Olga Bontjes van Beek

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Grave site of Olga Bontjes van Beek
Olga Breling dance program (1920)

Olga Bontjes van Beek (born Breling ; born August 14, 1896 in Fischerhude ; † February 12, 1995 there ) was a German dancer, sculptor and painter.

Live and act

Press reviews on Olga Breling's dance (1920)

She was born in 1896 as the youngest daughter of the painter Heinrich Breling into a family of artists. One sister was the later third wife of Otto Modersohn , Louise Modersohn-Breling . In 1913 she began her dance training at the Elizabeth Duncan School in Darmstadt . She then completed numerous tours as a dancer at home and abroad, occasionally accompanied by the pianist Walter Gieseking . As a Sent M'Ahesa student for expressive dance, she went on dance tours in 1919 and 1920 with her dance partner Jan Bontjes van Beek , whom she married in 1920. They had three children together: Cato , Mietje and Tim.

From 1925 she turned to painting and was a student of the painter Fritz Mühsam in Paris . She was friends with Bernhard Hoetger , the painter Heinrich Vogeler , Kurt Schwitters , Joachim Ringelnatz and the philosopher Theodor Lessing .

After the Second World War, she litigated the state of Lower Saxony for twelve years for the rehabilitation of her daughter Cato, who was executed as a member of the Red Orchestra in Berlin-Plötzensee in 1943, and won the trial.

She worked as a painter and sculptor until her death. Her works have been exhibited many times. Three years after her death, Sara Fruchtmann and Konstanze Radziwill made a documentary that deals with the life and work of the artist.

Helmut Schmidt , who himself owned five pictures by Olga Bontjes van Beek, took over the patronage of the retrospective "From dance to painting" in Bremen's Böttcherstraße in October 1999 . In a review for the weekly newspaper Die Zeit , which he co-edited , he recalled in 2003:

“… Olga. In their hospitable little house one breathed the air of music, painting, and ceramics. Sometimes there were other visitors who were devoted to art, including no Nazis, but people of inner freedom. For me, during the war and during the Nazi era, the horizons over the flat, wide-stretched marshland of the Wümme inland delta, but above all the Bontjes house in Bredenau, became the epitome of freedom ... "

Olga Bontjes van Beek, Still Life with Red Fruits, 1975

Exhibitions

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Filmbüro Niedersachsen: Circular 44 for the premiere of the film "A Long Life" ( Memento from October 25, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ↑ A long life - Olga Bontjes van Beek ( Memento from July 22, 2018 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ↑ Medienwerkstatt Linden: A Long Life - Olga Bontjes van Beek ( Memento from June 24, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  4. ↑ Helmut Schmidt: Resistance: Just be one person . In: The time . No. 23/2003 ( online ).
personal data
SURNAME Bontjes van Beek, Olga
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Breling, Olga (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German dancer, sculptor and painter
DATE OF BIRTH August 14, 1896
PLACE OF BIRTH Fischerhude
DATE OF DEATH February 12, 1995
Place of death Fischerhude