Otto Freytag (painter)

Otto Freytag (born March 19, 1888 in Duisburg , † April 13, 1980 in Berlin ) was a German painter and professor at the art college in Grunewaldstrasse in Berlin.

Life

Otto Freytag came from a simple family where he grew up with a younger sister and an older brother. The father was a railway official. Freytag attended a humanistic grammar school, but had to leave school after passing the year due to the financial situation of the father . In 1904, Freytag, who had shown an early interest in drawing and painting, started working as a draftsman in an engineering office and shortly afterwards in an architectural office. After a year and a half he left the job because it did not satisfy him in the long run. He then attended the arts and crafts school in Düsseldorf , where from 1906 he studied architecture under Peter Behrens ; But then switched to painting. Because of his talents he received scholarships and was supported by Adelheid Koenigs and the banker Henneberg. The well-known art collector Franz Koenigs was also interested in Freytag and often invited him to his house in Haarlem for longer periods of time . The publisher Langewiesche brokered smaller orders for book illustrations (e.g. “Das goldene Land” by Johann Guthmann in 1907).

In autumn 1908 he stayed in Munich and then in 1909 in Paris . The Dutch painter and writer Jan Verkade gave him the opportunity to work as a student of Paul Sérusier in his Munich studio. Here he became familiar with the design principles of the Nabis : flatness, contour, fixed image form and color. Sérusier took Freytag with him to Paris in 1909 and introduced him to the German group of artists at the Café du Dôme . At the beginning of 1910 he returned to Germany and decided to move to Berlin. There he entered Lovis Corinth's studio . In 1913 he lived in the Villa Kewitsch in Berlin-Kladow, where Anton Kerschbaumer also had his studio.

In 1914 he entered the First World War as a volunteer nurse . In 1918 he came back to Berlin, worked in Arthur Lewin-Funcke's “study atelier for painting and sculpture” , then joined Ulrich Hübner's master atelier and married the interior designer Marie-Luise Martienssen. The son Kaspar was born in January 1921. From 1927 he regularly took part in the jury-free art show in Berlin. In dealing with expressionist and cubist tendencies, Freytag quickly developed his own style in the 1920s. In the summer of 1920 he worked in Deep and 1921-1923 in the Pomeranian coastal village of Freest . There he lived in the summer house of the archaeologist Erich Pernice , whose portrait is in the possession of the Kunsthalle Bremen . He was friends with Count Leopold von Kalckreuth and, thanks to a foundation, was able to work in Kalckreuth's studio for a longer period from 1929 onwards. From 1924 to 1927 he often worked in Bremen , where the painter Agnes Sander-Plump , who was his friend, lived.

He exhibited regularly at the events of the Prussian Academy of the Arts and the Berlin Secession in the 1920s and early 1930s . In January 1932 it was shown in the exhibition "Nyere tysk kunst" in Oslo .

time of the nationalsocialism

In 1934 the Board of Trustees of the German Association of Artists awarded him the Villa Romana Prize for Painting on the suggestion of the newly elected chairman Alexander Kanoldt . Now he had the opportunity to work in Florence for a year . After his return to Germany, his work was considered " degenerate " by the National Socialists . A picture of him in the possession of the National Gallery was destroyed. More of his works fell victim to the “purge” of the city's art holdings. He was banned from exhibiting. Freytag received an order for a larger mural in a barracks "The great Elector before the Battle of Fehrbellin" (destroyed in the war).

In the winter semester of 1937/38 he got a position as a non-scheduled teacher at the university in Grunewaldstrasse because of the advocacy of director Kanoldts. He was used as a teacher for the evening act. In the autumn of 1938 he was assigned a painting class. Freytag, who, as a so-called degenerate artist, had tried in vain for a professorship for many years, was only appointed professor in 1943 due to a lack of teachers.

His only son died in the last days of the war. The villa of his friend AW Kames in Babelsberg was confiscated and about 20 paintings by Freytag were burned in the neighboring forest.

post war period

He found new accommodation in Berlin-Schlachtensee . For a while he was obliged by the Russians to work on the Soviet memorial in Treptow . Freytag was unable to gain a foothold in public art life after the war. In 1948 pictures of him were shown in the Kunsthalle Bremen and in 1950 in the Berlin gallery Hans Braasch. In 1958 he held a special show at the Great Berlin Art Exhibition. He pursued and developed his form and image ideas. In a new, powerful creative phase that spanned two and a half decades, pictures of distinctive character emerged. He now used the linear element much more intensively and increased the contrasting colors to luminous sounds. From 1957 he regularly drove to Amrum , where many pictures were taken.

Otto Freytag died in Berlin in 1980 at the age of 92. His grave is in the forest cemetery in Zehlendorf .

plant

His pupil and owner of the largest Freytag collection, Karl Kirchner, commented on Freytag's work as follows: “Even at an early age, Freytag's pictures showed an element that clearly set them apart from the works of those painters from whose time and mental attitude he came. This is a strict and immovable pictorial architecture, regardless of whether it is applied to the figure, the landscape or the still life. ... If one wanted to try to classify Freytag's work, it would be clear that he, the loner, enriched German Expressionism with a valuable variant. He has largely taken back the emotionally ecstatic element and replaced it with a strict, firmly established image architecture, without neglecting the colored components. "

Exhibitions

Life and work. Exhibition on the occasion of the hundredth birthday of Otto Freytag. Obere Galerie / Haus am Lützowplatz, Berlin 1988. In the catalog p. 78 a detailed listing of earlier exhibitions.

Otto Freytag - An artist's life in times of upheaval. Exhibition in the Opherdicke house in Holzwickede near Unna in August 2011. Detailed catalog.

Otto Freytag "Expressive Realism." Exhibition in the Capriolla Gallery in Großostheim-Ringheim from May 8th to June 5th, 2016.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Prussian Academy of the Arts: Originally to the Minister for Science, Art and Education, No. 392, from April 23, 1928, after hearing Professor Ulrich Huebner
2. ↑ villaromana.org: Between two new beginnings: The Villa Romana from 1929 to 1959 (PDF file: p. 4; accessed on September 5, 2015)
3. ^ Hans-Jürgen Mende: Lexicon of Berlin burial places . Pharus-Plan, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-86514-206-1 , p. 633.
4. ↑ Kirchner, Karl: Otto Freytag for his 75th birthday. in: Art and Work Education 2/1963, pp. 71–72

literature

• The courier (Berlin) v. 3/18/63 Otto Freytag 1888–1980
• Feddersen, H .: Schleswig-Holsteinisches Künstlerlexikon, Bredstedt 1984
• Freytag, Otto: reverse glass painting: your artistic peculiarity u. Working method in the past u. Present. Maier 1937 44 pages.
• Hengstenberg, Thomas (editor): Otto Freytag: An artist's life in times of upheaval: Haus Opherdicke 2011, 141 p
• Hofheimer Lust. Art from Hofheimer's private property. Catalog City Museum Hofheim Taunus 2002
• Kunstamt Tiergarten, Berlin (Ed.) Otto Freytag. Life and work (exhibition on the occasion of the hundredth birthday of Otto Freytag, Obere Galerie / Haus am Lützowplatz , Berlin, 1988) , Paul Corazolla (exhibition management and catalog), Berlin 1988
• Beyer, Andreas (Hg): General Artist Lexicon (AKL), The visual artists of all times and peoples. Vol. 45 Saur (2005), p. 17 on Freytag article by Ch. K. Bönen: Kettler, 2011
• Papenbrock, M .: Degenerate Art Weimar 1997.
• Schweers, HF: Paintings in German Museums, I – X, M. 2002
• Vollmer, H .: General Lexicon of Fine Artists of the XX. Century, Vol. 2 1984
• Zimmermann, Rainer: The Art of the Lost Generation. German expressive realism painting from 1925–1975 (1980). New edition in 1994 under the title: Expressive Realism. On p. 372 Freytag has been included in the list of artists, p. 179 there is a picture of the painting “Die Anprobe” in the Bertram Ganderkesee collection.