Otto garden

Otto Garten , Ota Garten in Upper Sorbian (born December 1, 1902 in Elstra ; † October 14, 2000 ibid), was a German-Sorbian artist.

Live and act

Otto Garten was born as the son of the small farmer Ernst Garten and his wife Marie. Glausch born. As a child, Garten turned to drawing. The painter Josef Goller , who had worked at the Dresden School of Applied Arts from 1906 , often visited the small town of Elstra and became aware of the talented garden. Goller recommended training as a painter.

After his father's death in 1917, Garten began training at the Dresden School of Applied Arts and from 1920 at the Dresden Art Academy and received a scholarship from the Schill Poeppig Foundation from 1922. Richard Dreher in particular acted as a teacher and role model .

In 1927 Garten finished his studies and went back to his hometown Elstra as a freelance painter. He stayed in Paris from 1930 to 1932 and in Italy in 1937 for study visits .

In the Second World War , Garten served as a soldier in the Wehrmacht a . a. in France, Belgium and Holland. He was taken prisoner of war in Scotland and returned to Elstra in 1948.

Since the contacts with the Dresden artists were broken off due to the war, Garten reoriented itself and in 1952 was accepted into the working group of Sorbian visual artists . In the context of the Sorbian cultural tradition, Garten found the conditions for further work.

Otto Garten died in 2000 at the age of 98 in his hometown of Elstra.

Most of his estate is in the Sorbian Museum in Bautzen.

style

Garten is considered to be a late representative of Dresden painting , which was characterized by the coloristic realism of open-air painting. When choosing a motif, light, air and the great outdoors played a major role. Garten's works are characterized by intense impressions of nature, lightness, impartiality, joie de vivre and a radiance of deep humanity. Animals and plants were always the subject and expression of his art.

Honors

Garten had been an honorary citizen of the city of Elstra since 1993 , which named the primary school after him in May 2000.

literature

• Siegmar Schubert: The Upper Lusatian painter Otto garden. in: Landesverein Sächsischer Heimatschutz (Hg.): Calendar Sächsische Heimat 2017, calendar sheet 38th week

Web links

• Maria Mirtschin: Otto Garten (1902–2000) . In: Institute for Saxon History and Folklore (Ed.): Saxon Biography .