Ottilie Rady

Ottilie Thiemann-Stoedtner

Ottilie Rady , married and widowed Stoedtner, married and widowed Thiemann, also Ottilie Thiemann-Stoedtner (born April 13, 1890 in Darmstadt , † April 12, 1987 in Dachau ) was a German art historian .

Life

Ottilie Rady was born in April 1890 as the youngest of three daughters of the businessman Adolph Rady (1853-1927) and his wife Caroline Thiemann (1854-1931) in Darmstadt. Ottilie was raised Catholic. From 1896 to 1900 she attended the private Reineck Institute in Darmstadt. Then she went to the Viktoriaschule (Darmstadt) until 1906 , at that time an all-girls school.

After the birth of their daughter Else in October 1915 (died 1956), who emerged from an illegitimate relationship with the army aviator Paul Hermann Sieglitz (1879 – after 1943) and who was given up for adoption shortly after the birth, Ottilie attended the Darmstadt pedagogy of Michael Elias (1867–1926), a higher private school in the Paulusviertel (Darmstadt) . In August 1917, she passed her school leaving examination at the Realgymnasium in Giessen.

In spring 1914 and summer 1915 she had already visited her cousin Carl Thiemann in Dachau and witnessed the local artist scene and the decline of the artists' colony in Dachau. This should leave a lasting impression and reinforce your desire to study. From the winter semester 1917/18 she studied art history and classical archeology at the TH Darmstadt , one semester, as well as at the University of Bonn and the University of Frankfurt am Main . There she was promoted to Dr. phil. PhD. Her teacher was primarily Rudolf Kautzsch . In her dissertation she dealt with the "secular costume between 1250 and 1410" and examined figurative representations on tombstones in the Middle Rhine area.

On October 1, 1922, she took up a position as an assistant at the TH Darmstadt with Paul Hartmann in the department for cultural and political sciences. She received her habilitation in 1929 at the TH Darmstadt with a thesis on Johann Baptist Scholl the Younger, making her the first female art historian in Germany. Her habilitation was linked to her appointment as a private lecturer for art history at the TH Darmstadt.

From 1929 to 1937 she was assistant for art history at the TH Darmstadt and taught in the architecture department, to which art history belonged since the winter semester 1931/32, as well as at the pedagogical institute in Mainz. On October 15, 1934, she was appointed adjunct professor for art history. After her mentor Paul Hartmann was forced out of office as a result of the “ Lieser Affair ” and the Pedagogical Institute in Mainz was also dissolved, Ottilie Rady also faced increasing difficulties at the TH. On April 1, 1937, she lost her assistant position at the TH Darmstadt for political reasons and was given leave of absence.

She first worked as a freelance journalist and later as a freelancer at the Institute for Scientific Projection of the Berlin art historian and photographer Franz Stoedtner (1870–1946). Their task was to identify and catalog photographs for art history lessons. A publishing house was affiliated with the institute, which is regarded as one of the first commercial photo distributors with scientific and educational objectives. Ottilie Rady married Stoedtner in 1942 and headed the institute after his death in January 1946 until she left in January 1959. By 1948 the Institute for Scientific Projection, which was located in the eastern part of the city, was relocated to Düsseldorf. The former “Lichtbildverlag Dr. Franz Stoedtner ”was continued by Heinz Klemm in Düsseldorf from 1959.

In May 1959, Ottilie married her cousin, the wood cutter and painter Carl Thiemann, and from then on moved to Dachau . She wrote a large number of biographies of Dachau artists. After Carl Thiemann's death in December 1966, her work focused in particular on maintaining Thiemann's work. Ottilie Rady spent the last years of her life in the Friedrich-Meinzolt-Haus, a retirement home on Ludwig-Ernst-Strasse in Dachau. Ottilie Rady died one day before she turned 97 on April 12, 1987 in Dachau. She was buried next to her second husband in the Dachau forest cemetery.

Honors

On April 24, 2002 in Arheilgen , a district of Darmstadt, a path was named after Ottilie Rady.

Publications (selection)

• The artist festival of 1852 at the Auerbach Castle. Frankfurt am Main 1926.
• Elsa Pfister-Kaufmann, Julius Kaufmann, an artist couple. Frankfurt am Main 1939.
• Johann Baptist Scholl the Elder J., a Hessian sculptor, draftsman and painter of the late romantic period. Eduard Roether Verlag, Darmstadt 1965.
• Carl Thiemann, the person, the artist. Dachau 1978.
• Dachau painter. The artist's place Dachau from 1801 to 1946. Dachau 1981.

literature

• Melanie Hanel: Normality under exceptional conditions. The TH Darmstadt under National Socialism. Darmstadt 2014.
• Annegret Holtmann-Mares: Ottilie Rady (1890–1987) - with will and perseverance to the goal. In: high 3. May 2015, p. 18.
• Freia Neuhäuser: On the 90th birthday of the first female art historian in Germany, Prof. Dr. Ottilie Thiemann-Stoedtner. In: Amperland. 16, 1980, pp. 32-36.
• Marion Wächter: conceived - born - denied. Life and origins of Else Faust (1915–1956). In: Hessian family history. Vol. 25, 2005, pp. 186-190.
• Christa Wolf, Marianne Viefhaus: Directory of professors at TH Darmstadt. Darmstadt 1977, p. 162.

Web links

Commons : Ottilie Rady  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Rady, Ottilie. Hessian biography. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).