Martin Mendgen

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Martin Mendgen: Self-Portrait, 1929, oil on canvas, 66.2 × 54.4 cm, City Museum Simeonstift Trier, Inv. No. III 1472.
Martin Mendgen: "Miss GF (Chicago)", 1930, oil on canvas, 100 × 80.5 cm, Stadtmuseum Simeonstift Trier, inv. No. III 1478.
Martin Mendgen: Still life with men's clothing, 1932, oil on plywood, 82.5 × 63 cm, Stadtmuseum Simeonstift Trier, inv. No. III 1470.
Martin Mendgen: Portrait of Friedrich Spee, 1938, oil on canvas, 130 × 90 cm, City Museum Simeonstift Trier, Inv. No. III 1298.
Martin Mendgen: Africa fighters, drawing 1942. Press illustration in: Moselland, Kulturpolitische Blätter, Luxemburg, January - March 1943 edition.
Martin Mendgen: The interrogation, undated (around 1946–50), oil on hardboard, 54.5 × 51 cm, Stadtmuseum Simeonstift Trier, inv. No. III 1474.
Martin Mendgen: "Horse Moselle" in Trier, 1956, oil on canvas, 50 × 66.5 cm, City Museum Simeonstift Trier, inv. No. III 1466.

Martin Mendgen (born January 12, 1893 in Trier ; † February 18, 1970 there ) was a German painter and art teacher.

Live and act

Origin and education

Martin Mendgen grew up as the son of the independent master carpenter Johann Mendgen and his wife Johanna geb. Fendel in a well-off Trier family of craftsmen. After attending school, he also completed an apprenticeship as a painter and varnisher and passed the journeyman's examination in 1911. This was followed by basic training at the crafts and arts and crafts school in Trier, before he was accepted into the painting class of the state art academy in Düsseldorf in April 1914 . After an interruption due to the war - he had signed up as a volunteer - he returned to Düsseldorf in 1918 and studied there with Professors Willy Spatz , Eduard von Gebhardt and Franz Kiederich until autumn 1920 . He then enrolled for two semesters (1920/1921) at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich , "Malschule Hengeler".

Wandering years

Mendgen's return to Trier only lasted a short time despite considerable exhibition success. As early as 1922 he embarked on an extended stay abroad to Southern and Eastern Europe, which he financed with occasional work in the artistic or craft sector. He finally came to Romania via Italy and Greece and settled in the city of Medias in 1923 . Until the beginning of 1928 he worked there as a freelance painter, giving drawing lessons to private students and, on a temporary basis, at the local lyceum . However, there is only sparse information about the works he created during this period. At the beginning of 1928 Mendgen ended his years of traveling with a three-month study trip to Paris . He finally settled in Trier and married Marianne geb. Simon.

New Objectivity

From the summer semester of 1930 Mendgen worked as a part-time teacher at the Crafts and Applied Arts School in Trier. In the same year he became a founding member of the society “Visual Artists and Art Friends in the Trier District” and presented a total of 17 portraits and still lifes at their first exhibition in the casino . They showed him as a representative of the New Objectivity , an art movement of the Weimar Republic that had turned away from the authoritative positions of the avant-garde , especially Expressionism , and devoted itself to the representation of a new objectivity.

Mendgen also paid homage to the “isolating view of things” on which modern iconography is based. His profound training in painting techniques of the old masters in Düsseldorf and the encounter with the progressive circle of artists of the “new-object” such as Alexander Kanoldt , Georg Schrimpf or Carlo Mense in Munich were the pioneering prerequisites for this. Within a few years he created a series of works that far surpassed his later works in terms of artistic quality and expressiveness. At the beginning there was his extremely sharp self-portrait in three-quarter profile , from which the tobacco pipe protrudes like a spacer.

Painted cool and flawless against an “empty” background, his large-figured portraits of elegant young women from 1930 were presented, including the portrait of a “Miss GF (Chicago)” in a fashionable ensemble of green costume and cap. The "rubber trees", the ingeniously arranged and hyperprecisely painted still lifes with potted plants and jugs, which became the trademark of New Objectivity, were also among Mendgen's preferred motifs. An independent composition was his "Still Life with Men's Clothes" from 1932, which, with the tricks of isolation and formalization, spread a middle-class men's outfit on a chair (jacket with badges of honor, cylinder, button-on collar, bow tie, "roll cuffs" and gloves).

Working in the Nazi regime

After the so-called seizure of power in 1933, the “New Objectives”, especially their classicist wing, to which Mendgen also belonged, were subject to an increased risk of being appropriated by the National Socialists and their art doctrine. Mendgen's way is also an example of this entanglement. In 1934 he was accepted into the Trier district group of the Reich Association of Fine Artists of Germany / Reichskartell der bildenden Künste, 1935 block leader , 1937 member of the NSDAP and from October 1939 deputy local propaganda leader.

He now switched to portrait painting, representative of the old masters, which brought him great success. Established fellow citizens, but also party and armed forces prominence, including Gauleiter Gustav Simon with son, commissioned his portraits. In 1938 the city of Trier also ordered a portrait of the Jesuit Friedrich Spee von Langenfeld, who died here around 350 years ago , for which an oil painting from the 17th century was to serve as a template. In contrast to the copy made by Mendgen on site in Cologne, a colored pencil study, its execution as an oil painting turned out to be statuesque: With the mannered writing gesture, the wide field of names and coats of arms and the "superimposed-looking background motif of the Jesuit College Trier", it became the exceptional personality Spees as a fighter against the witchcraft madness and the Inquisition as well as an important Baroque poet hardly do justice; the painting only filled a locally patriotic gap.

From the beginning of the war in 1939 at the latest, Mendgen took part in the party's offensive German-speaking culture propaganda in occupied Luxembourg and southern Belgium. On behalf of the President of the Rhine Province in 1941/1942 he drew “Moselle Franconian Heads”, “Volksdeutsche Hitlerjugend from Lützelburg” and landscape views, which were published in the press and as book illustrations as well as his heroic and highly praised "Africa fighter". The 71 works that the painter offered to the Trier City Museum to serve as exhibits for the 1942 Christmas exhibition, which was also a special show on his 50th birthday, included mostly relevant motifs.

Mendgen also successfully took part in the other exhibitions, all of which were politically controlled and organized by the city of Trier, the Gau Moselland cultural association or the so-called Kunsthaus Luxemburg during the Nazi dictatorship until almost the end of the Second World War; for example at the most complex undertaking, the “Art Exhibition Moselland” with stops in Berlin, Poznan and Wroclaw. Released from military service and labor services, the painter also advanced to the Trier School of Applied Arts, which is now the master school of German craftsmanship : Mendgen was permanently employed in 1939, gave additional art lessons at the Trier City College until 1941 and was appointed as a teacher in 1943 with an extraordinary reduction in the withdrawal period appoint the civil servant relationship for life.

Post-war and late work

In 1946 Mendgen was dismissed from school because of his political stress. He vehemently resisted this measure and saw himself in the role of a victim, as underscored by numerous submissions as well as his undated painting with the titles “The interrogation” or “Memory of an incident”. In the arbitration chamber proceedings in the context of denazification, he was finally classified as a “fellow traveler”, but not reactivated and in 1950 he was retired due to permanent incapacity. However, from 1955 to 1958 he gave painting and drawing lessons at the Pedagogical Academy in Trier.

Artistically, Mendgen continued his technically sophisticated, but conventionally conventional way of painting in a subdued color scheme, occasionally with a somewhat relaxed brushwork. With repetitions of his neo-objective still lifes, with portraits and views of Trier, such as the painting “Horse Moselle”, or with his Eifel landscapes, he continued to find resonance with a conservative audience who shared his rejection of contemporary art movements. The re-established Society of Fine Artists and Art Friends Trier, whose annual exhibitions he sent again from 1950, organized a special exhibition with a catalog and over 100 exhibits for him on his 65th birthday in 1959. Extensive appreciations were also published posthumously on his 100th birthday in 1993.

Factory locations

The Simeonstift Trier City Museum houses a substantial collection of oil paintings and drawings by the artist, partly from direct acquisition by the artist himself, partly from purchases from the extensive estate kept by a daughter of the painter. Many of Mendgen's works have also become scattered private collections, as the numerous portrait commissions and the loaned items for the anniversary exhibition in 1959 show. The Lippstadt City Archives have six “Fifty Pfennig” emergency notes from the city of Saarburg 1920/1921, designed by Mendgen with various motifs and printed by the Parcus publishing house in Munich.

literature

  • Franz Roh: Post-Expressionism. Leipzig 1925.
  • RL = Richard Laufner: Martin Mendgen on his 65th birthday. In: Catalog of the exhibition: painter Martin Mendgen - sculptor Toni Christmann. Society of fine artists and art lovers Trier e. V. in the Museum of the City of Trier in the Simeonstift, May 10th - 31st, 1959. unpaginated.
  • Wolfgang Storch: Georg Schrimpf and Maria Uhden, life and work. Berlin 1985.
  • Sergiusz Michalski: New Objectivity. Painting, graphics and photography in Germany 1919–1933. Cologne 1992.
  • Barbara Eschenburg: Georg Schrimpf - Oskar Maria Graf, 1918. Lenbachhaus Munich (Kulturstiftung der Länder, issue 48), Munich 1992.
  • Dorothe Trouet / Gunther Franz: Martin Mendgen on the 100th birthday. In: New Trierisches Jahrbuch , 1993, pp. 207–217.
  • Manfred Fath: New Objectivity. Mannheimer Museumhefte 1, Speyer undated (1994).
  • Bärbel Schulte (Hrsg.): "For the refinement of forms and taste education" - the Werkkunstschule Trier. Catalog manual for the exhibition of the same name in the Städtisches Museum Simeonstift Trier from May 25 to October 31, 2003. In it (without author's details): Biographical directory of the teachers at the Werkkunstschule Trier 1900–1971. Pp. 417-418.
  • Elisabeth Dühr, Christiane Häslein, Frank G. Hirschmann, Christl Lehnert-Leven (eds.): A picture gallery for Trier - selection catalog from the holdings of the City Museum Simeonstift Trier. Trier 2008.
  • Thomas Schnitzler: Demonstrated: cultural propaganda in the Gau Moselland. The instrumentalization of the fine arts, literature and sport in the war years 1939–1944. In: Kurtrierisches Jahrbuch , Volume 49, 2009, pp. 307-354 (Part 1) and Kurtrierisches Jahrbuch, Volume 50, 2010, pp. 337-371 (Part 2).
  • Rainer Stamm (ed.): The second departure into modernity: Expressionism - Bauhaus - New Objectivity. Catalog of the exhibition in the State Museum for Art and Cultural History Oldenburg, September 25, 2011 to January 29, 2012. Bielefeld / Leipzig / Berlin 2011.
  • Catherine Lorent: The National Socialist Art and Cultural Policy in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg 1934–1944. Trier 2012. In particular, data attachment pp. 381–386.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Personnel file Martin Mendgen, personnel sheet, Trier City Archives Tb12 / 3518, Volume I.
  2. ^ Certificates of study from the State Art Academy in Düsseldorf dated April 13, 1938 and the Munich Art Academy dated April 23, 1938, personal files.
  3. ^ Exhibition Trier Art Week from 19 to 26 September 1920; Wilhelm Blatt: Heimatkunst in the 1st exhibition of the Trier artists' guild. In: Kur-Trier 1920, No. 6, pp. 89-91.
  4. ↑ Personal files , p. 6, with a work overview written by Mendgen, probably 1942; Letter from son Hans Mendgen dated March 7, 1996 with attachments, archive Stadtmuseum Simeonstift Trier.
  5. ↑ Catalog: Art exhibition in the casino, November 30 to December 14, 1930, organized by the Society of Fine Artists and Art Friends in the Trier district. Trier 1930, pp. 17, 27 (ill.) And 35.
  6. ↑ Sergiusz Michalski: New Objectivity. Painting, graphics and photography in Germany 1919–1933. Cologne 1992, pp. 158-179.
  7. ^ Paul Mauder: Trier painting - Trier painter groups and Trier painters. In: Trierische Heimat , 7th year 1931, pp. 97–99 and pp. 117–121. (On the occasion of a studio visit in 1931, the author describes Mendgen as cool and aloof.)
  8. ↑ The catalog of the exhibition, as, for example, listed the title: rubber tree , Room Linde , vegetable still life and the four Still Life with Jug , with pot , with cacti and fruit on.
  9. ↑ Manfred Fath: New Objectivity. Mannheimer Museumshefte 1, Speyer o. J. (1994), p. 18.
  10. ↑ Personal files Mendgen, pp. 34, 109 f .: Painter's own information; Federal archive, NSDAP jugglery index: information from May 18, 2001.
  11. ↑ Mendgen personnel file, overview of works, as above; Thomas Schnitzler: Demonstrated (like Lit. Verz.), Here Part 1, p. 323.
  12. ↑ The portrait of Spees from the 17th century is owned by the Cologne High School and Foundation Fund. Gunther Franz (ed.): Friedrich Spee, poet, pastor, fighter of the witch madness - Kaiserswerth 1591-Trier 1635. Catalog of the exhibition on Spees 400th birthday in Düsseldorf 1991. Trier 1991, pp. 17-22.
  13. ^ Michael Embach: Two new contributions to the Spee iconography. A study by Martin Mendgens and a calligraphy by Armin Dorf. In: Spee-Jahrbuch , 1st year 1994, pp. 177-189. On-line
  14. ↑ Images in the party-controlled magazine: Moselland - Kulturpolitische Monatshefte (or sheets ). Luxembourg 1941–1944: year 1941, issue 5 (July – September), after page 22; Year 1942, July – September edition, after p. 16; Born in 1943, January – March edition, after p. 20 - with a review by A. Kupferschmidt, p. 4–7. According to the Mendgen personnel file, further publications were made in the “Areler Volkszeitung” and the “Frontzeitung Blücher”; in the "Rheinische Blätter" and as songbook illustrations.
  15. ↑ Handwritten list by the painter: "My work in the Christmas exhibition 1942 Trier Museum"; Letter to museum director Walter Dieck dated December 4, 1942; Handwritten compilation of the “Consignment to the Christmas Exhibition Trier 1943”: portraits of three knight's cross bearers, portrait of Trier councilor Wilhelm Rautenstrauch (1943), “gemstone cutters” and three drawings by Eifel farmers. City archive Trier, autograph collection. Matthias Sastges: Christmas exhibition Trier artists - special show of 50-year-old Martin Mendgen. National Journal of December 18, 1942, archive of the City Museum Simeonstift Trier.
  16. ↑ The catalogs of the traveling art exhibition “Moselland” list 7 exhibits by the painter for the Berlin-Schönhausen Palace station (September / October 1941) and 5 exhibits for the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum in Posen (March / April 1942). On these war exhibitions cf. Christl Lehnert-Leven: Alexander Mohr - The painter with the wing shoes. Trier 1996, pp. 317-321.
  17. ↑ Mendgen personnel file, as above, p. 107 ff.
  18. ^ Archives in North Rhine-Westphalia, Lippstadt City Archives , Archives Collections S NP Numismatics and Philately, N 1168 - N 1173.
personal data
SURNAME Mendgen, Martin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter and art teacher
DATE OF BIRTH January 12, 1893
PLACE OF BIRTH trier
DATE OF DEATH 18th February 1970
Place of death trier