works stored there, and during a private visit to Munich she was surprised by the outbreak of war, so that it was no longer possible to leave the country again. From then on, the painter lived in the Black Forest, lived temporarily in a sanatorium in Glotterbad, struggled with her depression and her alcohol addiction, eventually fell ill with cancer and died shortly after the end of the war.

Autobiography

Shortly before her death in 1944 Schwichtenberg wrote in running a

" Manuscript written like a telegram (under the title" My Life "), intended as a basis for a biography of Hans Hildebrandt."

Honors

  • In Hanover, in the Seelhorst district, Martel-Schwichtenberg-Straße has been named after the artist since 2009 .

literature

  • Volker Ilgen / Dirk Schindelbeck: In the beginning there was the advertising column - Illustrated German advertising history . Scientific Book Society, 2006.
  • Titus Arnu: Hermann Bahlsen , in the Made in Germany series , Ullstein book 35943, Berlin November 1999, ISBN 3-548-35943-4 ; here: p. 138
  • Hartmut Bomhoff: Martel Schwichtenberg. In: Britta Jürgs (ed.): Like a Nile bride thrown into the waves. Portraits of expressionist artists and writers. AvivA Verlag, Berlin, 2002, ISBN 3-932338-04-9 ; Pp. 39-53.
  • Corinna Heins, Anne Jäger: Women in the List / Martel Schwichtenberg, artist (1896–1945) , in: Hannoversche Geschichtsblätter , New Series Volume 60 (2006), pp. 244–247

Web links

Commons : Martel Schwichtenberg  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Titus Arnu: Hermann Bahlsen ... (see literature)
  2. ^ Bundle / estate of Schwichtenberg in the Schleswig-Holstein State Museum, Gottorf Castle , Schleswig ; Source : Reiner Meyer: The art of advertising at the Bahlsen biscuit factory in Hanover from 1889-1945, dissertation on obtaining a doctorate in philosophy at the Department of Historical and Philological Sciences at the Georg-August University in Göttingen , Münster 1999; here: p. 16 (footnote “27”): pdf-deposit
personal data
SURNAME Schwichtenberg, Martel
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schwichtenberg, Justine Adele Martha (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter and graphic artist
DATE OF BIRTH June 5, 1896
PLACE OF BIRTH Hanover
DATE OF DEATH July 31, 1945
Place of death Sulzburg