Max Schewe

Max Schewe (born April 6, 1896 in Duisburg ; † July 19, 1951 there ) was a German painter , draftsman and graphic artist .

Life

Max Schewe was born on April 6, 1896 in Duisburg as the son of Rector Konrad Schewe. Growing up in a family of teachers, he continued this tradition and studied art and art history at the Düsseldorf Art Academy . His main job was as a senior teacher until his death on July 19, 1951 .

His wife Gerda also came from Duisburg. The first child died in childbirth. As a result, Max Schewe undertook an extended trip with his wife through Italy in the early twenties . All of his works from this period are no longer in the family's possession. In 1926 daughter Hannelore was born in Duisburg.

The artistic focus of Max Schewe until 1941 was landscape painting and the realistic representation of industrial plants , such as B. blast furnaces or industrial complexes of the time. He also captured very detailed pictures of what was then Duisburg and the living conditions of its residents.

In 1941 his apartment in Duisburg was destroyed by bombing. He moved to Reppen near Frankfurt (Oder) . In 1942 he moved with his families to Quedlinburg in Saxony-Anhalt, where he established himself as a painter, draftsman and graphic artist. He bought a yard in neighboring Ditfurt and converted the barn into a studio . The family was able to save some pictures from his time in Quedlinburg and now has them in their possession. These pictures - oil paintings, tempera and also lithographs - are landscape pictures from the Harz Mountains of Rügen and Hiddensee . There are also pictures of the city of Quedlinburg in this estate.

In 1950 Max Schewe moved back to the west to Dithmarschen in Schleswig-Holstein . His wife and daughter followed in 1951 without any possessions. This was withheld by the "zone government" at the time. After his death in 1951, his wife and daughter went back to Duisburg. Today Max Schewe's estate is administered by his granddaughter.

Works

Workers' settlement with iron and steel works in Duisburg (oil on canvas, 60 × 50 cm)

Max Schewe was a participant in the Great Art Exhibition in Düsseldorf in Dept. II a. III for contemporary art in 1925. In the same year he exhibited the following works at the Museums-Verein, Duisburg, Tonhallenstraße as part of the Duisburg Artists exhibition :

• Rhine near Duisburg
• Koenigstrasse Duisburg
• Friedrich-Wilhelm-Platz Duisburg
• 1000 year celebration in Duisburg
• Lower Rhine landscape
• Lower Rhine farmhouses
• Torbole Lake Garda
• Lake Ledro
• Vesuvius from Posilipo
• At the Cap of Sorrento

In 1926, together with Ernst Keller, he presented some works in the Duisburg booth of the Museum Association in Tonhallenstrasse. At the beginning of 1927 a large selection of his paintings were exhibited in the Duisburg Museum Association. In 1928 he took part in the exhibition in the Museum Folkwang Art and Technology in the section "Representations of the Present - Paintings". Here presented Schewe next to Hans Baluschek , Otto Bollhagen , Max Ernst , Conrad Felix Müller , Richard Gessner , Karl Hofer , Hermann copper Schmid , Max Liebermann , Constantin Meunier , László Moholy-Nagy , Emil Nolde , Otto Pankok , Max Pechstein , Leonhard Sandrock his works :

• Railway basin , 1928
• Duisburg copper works under renovation I , 1923
• Heavy plate mill , 1928
• Wheelmiths , 1928
• Duisburg Ruhr and port estuary , 1924

Another work, which was created in 1924, is a workers 'settlement with ironworks in Duisburg and shows a typical workers' settlement in Duisburg with vegetable gardens and stables for keeping small animals. The street is not paved, parts of the dominating steelworks can be seen in the background.

In the special issue of the Hellweg books Pictures from the History of the City of Duisburg and its Surroundings (1925) Max Schewe participated with the drawing Vulkan , Blick vom Innenhafen , The Rhine Bridge near Homberg and the view of the harbor at the Schwanentor .

Museums and collections

In the cultural and city history museum of the city of Duisburg there is an untitled work (view of the Duisburg inner harbor and view of the old town), oil on canvas, Düsseldorf 1936. In the Werner Bibl collection - Promotion of art in public space Gelsenkirchen- Buer is the work shown in the article.

literature

• Dr. Mews: In the heart of the Rhenish-Westphalian industrial area (= Hellwegbücher). Diesterweg, Frankfurt / M. 1924 (title drawing by Max Schewe)
• Bernhard Zytur (arrangement): Pictures from the history of the city of Duisburg and its surroundings . Diesterweg Verlag, Frankfurt / M. 1925 (with drawings by Max Schewe)
• Max Schewe . In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General Lexicon of Fine Artists of the XX. Century. tape 4 : Q-U . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1958.
• Art and technology . Girardet, Essen 1928, pp. 74–75 (exhibition catalog Folkwang-Museum zu Essen)
• Catalog for the major art exhibition in Düsseldorf 1925 Section II a. III (contemporary art)
• Catalog for the exhibition Duisburg Artists, in the Museum Association, Tonhallenstr. 11 a, December 1925. Kunstanstalt Carl Lange Verlag, Duisburg, pp. 6, 7 and 19.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Museum Kunstpalast : Artists from the Düsseldorf School of Painting (selection, as of November 2016, PDF )