Otto Antoine

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"Otto Antoine paints his world-famous glider patcher". Watercolor by Hans Hartig (1915)

Otto Antoine (born October 22, 1865 in Koblenz , † July 14, 1951 in Unteruhldingen ) was a German commercial artist and vedute painter of late impressionism .

Otto Antoine was considered an important representative of cultural Berlin for almost half a century. In almost impossible to count descriptions, he documented Berlin from the 19th century to the first half of the 20th century - for artist friends he was “The Painter of Berlin”. Otto Antoine achieved his fame as a "post painter". The postal authorities, in whose service he had been since 1883, recognized the young official's artistic talent early on and generously encouraged it.

Life

Otto Antoine was born on October 22nd, 1865 in Koblenz as the son of the watchmaker Georg A. Antoine and his wife Marie Antoine Roesgen. His talent for drawing was already active in his early youth, but economic circumstances and origins did not allow him to choose painting as his main profession. After attending secondary school, he was sent to an apprenticeship with a master painter. At the age of 18 he decided to become a civil servant and began working as a postal assistant at the Lützel post office . After work he drew and painted motifs from his hometown Koblenz, based solely on the skills and knowledge acquired in self-tuition. After the assistant examination in 1887 and the one-year voluntary military service in a pioneer battalion , Antoine was transferred to Hamburg for a short time in 1890.

Antoine came to Berlin in 1891 and studied at the Academy of Arts with Franz Skarbina . He became a member of the Berlin Artists' Association and regularly took part in the major Berlin art exhibitions . In 1942 it was bombed out in Berlin and went to Silesia for a short time .

In the summer of 1944 he moved to Lake Constance , where he died six years later. His grave is in Berlin at the Wilmersdorf cemetery .

The post painter

Since Antoine had a beautiful handwriting, his superiors repeatedly assigned him calligraphic work as a special task . When the Reich Post Office and in particular the State Secretary of the Reich Post Office Heinrich von Stephan became aware of this work and of Antoine's first pictures with depictions from postal life, he was brought to Berlin in 1891 with the intention of making better use of his artistic abilities than in the Province was possible. First he worked at the Oberpostdirektion Berlin , then temporarily in the technical construction office of the Reichspostamt. Here he painted facades and perspective views of post offices. This earned him the special sympathy of Stephen, who had had documentary watercolor drawings made of the larger post and telegraph buildings built under his direction since 1878.

On April 1, 1902, Stephan appointed Otto Antoine as office assistant at the Reichspostmuseum. He was supposed to help build the museum. His work included the artistic processing of the images selected by the museum from old manuscripts and books with depictions of people writing, writing rooms , messenger figures , postillions , mail cars , ships and the like for the collections. Like Karl Hoffacker (1856–1919) before him, he copied and colored the color representations made by collotype in the Reichsdruckerei or photographic reproductions, traced colored initials on leaves or inscriptions that had become indistinct in old German letters . An impressive example of this work is the oil-on-canvas copy he made freely from a painting by Moritz von Schwind (1804–1871) for the museum's collection of car depictions. "A wedding couple in a car".

In addition to his artistic work for the postal authority, Otto Antoine, together with Ministerialamtmann Müller, oversaw the postage stamp collection of the Reichspostmuseum for more than 20 years, which from 1885 to 1899 and then again from 1918 to 1928 under the aegis of the "old master of philately" Carl Lindenberg (1850– 1928) stood. In 1903 Otto Antoine was promoted to chief post secretary, in 1915 he was given the title of accountant , in 1920 he was promoted to ministerial office (Amtsrat). In the course of job cuts, he was then put on hold on April 1, 1924, and then retired in 1930.

Stephan supported Antoine by purchasing postal pictures for the collections of the Postal Museum. Reinhold Kraetke made it possible for him to go on a study trip to the Canary Islands in 1905. Antoine enjoyed a few privileges in Berlin and was even allowed to use his office as a painter's studio. The view from this went to the Dreifaltigkeitskirche (also Schleiermacherkirche ) in the Mauerstrasse, which he painted at all times of the year and day.

To illustrate individual subjects, the Reichspostmuseum commissioned numerous depictions from Antoine, which were shown to the public in the museum. This also included the painting “A wedding couple in a car” in 1897 and the “Augsburger Boten Peter Derffus and Gottfried Thanner”, 1898. In September 1905, the Reichspostmuseum acquired the painting “ Personal Mail on the Canary Islands ” that was made during the aforementioned study visit . The picture shows a passenger mail van on Gran Canaria ready for departure . As the inscription on the wagon says, the mail goes from Las Palmas to Santa Brigida. The place is in the mountains. Therefore a special stringing with four mules is necessary; three mules in a row, the fourth as the opening credits. According to Spanish custom, the woman among the passengers wears a white cloth on her head. A deep blue sky arches over the post office and the atmospheric street.

Again and again, Antoine impressively depicted the post and telegraph operations in the focal points of the capital's traffic in his pictures. His painting is well known, which shows several post workers on a platform of the Anhalter Bahnhof loading parcels from yellow cars into a green rail mail car. His painting “Parcel Post at the Silesian Railway Station” met with great acclaim at the Great Berlin Art Exhibition in 1912. Antoine was represented at the Great Berlin Art Exhibition in 1911 with the picture of the telephone office in Französische Strasse from 1909. It shows a large, vaulted hall lit with gas lamps, in which women make telephone connections in several long rows of cupboards. Twice, around 1900 and 1908, Antoine painted the business in the great hall of the main telegraph office in Berlin on Jägerstrasse . The people he portrays here have the features of the officials who were really active. The pictures are of current interest insofar as the listed building of the former Imperial Telegraph Office, which was restored by Telekom , with the hall painted by Antoine now forms part of Telekom's capital city representation in Berlin.

Otto Antoine was also a talented graphic artist and draftsman. He created New Years cards, invitation cards, advertisements for the radio and more. The drawings with which he prepared his famous paintings reveal how closely he observed the city, its traffic and its changes. In 1909 Antoine illustrated the “Kleinstadtkomödie” published by Albert Falkenberg (post office worker), and in 1919 he published 32 pen drawings in the book “The Beauty of German Landscape” by Adolf Gruettner . For the work “Technology in the 20th Century”, published by Adolf Miethe in 1912 at Westermann in Braunschweig, Antoine contributed several color images from large technical companies.

The painter of Berlin

Immediately after moving from Koblenz to Berlin in 1891, Antoine contacted the Berlin artists. He studied part-time at the University of Fine Arts and took courses in landscape and nude painting. In doing so, he found in Professor Franz Skarbina (1849–1910) an artist who recognized and encouraged his talent and who taught him what he, the self-taught, still had to learn.

In his first creative years, Antoine mainly painted landscapes and a lot in watercolor. After his apprenticeship with Skarbina, he preferred oil paint as a more expressive material for larger pictures and increasingly turned to motifs of the city. The number of oil paintings, pastels, watercolors and etchings with Berlin motifs is large. Horse-drawn carriages on wet streets, hustle and bustle on Leipziger Strasse or passers-by at the Brandenburg Gate are impressions that the artist captured in their randomness and instantaneousness. Cathedral , palace and castle bridge (Kaiser-Friedrich-Brücke), Unter den Linden , Brandenburg Gate, Leipziger Platz with Wertheim , Potsdamer Platz , Alexanderplatz with Berolina and police headquarters , Reichstag , Tiergarten , Kurfürstendamm , Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church and Tauentzienstrasse , town hall and Altes Museum belong naturally to the long list of Berlin pictures, which is by no means complete here. It is representative Berlin, the Berlin of monumental buildings. All pictures are atmospherically painted using a virtuoso impressionistic technique. The color of the time and its changes can be seen in the means of transport, cabs, electric vehicles and buses with their upper floors still open, and in the clothing of the pedestrians. Otto Antoine also captured military scenes in his paintings several times, such as the changing of the guard on Unter den Linden or the birthday parade for the emperor. On Saturdays and Sundays he liked to go outdoors, accompanied by his wife and children, to paint in the open air outside the city gates.

Otto Antoine had been on friendly terms with the painter Hans Hartig since a stay in Neuwarp on the Baltic Sea in 1916 . While Hartig, who previously preferred landscapes and the Baltic Sea as motifs, discovered the city for his painting under the influence of his friend Antoine, Hartig, conversely, succeeded in getting Antoine interested in motifs from the Baltic Sea. With the portrait of Hans Hartig painting in Neuwarp harbor, Antoine created a lasting memorial to his friend. The artists with whom Otto Antoine was friends also included other "post painters", such as those who emerged from the Berlin art scene Richard Albitz (1876–1954) and Gustav Fenkohl (1872–1950).

Otto Antoine remained stuck with Impressionism throughout his life . After his apprenticeship with Skarbina, he hardly changed his style of painting. Not even when an art revolution began in Berlin around 1905 that led from impressionism to expressionism . Under the pressure of state art control from 1933 onwards, like other painters, he then tended towards more realistic representations.

In 1893, a work by Antoine was exhibited for the first time at the Great Berlin Art Exhibition (Grobeka) in the state exhibition building at Lehrter Bahnhof , followed by an oil painting in 1894 ("It darkens ..."). From 1897 he was represented almost regularly at this annual exhibition, which during the time of Kaiser Wilhelm II (1859–1941, Kaiser from 1888 to 1918) only presented works of official art. At first there were depictions from his Rhineland homeland (e.g. in 1900 "Evening on the Moselle", 1901 "Lahneck" and 1901 "An der Loreley"), then, from around 1911, mainly Berlin motifs. Antoine's pictures also always had a place in the Künstlerhaus, the permanent exhibition of works by living artists of the Association of Berlin Artists. In 1938 and 1941 to 1943, Antoine was represented with depictions of monumental buildings, squares and avenues in the capital of the Reich, such as B. in his paintings "Brandenburg Gate", "Victory Column" or "Before the Armory in Berlin" with armory, cathedral, guard and parts of the university and opera, represented at the Great German Art Exhibition in the House of German Art in Munich.

Otto Antoine was a member of the Berlin Artists' Association founded in 1841 . Later he represented his artist colleagues on the board of the association and participated repeatedly in the construction of the Great Berlin Art Exhibition. Then he was an honorary member and honorary president of the association. When after the First World War a democratic pluralism entered the officially funded art of Berlin and the artist associations Verein Berliner Künstler, Berliner Secession , Freie Secession and Novembergruppe gave an overview of Berlin's art work for the first time under one roof, Otto Antoine represented in the joint jury formed for this purpose and Hans Hartig the interests of the Berlin Artists Association. When the Reich Chamber of Culture was created by law in autumn 1933 , Antoine became a member so that he could continue to practice his profession.

As Otto Antoine's fame grew, so did recognition and commissions. Museums, public and government institutions, private enthusiasts and collectors bought his work. He also gained popularity through the reproduction of his pictures in calendars and through high postcard print runs of many of his pictures, including postal motifs.

Several works by Otto Antoine were lost in the turmoil of World War II. These include, for example, 24 oil paintings with depictions of streets, bridges and squares in Berlin, which the city of Berlin took into war custody as important contemporary documents and brought to the Warthegau. The painting “Leipziger Straße” from the holdings of the Berlin National Gallery, which was in the Oberschlesisches Museum in Gleiwitz, is also considered lost. Fortunately, a large part of his work was preserved. However, there is currently no complete overview of the locations of Antoine's work. The following information can serve as a guide. A large number of works are in the possession of the family and other private collectors. The pictures painted by Antoine for the Reichspostmuseum and some works acquired by the German postal museums after the Second World War are now being kept in the Museum Foundation Post and Telecommunications . This includes 22 oil paintings and 16 watercolors as well as drawings and colored facsimiles. The Stadtmuseum Berlin Foundation preserves four paintings (“Security Police in Berlin, 1920”, “Kaiser-Friedrich-Brücke, 1921”, “Leipziger Platz, 1925”, “Am Potsdamer Platz, 1930”) and two graphics by Antoine from former municipal property . The German Museum of Technology in Berlin owns the painting "Transfer of the elevated railway to Berlin via the electric suburban and long-distance trains" (probably 1905) with the yellow street mail car at the Gleisdreieck. Antoine's oil painting from around 1920 of Berlin traffic on Alexanderplatz, built in 1882, is located in the Reinickendorf district office in Berlin. Rhein-Chemie Holding in Heidelberg owns a collection of watercolors with views of Berlin (29 were shown in the above-mentioned exhibition Alt-Berlin in the picture on the occasion of the artist's 100th birthday).

Grave of Otto Antoine in the Wilmersdorf cemetery in Berlin

Otto Antoine traveled to America for the first time at the age of seventy to visit his daughter who was living there. He brought back sketches and pictures from the trip, such as "Chicago, Michigan Avenue, Center". In 1942 Antoine lost his apartment and studio at Weimarische Strasse 2 in Berlin-Wilmersdorf, where he had lived with his family for over four decades. He and his wife went to Silesia for a short time before they set foot again in Unteruhldingen on Lake Constance in the summer of 1944 . During this time, the materials necessary for the painter's work were scarce and required a receipt. Since the regional director of the Reich Chamber of Fine Arts responsible for Antoine was no longer able to work at the regional cultural warden Gau Baden in Karlsruhe in the summer of 1944, he turned to the regional cultural warden Gau Berlin on December 31, 1944 and was lucky. On January 10, 1945, he received one last Reich reference card for some utensils.

Otto Antoine was active in Unteruhldingen until his death. In some pictures he captured his new home on Lake Constance. But he missed his Berlin. Until recently he worked on a cycle of watercolors for an art portfolio about the Berlin of yore, which was no longer published.

Otto Antoine died in July 1951 at the age of 85 in Unteruhldingen. His grave is in the state-owned Wilmersdorf cemetery in Berlin.

Works (selection)

Some of his works are owned by the Berlin City Museum Foundation, the German Historical Museum, the German Museum of Technology and the Museum of the City of Gliwice. The Museum Foundation Post and Telecommunications has an extensive collection from Antoine's work as

  • “At the post office counter”, around 1750
  • “At a Berlin post office counter”, 1896
  • “The field post on the march. Feldpostkraftwagen auf der Brücke ”from 1914
  • "Field Post in the World War" (1918)
  • "Birthplace of Heinrich von Stephans in Stolp, Pomerania"
  • "Reichsdruckerei"
  • "Reichspostmuseum"
  • “Through the Taunus in a postal car”, 1930
  • "Post handling at Tempelhof Airport" 1930
  • "Reichspostdirektion Berlin, Lietzensee with radio tower" (1932)
  • "The Reichspostzentralamt, around 1935" in Tempelhof
  • "Postdampfer Bremen" (1936),
  • “Disgruntled”, watercolor, 1893
  • "It's getting dark ...", 1894
  • "Load exchange with the rail mail, around 1900", 1912
  • "Reichsdruckerei"
  • "Security Police in Berlin", 1920
  • "Transfer of the elevated railway to Berlin via the electric suburban railway and long-distance railway", around 1920
  • "Kaiser-Friedrich-Brücke", 1921
  • "Leipziger Platz", 1925
  • “Am Potsdamer Platz”, 1930
  • "Self-Portrait", 1931
  • "Brandenburg Gate", (between 1938 and 1943)
  • "Victory Column", between 1938 and 1943
  • “In front of the Zeughaus in Berlin”, between 1938 and 1943

Exhibitions

  • Otto Antoine - Berlin as it was - oil paintings and watercolors, 1950
  • From Menzel to Corinth (represented in the exhibition), Kunstamt Reinickendorf 1962
  • Old Berlin in the picture - paintings, oil studies and watercolors, 1965
  • Das Alte Berlin (represented in the exhibition), Berlin Museum 1969
  • Works from the artist's family collection, SFB television center 1987
  • Antoine as a draftsman, gallery on Gendarmenmarkt in the Hilton 1993

literature

  • Hübner, Hans: The painter from Berlin and post painter Otto Antoine (1865–1951). On the 50th anniversary of the artist's death. In: Post and Telecommunications History, German Society for Post and Telecommunications History, Issue 2/2001.
  • Brochure for the exhibition: "Otto Antoine - Berlin as it was - oil paintings and watercolors" from November 15 to December 10, 1950 in the Haus am Waldsee. Office for Art Berlin-Zehlendorf.
  • Pfefferkorn, Rudolf: Catalog for the exhibition "Otto Antoine - The Old Berlin in Pictures - Paintings and Watercolors" from January 21 to March 5, 1966 in Wedding Town Hall. District Office Wedding, Berlin 1965.
  • Telegraf-Feuilleton, January 28, 1969, p. 10.
  • Thole, Fritz: Otto Antoine 85 years old. In: ZPF No. 1/1951, Personalnachrichten, p. 37.
  • Visit to the Berlin painter Otto Antoine. In: Berliner Volkszeitung, evening edition No. 505 of October 21, 1940.
  • Records of drawing and painting work carried out for the Reichspostmuseum from 1896 and 1897 as well as from 1928 from the estate of Otto Antoines, Museum for Communication Berlin.
  • Wieland Barthelmess : Hans Hartig, 1873–1936. A painter's life in Germany at the turn of the century. Publishing house Atelier im Bauernhaus, 1998, pp. 99-104.
  • Saur: General artist lexicon. The visual artists of all times and peoples. KG Saur Munich-Leipzig 1992, Volume 4, Antoine, Otto, p. 290.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hans-Jürgen Mende : Lexicon of Berlin burial places . Pharus-Plan, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-86514-206-1 . P. 505.