Mathilde Vollmoeller-Purrmann

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Mathilde Vollmoeller, photo from 1898

Mathilde Vollmoeller-Purrmann (* 18th October 1876 in Stuttgart , † 17th July 1943 in Munich ) was a German painter of modernity . From 1912 she was the wife of the painter Hans Purrmann .

life and work

Family and origin

Sabine Lepsius : Mathilde Vollmoeller , around 1900

Mathilde Vollmoeller came from a family of Protestant theologians , scientists and entrepreneurs. Her father, Kommerzienrat Robert Vollmöller (1849–1911), founded one of the largest German and European textile companies of its time and was one of the pioneers of a social market economy that placed the interests of employees on an equal footing with those of entrepreneurs. At the turn of the century, his social work was highlighted in many magazines and books. Her mother, Emilie Vollmöller , née Behr, was a committed advocate of Christian social ethics and stood for equal rights and women's emancipation . Together with her husband, she founded some exemplary social institutions in what is now Stuttgart-Vaihingen , such as the Emilienheim and the Filderhof, which still exist today as a retirement home.

Mathilde Vollmoeller had nine siblings, including the poet Karl Gustav Vollmoeller , with whom she was privately tutored at a young age, and Martha Müller, nee. Vollmöller (1883–1955), who was one of the first female high school graduates in Württemberg and the four first female students in Tübingen at the beginning of the 20th century. Her brother Hans Robert Vollmöller (1889–1917) was an aircraft pioneer and test pilot who died in 1917 on the occasion of a test flight near Berlin. Her brother Kurt Vollmöller (1890–1936) was a writer and published novels and several short stories around 1930.

Artistic development

Vollmoeller made literary and musical experiments. Finally she took painting lessons in Berlin from the portrait painter Sabine Lepsius and from Leo von König . In November 1897, when Stefan George read from his own works for the first time in the house of the painter couple Sabine and Reinhold Lepsius in Berlin, Rainer Maria Rilke and Mathilde Vollmoeller got to know each other. The correspondence between Mathilde Vollmoeller and Rainer Maria Rilke, consisting of 99 letters, which began with their move to Paris in 1906 and lasted until 1920, was published as a book. In 1904 Mathilde Vollmoeller had translated the novel Love Letters from an English Girl together with her brother Karl Gustav into German, but she remained unnamed.

Painter in Paris

Still life with paprika , Paris around 1907

In 1906 she went to Paris, rented a studio there and continued her studies with the intention of establishing a professional existence as a freelance painter, which was difficult for women in art at the time. In 1907 she showed her works in her first exhibition. She exhibited several times with great success in the Salon d'Automne and in the Salon des Indépendants in the Grand Palais in Paris. From 1908 she attended the " Académie Matisse ". Mathilde Vollmoeller was also respected among German and French artists for her language skills and her communicative nature.

Influence on Rilke

In May 1907, when Rilke traveled to Paris, the great Cézanne exhibition in the Salon d'Automne became the focus of common interest. In October, the two saw each other almost daily at the painter's pictures. During this time Rilke wrote seven large letters about Cézanne to Clara Rilke , in which he also praised how much his friend Mathilde Volmoeller taught him to see. During this time Mathilde Vollmoeller gave Rilke a portfolio with reproductions by Vincent van Gogh that she had brought from Amsterdam for a few days . She also brought these works closer to him, and in his letter to Clara Rilke of October 2, 1907, he also made it clear how beneficial it was for him to be around Mathilde Vollmoeller.

Marriage with the painter Hans Purrmann

View of yellow house, Collioure 1908/1909

In Paris she met the painter Hans Purrmann in 1908 and exerted great artistic influence on him. In 1912 Mathilde Vollmoeller and Hans Purrmann married. The two had three children, whose upbringing she devoted herself to. Nevertheless Mathilde Vollmoeller-Purrmann was artistically active in every free minute, especially during her travels. During this time she preferred the more difficult technique of watercolors instead of oil painting .

Ostseestrand Bansin , watercolor, 1916

After their honeymoon in 1912, the Purrmann family lived in Paris until 1914. The outbreak of the First World War forced her to return to Germany. From 1914 to 1916 the family lived in the "Lower Castle" of Mathilde's father Robert Vollmöller in Beilstein , after which they had their main residence in Berlin until 1935. From 1921 she spent the summers in Langenargen on Lake Constance , where she bought a fisherman's house. Hans Purrmann moved to Italy ; several trips took him there. The family lived in Rome from 1923 to 1928 and only spent the summer months on Lake Constance.

After Adolf Hitler came to power , Hans Purrmann's art was ostracized as " degenerate " on the grounds that he was a "Frenchman".

Joint escape assistance for Thomas Theodor Heine

Thomas Theodor Heine , the co-editor of Simplicissimus , attracted the wrath of the National Socialists early on with his biting articles and caricatures . In 1933 he was therefore on the Gestapo's arrest lists . Heine fled from Munich to Berlin, where the Purrmann family hid him in their apartment for a few weeks. During this time a distant relative of Mathilde Vollmoeller-Purrmann died in Graz . She traveled there and brought his passport with her. Hans Purrmann then prepared this so that Heine could travel to Czechoslovakia with it. With these courageous actions, the Purrmanns participated in the resistance against National Socialism .

In 1935 they attended Max Liebermann's funeral, which was supervised by the Gestapo, together with some painter friends .

Exile in Florence

After 1935 the couple went into exile in Italy. Friends helped Hans Purrmann to run the Villa Romana in Florence on a voluntary basis . Hans Purrmann rebuilt it with the active help of his wife. Numerous artists and art enthusiasts who had left National Socialist Germany met there , including Monika Mann , Kasimir Edschmid , Toni Stadler , Werner Gilles and Eduard Bargheer . Thanks to the help of the villa's board of directors (President was Carl Goerdeler ), the Purrmanns managed to maintain a free island of art in Florence.

death

Mathilde Vollmoeller-Purrmann died on July 17, 1943 after a long illness in Munich and was buried in Langenargen on Lake Constance. Her death led her bereaved husband into a deep crisis.

Rediscovery

Like most of the successful female artists of the time, such as Paula Modersohn-Becker and Clara Rilke-Westhoff , she was ignored or neglected by art historians. The work she has survived, which consists of around 360 oil paintings and watercolors, was rediscovered in her estate in 1999 and made known to the public through several exhibitions. The Purrmann-Haus in Speyer shows a representative excerpt from her work in a permanent exhibition. In addition, around 2500 letters and other documents are in the possession of her daughter Regina Purrmann.

Exhibitions (selection)

literature

  • Rainer Maria Rilke, Mathilde Vollmoeller: Paris is necessary. Correspondence. Published by Barbara Glauert-Hesse, Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 2001, 272 pages, ISBN 3-89244-442-0
  • Mathilde Purrmann: One year for Jürgen Wittenstein (edited by Eduard Hindelang), Museum Langenargen am Bodensee, Friedrichshafen 2001; Mathilde Vollmoeller-Purrmann made a calendar book with poems and illustrations for her nephew Jürgen Wittenstein in the 1920s. She intended to offer another copy of the children's book publishers calendar for publication.
  • Adolf Leisen, Maria Leitmeyer (editor): Catalog book for the exhibition "Mathilde Vollmoeller-Purrmann (1876-1943) - Pictures of the Life of a Painter" , with contributions by Joachim Burmeister, Christopher Kerstjens, Adolf Leisen, Maria Leitmeyer, Anne Stegat, Speyer 2001, 160 Pages, 160 color illustrations
  • Christina Klausmann: Vollmöller-Purrmann, Mathilde. In: Maria Magdalena Rückert (Ed.): Württembergische biographies including Hohenzollern personalities. Volume I. On behalf of the Commission for Historical Regional Studies in Baden-Württemberg. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-17-018500-4 , p. 287 f. ( Online )

Web links

Commons : Mathilde Vollmoeller-Purrmann  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Corinna Schneider, Melanie Stelly: Martha Vollmöller (1883-1955) . In: Equal Opportunities Office of the University of Tübingen (Hrsg.): 100 years of women's studies at the University of Tübingen 1904 - 2004 . Tübingen 2007, p. 374-375 ( handle.net ).
  2. ↑ http://www.perlentaucher.de/buch/11067.html
  3. ↑ http://www.literaturkritik.de/public/rezension.php?rez_id=4447&ausgabe=200112 Book review by Hansgeorg Schmidt-Bergmann : Fertility of nature Rainer Maria Rilke's correspondence with Mathilde Vollmoeller
  4. ^ Renate Scharffenberg: Paris does not ( Memento from May 18, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  5. ^ Rainer Maria Rilke, Mathilde Vollmoeller: Paris is necessary. Correspondence. , Edited by Barbara Glauert-Hesse, Göttingen 2001, p. 151 (October 12, 1907)
  6. ^ Rainer Maria Rilke, Mathilde Vollmoeller: Paris is necessary. Correspondence. , Edited by Barbara Glauert-Hesse, Göttingen 2001, pp. 149f
  7. ^ Renate Scharffenberg: Paris does not ( Memento from May 18, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  8. ^ A b Adolf Leisen: For the painter's 125th birthday - Purrmann and his friends. In: Palatinate Art Portal. April 10, 2005, archived from the original on October 29, 2007 ; accessed on December 30, 2014 .
  9. ^ A festival of colors: Works by the painter Mathilde Vollmoeller-Purrmann , senatspressestelle.bremen.de, April 8, 2011, accessed on May 6, 2016
personal data
SURNAME Vollmoeller-Purrmann, Mathilde
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Vollmöller, Mathilde (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter
DATE OF BIRTH October 18, 1876
PLACE OF BIRTH Stuttgart
DATE OF DEATH July 17, 1943
Place of death Munich