Otto Heichert

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Otto Theodor Rudolf Heichert (born February 27, 1868 in Gröningen Monastery ; † March 22, 1946 in Oberschönau near Berchtesgaden) was a German painter and graphic artist from the Düsseldorf School and professor at the Königsberg Art Academy .

Life

Theodor Körner after the attack at Kitzen , Otto Heichert, around 1910

Otto Heichert was born on February 27, 1868 in Gröningen Abbey and was the first child of Marie Sophie, nee. Hohmann, and the caretaker Rudolf Wilhelm August Heichert. Three more siblings followed in 1870, 1871 and 1872. Two of them died shortly after giving birth. In 1872 the family moved to Magdeburg , where Otto Heichert went to school.

The childhood in Gröningen Abbey and the poor conditions of the family had a major influence on his artistic development, as later works show. In the Magdeburg school, the pupil Otto Heichert was noticed early on with his talent for drawing. At the age of 14, in 1882, he came to the Düsseldorf Art Academy , where he was influenced in the painting classes of Hugo Crola , Eduard von Gebhardt and Peter Janssen the Elder . As a master student of Wilhelm Sohn , his style of painting matured into a genre and portrait painter. In 1894 he attended the Académie Julian in Paris. Apart from several study trips and a one and a half year stay in Bremen , he lived in Düsseldorf until 1902 . There he belonged to the artists' association Malkasten and acquired the reputation of an outstanding portrait painter, which earned him numerous portrait commissions from the upper class.

At the age of 34 he was appointed professor at the Royal Academy in Königsberg and from 1903 lived in East Prussia's capital. During his time in Königsberg, he mainly chose scenes from the rural milieu and increasingly turned to the “social question”. With his representations he took part in need, illness and death. Heichert achieved special recognition through his psychological penetration of characters, which he captured in their emotions and mimic-gestural forms of expression, in the tradition of the Düsseldorf School of Painting .

In 1912, Heichert received the order to create the fresco Reception of a Salzburg Emigrant Train from King Friedrich Wilhelm I in the auditorium of the Friedrichschule in the Prussian district town of Gumbinnen . In this monumental mural on the gable wall of the auditorium, 16 m long and 8 m high, he integrated his person through a self-portrait.

During the First World War he was employed as a war painter . In 1914 he portrayed President Paul von Hindenburg at the height of his career. During this time, the history painting about the freedom fighter Theodor Körner after the attack near Kitzen was created .

Otto Heichert lived in Berlin from 1923 and died in Oberschönau near Berchtesgaden in 1946 .

The art collections of the city of Königsberg owned the painting Ora et labora , other works found their way into the Berlin National Gallery and the museums of Düsseldorf and Antwerp .

Honors

In 1895 he received a small gold medal at the Great Berlin Art Exhibition , the second medal at the Paris World Exhibition in 1900 , and in 1904 a gold medal in Dresden .

family

In June 1909 Otto Heichert married the Countess (Mimi) Margarete von Helldorf (born February 3, 1885). Through the marriage, Heichert was raised to the nobility. On April 5, 1910, birth of their daughter Eva-Marie Heichert, who married Frank Berger († 1941) in 1935. They had three children:

  1. Frank Berger (* 1935)
  2. Christel Berger (* 1939)
  3. Michael Berger (* 1941), founder of the Lachmuseum HarlekinÄum and Klooseum in Wiesbaden

Exhibitions (selection)

  • 1956: Otto Heichert memorial exhibition in the Haus zum Falken, Städtische Galerie Würzburg.

literature

Web links

Commons : Otto Heichert  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The house where he was born in Gröningen Monastery, in which his father was the caretaker, has not yet been known exactly. An apartment on the ground floor of what was then the workers' dormitory of the sugar factory in Halberstädter Strasse, now known as the "Great Barracks", would come into question, as this was shown as a caretaker's apartment in an architectural drawing from 1864.
  2. ↑ Since there is no subsequent entry on the Heichert family in the Gröninger registry office or in the Gröninger church registers, it can be assumed that they moved to Magdeburg shortly after 1872, as the child Otto Heichert went to school in Magdeburg until he was 14.
  3. ↑ The risen fresco in the Friedrichschule , on ostpreussen.net, accessed on July 30, 2015.
  4. ^ Paul von Hindenburg, portrait drawing by Otto Heichert Berliner Illustrierte Zeitung 1914 (Ullstein picture archive, photo Hermann Boll) , on Getty Images, accessed on July 30, 2015.
  5. ↑ O. Heichert: Theodor Körner after the attack on Kitzen . Signed in the picture: Otto Heichert. Verso: Verlag Hermann A. Wiechmann, Munich
  6. ↑ Otto Heichert and Margarete Helldorf on family table 7 of the Samson Family Collection 1912-1980
  7. ↑ Otto Heichert's biography
  8. ↑ Biography Eva-Marie Heichert
  9. ↑ website Lach Museum Harlekinaeum ; Website of the Klooseum Laughter Museum
personal data
SURNAME Heichert, Otto
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Heichert, Otto Theodor Rudolf (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter
DATE OF BIRTH February 27, 1868
PLACE OF BIRTH Gröningen Monastery
DATE OF DEATH March 22, 1946
Place of death Oberschönau near Berchtesgaden