Max Clarenbach

Max Clarenbach, actually Maximilien Clarenbach (born May 19, 1880 in Neuss ; † July 9, 1952 in Wittlaer ), was a German painter of the Düsseldorf School and, as a co-founder of the Sonderbund in Düsseldorf, one of the most important representatives of Rhenish painting in the early 20th century . His nuanced painting style was mainly influenced by the French impressionists .

Childhood and studies at the Düsseldorf Art Academy

Max Clarenbach was born in Neuss, the second of six children. His father, Alfred Hugo Clarenbach, often changed jobs and never got beyond employee status; as a profession he is a businessman, clerk, clerk or clerk. Clarenbach's mother, Selma Hedwig Dorothea, née Koenen, worked as a cleaner. The family lived in poor conditions. His mother died giving birth to their last child in 1890 and two years later Clarenbach was an orphan when his father died too. From then on, Max and his siblings grew up with their maternal grandparents. In his childhood Clarenbach often painted the city in which he lived and especially the port.

Andreas Achenbach recognized the 13-year-old boy's talent early on. Clarenbach was accepted into the elementary class at the Düsseldorf Art Academy , where he was taught by Heinrich Lauenstein and Arthur Kampf . From 1893 to 1895 he studied with Gustav Wendling . In addition to his studies, he worked in his uncle's cardboard factory in order to be able to afford his painting and drawing accessories. To this end, he was promoted by the Neuss merchant Franz Hessemann from the second half of the 1990s. During his studies at the age of 15 he went on study trips to the Dutch Zealand in 1895. In 1897 he was accepted into Eugen Dücker's class, where he became a private student. In 1899, Clarenbach was the only student from the academy to take part in the 2nd Great International Watercolor Exhibition. During this time he lived in the Brands-Jupp-Lokal for two weeks. During this time he created his first watercolors of the Rhine meadows near Wittlaer. During these two weeks he enjoyed the view over the Rhine and the pastures in front of the Rhine, which became strong motifs in his works.

Beginning of his career

In 1902 he had his first big breakthrough in the Düsseldorf trade exhibition with his work The Silent Day . In the following year he was awarded the Great Gold State Medal of Austria in Vienna. After these first successful exhibitions, he finished his studies in Düsseldorf in 1903, married Alice Eitel (1880–1938) from Düsseldorf and moved to Bockum , where he worked from 1901 in the Honnenhof in the former Kampf studio . During this time, Clarenbach developed a particular affection for the landscape between Kaiserswerth and Bockum, from the Rhine inland to Kalkum and Angermund, which he often drew, painted, etched and lithographed.

Between 1903 and 1912 Clarenbach was very active in participating in the exhibition business and from 1904 he was a member of the jury for the German National Art Exhibition in Düsseldorf, from 1907 he was part of the preparatory commission.

Creation of the Sonderbund

In 1908, Clarenbach, together with former academy students Julius Bretz , August Deusser , Walter Ophey , Wilhelm Schmurr and the brothers Alfred and Otto Sohn-Rethel, organized the first exhibitions, the aim of which was to get Düsseldorf art moving, from them through the 1909 French impressionists strongly influenced Sonderbund emerged . In the Sonderbund, Clarenbach exhibited together with his Düsseldorf colleagues and French impressionists such as Monet , Van Gogh , Gauguin and Cézanne in Cologne and Düsseldorf between 1909 and 1912 . In 1915 the Sonderbund dissolved again due to disagreements and disputes between the members of the jury's board of directors.

Motives and influence

In addition to the winter motifs, which he particularly valued, Clarenbach also knew how to observe the other seasons of the year. While initially the landscape of the Lower Rhine was at the center of his work, he later also painted in the Westerwald , Bergisches Land , the Ruhr Valley , and from 1912 often in the Sauerland . Even though landscape painting always remained the focus of his work, theater, sports and street scenes followed between 1923 and 1930. Landscape motifs of the Düsseldorf administrative district characterize the murals that Max Clarenbach created before the First World War for the office of the district president in the so-called presidential palace of the Düsseldorf district government . The stays in Italy (1898) and on the Walcheren peninsula (1899) further strengthened his preference for landscape painting. As was customary for plein-air painters in Clarenbach's time, Clarenbach made frequent trips to the Netherlands from 1895 onwards. There he painted the sea and the dunes, where he was particularly fascinated by the weather and the atmosphere that it created. Clarenbach was particularly impressed by stormy thunderstorms. He orientated himself on different styles like the Hague School and from 1905 - due to his stay in Paris - the School of Barbizon . He was also influenced by Düsseldorf friends and classmates of the academy such as August Deusser, Wilhelm Schnurr, Julius Bretz and Walter Ophey. In addition, he dealt with Art Nouveau, Impressionism, Japanese woodcut, Expressionism and Fauves as well as the works of Giovanni Segantini. This resulted in Clarenbach's style, which has impressionistic and decorative aspects. Between 1923 and 1930, theater, sports and street views were added to his motifs. These new works were influenced by visits to the Düsseldorf Theaterhaus, tennis games in the Rochus Club and horse races on race tracks in Neuss and Kleve.

Participation in the First World War

In 1915 he volunteered for alternative military service as accounting officer in the military convalescent home in Krefeld. As a war painter he dealt with the consequences of the war in 1916 in Slonim, Belarus. For example, he painted abandoned trenches, destroyed houses and the destroyed landscape.

Time as a professor at the Düsseldorf Art Academy

After Eugen Dücker's death, Clarenbach taught at the Düsseldorf Art Academy from 1917 to 1945. He took over Dücker's landscape painting class and lived in the Clarenbach house since 1908 , designed by the architect Joseph Maria Olbrich on the Heckenweg (Max-Clarenbach-Weg), today's address “An der Kalvey 21”, with a view of the Rhine in Wittlaer .

In 1919 Clarenbach joined the artists 'association Malkasten and appeared there at festivals including cabaret performances, in 1929 with Rudolf Brüning , Richard Gessner , Johannes Knubel , Werner Peiner , Wilhelm Schmurr and Hans Seyppel with the artists' cabaret “Morphium Club”. In 1936 he set up a country academy for the summer semester in Kalkar. Clarenbach was a member of the German Association of Artists.

“Max Clarenbach, who [...] is above all the best heckler in the Rhineland. In other words, nobody is as quick-witted as he is in a wider circle, nobody makes such apt and irrefutable interim remarks, especially and especially when heavy and weighty cannons raise their voices. "

- Hermann von Wedderkop , The Book of Cologne, Düsseldorf, Bonn. Piper, Munich 1928.

Under the National Socialist regime

After the transfer of power of the Nazis Clare Bach was at the Great German Art Exhibition in the House of German Art represented in Munich. Index cards show that Hitler personally ensured that works by Max Clarenbach, although already accepted, were removed. He was on the list for possible dismissals from teaching and was counted among the artists who were rejected when the Düsseldorf collections were reorganized in 1937 due to his impressionist painting style.

Last years and his legacy

Max Clarenbach fell ill with cancer and died in 1952. Max Clarenbach was buried in the small cemetery in Wittlaer. After Clarenbach's death, the entire property including the house and the neighboring property was sold by his second wife, Ellen, née Becker, in order to be able to pay off the two daughters from the painter's first marriage, Inge and Melitta.

to travel

• Italy (1898)
• Holland (1899)
• Engadin, Switzerland
• France
• England
• Domestic travel:
  • Upper Bavaria
  • Baltic Sea
  • North Sea
  • Sauerland
  • Ruhr valley
  • Black Forest
  • Munich

Works (selection)

• snowy harbor (Galerie Paffrath)
• Winter landscape (Paffrath Gallery)
• Summer on the Rhine (private property)
• Silent Day (1902, Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf)
• Winter sun at Wittlaer (Galerie Paffrath)

literature

• Robert Volz: Reich manual of the German society . The handbook of personalities in words and pictures. Volume 1: A-K. German business publisher, Berlin 1930, DNB 453960286 .
• German gender book vol. 168, Limburg / Lahn 1974, pp. 177–416 Genealogy of the Clarenbach family.
• Karl Vogler: Sonderbund Düsseldorf. Its creation based on letters from August Deusser to Max Clarenbach, Galerie Paffrath, Düsseldorf 1977.
• Viola Hartwich: Max Clarenbach. A Rhenish landscape painter, LIT-Verlag, Münster 1990, ISBN 3-89473-278-4 (plus dissertation, University of Cologne 1990).
• Clarenbach, Max. In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General Lexicon of Fine Artists of the XX. Century. Second volume (EJ), EA Seemann, Leipzig 1999 (study edition). ISBN 3-363-00730-2 .
• Hans Paffrath : Max Clarenbach. 1880 Neuss - Cologne 1952, Droste-Verlag, Düsseldorf 2001, ISBN 3-7700-1134-1 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Hans Paffrath: Max Clarenbach . Ed .: Galerie Paffrath. Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 2001, p. 6, 7 .
2. ↑ Ulrike Wolff-Thomsen (Ed.): "I have to ... collect!" - The art collection of the painter friend, Wagnerian and doctor Dr. Paul Wassily (1868–1951) in Kiel. Special publications by the Society for Kiel City History, Volume 54, Verlag Ludwig, Kiel 2006, ISBN 978-3-93771-941-2 , p. 125.
3. ^ Hans Paffrath: Max Clarenbach . Ed .: Galerie Paffrath. Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 2001, p. 8, 9 .
4. ↑ ^{a b} Max Clarenbach. In: Kunsthandel Alexander Stradmann. Retrieved November 26, 2019 . 
5. ^ ^{A b} Hans Paffrath: Max Clarenbach . Ed .: Galerie Paffrath. Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 2001, p. 10, 11 .
6. ↑ Max Clarenbach. In: Galerie Paffrath. Retrieved November 26, 2019 . 
7. ^ Hans Paffrath: Max Clarenbach . Ed .: Galerie Paffrath. Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 2001, p. 11, 12 .
8. ^ Hans Paffrath: Max Clarenbach . Ed .: Galerie Paffrath. Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 2001, p. 14, 15 .
9. ↑ Telephone book Kaiserswerth 1920 .
10. ↑ Max Clarenbach's house and garden in Wittlaer , contribution to the Clarenbach house in Wittlaer's home yearbook , 2005.
11. ^ Max Clarenbach , from the Volmer Collection, accessed on October 9, 2015.
12. ↑ List of members in the archive of the website of the Künstlerbund (accessed on July 19, 2018).
13. ↑ GDK Research - Image-based research platform to the Great German Art Exhibition in Munich 1937-1944: Max Clarenbach
14. ^ Nazi archive in Munich, files give a new insight into the art business ( Memento from October 9, 2015 in the web archive archive.today ), on Art, the art magazine, issue: 11/2005
15. ^ Hans Paffrath: Max Clarenbach . Ed .: Galerie Paffrath. Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 2001, p. 17 .
16. ↑ Max Clarenbach , on alfredflechtheim.com

Web links

• Literature by and about Max Clarenbach in the catalog of the German National Library .
• Life and work of the painter Max Clarenbach .