Max Merbt

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Max Merbt

Max Merbt (born February 3, 1895 in Dresden ; † April 1, 1987 there ) was a German painter and art restorer .

Life

After an apprenticeship as a decorative painter , Max Merbt began his artistic career with an apprenticeship at the Dresden School of Applied Arts . After his return from the First World War , like many other returnees, he again became a student at the Dresden Art Academy . Here he was a student of Alexander Baranowski and Richard Mebert , and he also received courses from Josef Goller, who trained him in the field of decorative elements in architecture-related art. This training had strongly encouraged his later activity in glass painting .

In 1921 he settled as a freelance artist in Dresden, where he turned to decorative painting. During this time, free artistic works were only occasionally created on the side. His solidity of craftsmanship and the sure feeling of color in his work was recognized by many other artists of his time.

During his time at the arts and crafts school, he met Otto Dix , who was only four years older and with whom he maintained friendly contact for a while. Both artists were very different in their understanding of art, while Dix, influenced by his experiences of the World War, gave his works a strongly socially critical character, it was Max Merbt's concern to show the cheerful side of life, to have a calming and ordering effect on the viewer of his works . There was agreement on ideological questions, including with Conrad Felixmüller and Pol Cassel , but different artistic views. That's why the lifelines parted with Dix.

Facade of the administration building of Groß AWG Aufbau in Dresden 1968

Merbt now concentrated fully on architecture-related art, where he developed into a recognized glass painter, among other things. He worked with architects from the Wallot School such as Max Krampe and Franke-Bertram who worked for Heinrich Tessenow . Together with Oswin Hempel he worked in what was then the Trompeterschlösschen on Dippoldiswalder Platz, and with Krampe on the former Stadtwallschlösschen on Postplatz.

In Hammerleubsdorf near Chemnitz there was a collaboration with Wilhelm Rudolph where Max Merbt carried out the wall design and Rudolph painted the doors with expressive animal figures. Unfortunately, all Dresden works were destroyed in the bombing on February 13, 1945 , during which the artist's studio with all the free paintings that had been created up to that point was also lost.

When Max Merbt returned from captivity in 1945, there was no need for extensive artistic interior design due to the political and economic situation. However, his skills and his flair for decorative color design were in great demand during the reconstruction of Dresden, and so he developed into a recognized freelance worker at the Institute for Monument Preservation in Dresden.

As early as 1956 he was working on the reconstruction of the Dresden Zwinger and in 1957 he began to support the restoration work on Pillnitz Castle (mountain palace and magnificent gondola) for many years . He restored the wallpaper in the former manor in Schirgiswalde , at the Schwind Pavilion in Kohren-Sahlis and played a key role in the restoration of the St. Benno and Cross Chapel in the Catholic Court Church in Dresden. He also supported the first restoration steps in the reconstruction of the Semperoper . One of his last projects was the restoration of the interior painting of the church in Schellerhau .

When Merbt was commissioned to design a wall for the administration building of Groß-AWG Aufbau Dresden at the end of the 1960s, after the end of the Second World War, Merbt was given the opportunity to create an architecture-related work of art. Here he chose the technique of sgraffito .

Merbt died in Dresden in 1987 and was buried in the Hellerau-Rähnitzer cemetery . The tomb has not been preserved.

Act

Fairground , 1974
Waldmax , 1976

Merbts free painting is shaped by his skills and experience as a glass painter and shows a fascinating uniformity. In a loose association of artists called the “small academy”, Merbt worked together with Wilhelm Lachnit and Kurt Schütze in Otto Dix's studio on Kesselsdorfer Straße , but they also went into the countryside together.

The Dresden art historian Fritz Löffler wrote in the exhibition catalog on the occasion of a Max-Merbt exhibition in the Galerie Kunst der Zeit 1985: “It is the work of a mature man who has clearly recognized the problems that had to be solved for him, this affects both the salary like the figure. There are no more trials and experiments for him. They belong to earlier periods. Max Merbt is no longer on the way, he has reached his goal and pursues it with wise objectivity. "

His pictures are clearly structured, Merbt attached great importance to simple forms and flat design in accordance with his design style in glass art. If you look at the pictures as photos, you will be surprised by the comparatively small formats of the originals. Löffler writes: “This is where the virtues of the experienced glass painter come to the fore, who always thinks in whole pieces and can only apply the contours in black solder. The firm contouring is also a characteristic of Merbt's pictorial world ”.

In many conversations, the artist described how important it was to him to organize the motif through simple and clear forms and to exert a calming and amusing effect on the viewer. Many of his pictures show an almost architectural order and structure. But this is only one side of his work. With the works Rummelplatz , which was painted from Otto Dix's studio window, and Gaststätte Waldmax , Merbt shows another side of his art with richly figured representations, without leaving the basic structure of his pictures. His watercolors and drawings are even more abstract and therefore more relaxed in terms of technology.

The art historian Gert Claußnitzer wrote in an article on the occasion of the artist's 100th birthday in the Sächsische Zeitung on February 3, 1995:

“Everything accidental had to be repelled so that the corporeality of things emerged in the highest purity and as elementary as possible. What Merbt achieved in his staged color encounters and color contrasts has given the decorative in painting again importance, indeed expression, and preserved the dignity of the spiritual and exquisite. Similar to Matisse, he always had his art full of balance, purity and calm in mind. It was not the demanding subjects, the oppressive and disgruntled things that were his thing, but the relaxed and tamed, the cheerful side of life. "

- Gert Claussnitzer, 1995

Works

Artistic work

  • Steamer landing in Pieschener Winkel

  • Daily ration of bread 1947

  • Watering can with sun rose 1960

  • The good shepherd 1950

Projects as a restorer for the Institute for Monument Preservation in Dresden

Exhibitions

  • 1958: IV. German Art Exhibition
  • 1964: 5th art exhibition of the Dresden district
  • 1974: IX. Art exhibition of the Dresden district
  • 1979: Xth art exhibition in the Dresden district
  • 1984: Gallery at the Elbtor in Pirna and in the Sebnitz district library
  • 1984/85: Still life Gallery West in Dresden
  • 1985: Galerie Kunst der Zeit in Dresden

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Fritz Löffler in: Max Merbt - Painting Graphics . Catalog of the exhibition in the Galerie Kunst der Zeit, Dresden 1985.
  2. ↑ Gert Claussnitzer: A harmonious picture of life . In: Saxon newspaper. 3rd February 1995.

literature

  • Gert Claussnitzer: Artist in Dresden . Henschelverlag Art and Society, Berlin 1984.
  • Max Merbt - Painting Graphics . Catalog of the exhibition in the Galerie Kunst der Zeit, Dresden 1985.
  • Gert Claußnitzer: A harmonious picture of life . In: Saxon newspaper. 3rd February 1995.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Merbt, Max
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter and art restorer
DATE OF BIRTH February 3, 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH Dresden
DATE OF DEATH April 1, 1987
Place of death Dresden