Oscar reins

Oscar Zügel (born October 18, 1892 in Murrhardt , † March 5, 1968 in Tossa de Mar , Spain ) was a German painter, opponent and persecuted by the Nazi regime and later by the Spanish fascists. His works are assigned to the New Objectivity . Oscar Zügel was a great-nephew of the Murrhardt impressionist Heinrich von Zügel .

Life

Oscar Zügel was born the son of Mayor Heinrich Zügel in Murrhardt. Zügel initially completed an apprenticeship as a carpenter at his parents' request, but at the same time began drawing and painting, encouraged by his great-uncle Heinrich von Zügel. Oscar Zügel began training in 1914 at the Stuttgart School of Applied Arts , where Bernhard Pankok was his teacher. Interrupted by his time as a soldier, he continued his training at the Stuttgart School of Applied Arts from 1919 to 1922. Zügel then worked as a freelance artist in Stuttgart . His work developed from the New Objectivity to abstraction , with which increasingly time-critical topics became the content of the picture.

On March 5, 1933, the Nazis closed the exhibition Signs and Pictures in the Folkwang Museum in Essen and removed all of Zügel's works. A short time later, a planned retrospective was canceled, his studio was searched and pictures that were to be burned in the courtyard of the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart were confiscated .

The denunciation of his work and his person caused Zügel to flee to Tossa de Mar, Spain, on July 25, 1934 . In the artist colony of the international avant-garde that had existed there since the 1920s , Zügel quickly found connections and artistically flourished. When mistrust of German exiles increased with the Spanish Civil War and the Franco-Hitler alliance, it became necessary to flee again. He and his family briefly returned to Germany with a false passport in order to prepare for their escape to Argentina from there . On July 7, 1937, Zügel and his family left Europe by ship for Argentina. The choice of this country of exile was justified by his German-Argentinian wife. In 1935 she inherited a piece of land, which enabled a new beginning in the South American country. During this time, however, Zügel did not earn his living as an artist, but as a farmer. After denunciations against him began in Argentina - under Juan Perón - he returned to exile in Spain in 1950, where he was able to devote himself entirely to painting again. However, he found his house partially looted - although some of his pictures were rescued by local fishermen. During Zügel's visit to his hometown Stuttgart, the pictures that were supposed to be burned in the courtyard of the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart in 1933 were also found.

Web links

• Exile Archives - Biography of Oscar Zügel
• Literature by and about Oscar Zügel in the catalog of the German National Library