Max Brückner

This article deals with the painter Max Brückner. For the administrative officer see Max Brückner (District Administrator) ; about the actor Maximilian Brückner and the mathematician Max Brückner (mathematician) .

Memorial plaque of the Brückner family of artists at Ketschengasse 14 in Coburg

Heinrich Maximilian Brückner (born March 14, 1836 in Coburg ; † May 2, 1919 there ) was a German theater painter .

Life

Coburg, house Rodacher Strasse 11

Stage design for Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen . Götterdämmerung 1896

Valhalla , painting by Max Brückner 1896

The Max and Gotthold Brückner families rest in the Coburg cemetery

Brückner was born on March 14, 1836 in Coburg. His father Heinrich Brückner (1805-1892) was a theater painter at the Hoftheater Coburg . Max attended the Latin council school until he was 14. Although Max had the wish to become a landscape painter from an early age , he had to do an apprenticeship with a Coburg master confectioner according to his father's wishes. Only after he was able to help his father with his painting work was he allowed to train as a landscape painter with Albert Zimmermann in Munich from 1854 to 1857 . Brückner then trained in stage design in the studio of Carl Wilhelm Gropius on a scholarship from Duke Ernst II . In 1861 he fulfilled his first assignment for the Meiningen Court Theater , in 1863 he began to work at the Cologne City Theater through the mediation of Carl Brandt (1828–1881), then the most famous theater machinist at the time. From there engaged in Duke Ernst II for the court theaters in Coburg and Gotha . In 1865 he was appointed Coburg court theater painter for life, with the express permission to accept foreign assignments

In 1870 he founded his own studio in the family house at Rodacher Straße 11, in 1872 his brother Gotthold (1844–1892), who was also a talented theater painter, entered the studio, which was now called "Brückner Brothers - Atelier for Scenic Stage Design". For about 40 years, set designs from this set design workshop were sold to almost all well-known theaters in Germany. The connection to the Bayreuth Festival played a special role. In 1874 he came into contact with Richard Wagner through Carl Brandt , for whom he initially created the sets for the Ring des Nibelungen ; between 1882 and 1911, sets for all major Wagner operas were created in the Brückner workshop. As well as for many stages in Germany and abroad, for example Darmstadt, Mannheim, Wiesbaden, Hamburg, Cologne, Zurich , Petersburg and New York .

It should be mentioned that King Ludwig II of Bavaria also employed the Brückner brothers at times. At his request, in 1881 they presented him with all the sketches and models for the opera Parsifal that the set designer Paul von Joukowsky had only sketched. The brothers then received valuable rings as gifts from Ludwig II. In 1884 the order followed to produce all of the Parsifal sets for the king's separate performances.

The stage sets by the Brückner brothers were known for their historically faithful representation and achieved world fame over decades. Today you can see a large part of it in the Meiningen Theater Museum in Meiningen . Brückner's stage sets achieved a high level of awareness in the 19th century through the tour of the famous theater company Die Meininger .

Max Brückner also worked as a landscape painter. The British Royal Collection contains around 19 landscape watercolors by Max Brückner.

Since Max Brückner had no children, he appointed his student Max Kürschner to be his successor; from 1913 the company was called "Max Brückner Successor Max Kürschner - Atelier for Scenic Stage Design". In 1914 he went blind and donated his estate to the art collections of Veste Coburg . Parts of his graphic estate are in the Theater Studies Collection of the University of Cologne (TWS).

Award

• On May 25, 1909, Max Brückner was awarded "in recognition of his great merits in art" as a knight of honor in the "St. Mauritius Knighthood ”recorded in Coburg.
• In 1917, after 55 years in the service of the Hoftheater Coburg, Max Brückner was awarded the Golden Medal for Art and Science with Crown Ernst II.
• Title Councilor
• Title professor

literature

• The Ring of the Nibelung. Decoration designs by Prof. Max Brückner in Coburg. For the performance in Bayreuth 1896. Bayreuth 1896 ( gallica.bnf.fr digitized).
• Minni Maedebach: Max Brückner 1836–1919, Coburg. Landscape painter and “old master of German theater equipment”. Paintings, watercolors, drawings and models from the property of the Veste Coburg art collections. Art collections of the Veste Coburg, Coburg 1986.
• Michael Petzet: The Brückner Atelier in Coburg and the first Bayreuth “Ring” from 1876. In: Contributions to monument studies. Tilmann Breuer on his 60th birthday. Lipp, Munich 1991, ISBN 3-87490-551-9 , pp. 79-106.
• Ketschengasse ... from old and new times .2. Edition. Veste-Verlag Coburg H. Roßteuscher, Coburg 2011, pp. 158-162.
• Brückner, (Heinrich) Max . In: Rudolf Vierhaus (Ed.): German Biographical Encyclopedia (DBE) . 2., revised. and extended edition. tape 2 : Brann-Einslin . De Gruyter / KG Saur, Berlin / Boston / Munich 2005, ISBN 3-11-094656-4 , p. 115 ( google.de ).
• Manfred H. Grieb (Hrsg.): Nürnberger Künstlerlexikon . KG Saur, Munich 2007, ISBN 3-598-11763-9 , p. 189 ( Google Books ).
• Fabian Kern: Just seen. Bravo, Bravissimo. The Brückner family of theater painters from Coburg and their relationships with the Bayreuth Festival. Society for Theater History, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-924955-18-2 .
• Dankmar Trier: Brückner, Max . In: General Artist Lexicon . The visual artists of all times and peoples (AKL). Volume 14, Saur, Munich a. a. 1996, ISBN 3-598-22754-X , p. 471 f.

Web links

Commons : Max Brückner  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Max Brückner in the catalog of the German National Library
• About the stage sets in the Meininger Theatermuseum

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Bayreuth Festival, program - the performances .
2. ^ Delia Millar: The Victorian Watercolors in the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen. Volume 1. Wilson, London 1995, ISBN 0-85667-436-2 , pp. 139-141.
3. ↑ Certificate of Appointment to the Knight of Honor of the St. Mauritius Knighthood. ( Memento of the original from April 20, 2016 in the Internet Archive ; PDF) 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. - at the end of the presentation.