Otto Knöpfer

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The Otto Knöpfer House in Holzhausen

Otto Knöpfer (born March 13, 1911 in Arnstadt ; † May 22, 1993 in Erfurt ) was a Thuringian painter.

Life

Otto Knöpfer grew up in Holzhausen , a small village below the Veste Wachsenburg , about four kilometers west of Arnstadt. The three equals area with its geological diversity, species-rich vegetation and its villages became a training ground for the young Otto Knöpfer for his artistic talent. As a child he roamed the local landscape, drew and painted the surrounding hills with their fields and meadows, the castles, the villages with people and animals.

The child's talent was noticeable, but school support was not possible due to the poor living conditions of the family. The father died in 1919 as a result of a war wound, the mother barely had the bare necessities to live. After elementary school Otto Knöpfer got an apprenticeship in the painting trade in Arnstadt. Here he learned the craftsmanship of his subject, the artistic formed in his head and in his imagination when he walked the field path between Holzhausen and Arnstadt every day in every season.

Immediately after the journeyman's examination (1928) Otto Knöpfer was unemployed. He applied to the Erfurt School of Applied Arts and got one of the coveted vacancies. Here, too, he stood out for his talent and hard work. He found sponsors (especially Franz Markau ) who made it easier for the hungry young man to start his artistic life. After three and a half years, Otto Knöpfer took his final exam. His first exhibitions followed in Arnstadt, Erfurt, Gotha and Molsdorf. The newspapers of the time reported on the “remarkable maturity and versatility” of the young artist. Otto Knöpfer sold his first pictures. These were motifs from the rural area he came from, images from the three-equals landscape, his home, which he saw with devoted love. She focused on the everyday in his living environment, on meadows and wooded areas, on fields and paths, on the working life of the villagers, on animals and plants in the courtyards and gardens of the village of Holzhausen. He looked into the faces of the people who were at home with him and painted his first portraits: his mother, the neighbor, the child on Dorfstrasse.

The apparently inconspicuous in close proximity fascinated Otto Knöpfer. The close observation, the almost contemplative view of nature led him to his style of painting. It was realistic, true to detail, unsentimental. It protected him from being taken over by provincial local art and the zeitgeist currents of his century.

Throughout his life Otto Knöpfer worked on his abundance of shapes and colors, on his typical expressiveness. He stayed true to his landscape around the three equals. Life situations brought him to other areas. He saw her, found his motives, but the stranger remained alien to him. In Berlin in 1938 he began studying at the United State Schools for Free and Applied Arts under Paul Plontke . But the Academy couldn't satisfy him. He longed for home, looked forward to the “three equals” and to his village of Holzhausen. He came back. His world was on the doorstep. He hiked it with pen, pen and brush. During the Second World War, Knöpfer was employed as a map maker in France and Italy.

In 1951 Otto Knöpfer moved to Erfurt with his family. The old, backward small farmhouse in Holzhausen became too narrow. Otto Knöpfer had become a well-known painter. He needed a studio for his orders, contact with colleagues (e.g. Otto Paetz ) and a direct connection to his painting circles and to the advanced training courses for art education, which he led together with Otto Paetz. That was easier to do from the capital of Thuringia than from the remote Holzhausen. But he remained loyal to his village. He kept coming back and wandering the same paths that had been familiar to him since childhood. He saw the landscape, its fields and meadows, its people and animals anew with every year, every season . Impressive pieces of flowers and meadows, still lifes and portraits were created .

resume

  • 1911 on March 13th Born in Arnstadt, the son of a decorative painter, grew up in Holzhausen near Arnstadt
  • 1917–25 attended elementary school in Holzhausen
  • 1919 father died of the consequences of the war
  • 1925–29 apprenticeship as a decorative painter in Arnstadt
  • 1930–31 temporarily unemployed
  • 1931–35 attended the arts and crafts school (from 1933 municipal craft school) in Erfurt with Franz Markau, training in panel and wall painting
  • 1936–38 freelance in Erfurt
  • 1937 1st study trip to Italy
  • 1938 studies at the United State Schools for Free and Applied Arts Berlin-Charlottenburg with Paul Plontke, dropping out of studies, second study trip to Italy
  • 1938–40 freelance in Erfurt
  • 1940 marriage to Erna Schneider in Gotha
  • 1940–45 military service (as a cartographer) in Italy and southern France
  • 1945–47 freelance in Schmiedefeld a. R., Arnstadt and Holzhausen
  • 1947–55 teaching post as head of the decorative painting department, state or technical school for applied arts in Erfurt, until it was dissolved
  • 1951 move to Erfurt
  • from 1955 freelance in Erfurt and for several years head of a painting group in the teacher's house as well as courses at the adult education center
  • 1956 Death of his son Albrecht
  • 1958 1st study trip to the Soviet Union
  • 1959–67 Chairman of the Association of Visual Artists, Erfurt district
  • from 1960 head of the painting and drawing circle in the VEB Kombinat Chemieanlagen Erfurt-Rudisleben
  • 1962 2nd study trip to the Soviet Union
  • 1962–88 Management of holiday internships for art teachers (together with Otto Paetz)
  • 1965 study trip to Romania
  • 1966 death of the mother
  • 1993 died in Erfurt on May 22nd

Awards

In 1996 the "Otto Knöpfer hiking trail" between Arnstadt and the Drei-Gleichen area was set up in his honor.

A circle of friends based in Holzhausen Otto Knöpfer e. V. tries to get his work recognized in his hometown. One focus of the work is the preservation of the house of his childhood, youth and early creative years in Holzhausen.

Works by Otto Knöpfers in Thuringian museums

  • Arnstadt: Castle Museum , Button Cabinet
  • Eisenach: Thuringian Museum
  • Erfurt: Angermuseum
  • Gotha: Castle Museum, Friedenstein Castle
  • Hohenfelden: Thuringian open-air museum
  • Jena: City Museum Göhre
  • Mühlhausen: Museum am Lindenbühl
  • Molsdorf Castle near Erfurt
  • Weimar: Art Collections

Further works can be found in art museums in Frankfurt / Oder, Dresden, Rostock, Berlin, Budapest and Tokyo.

literature

  • Peter Arlt: Hike in the three equals landscape with Otto Knöpfer , Kunstverlag Gotha, 3rd, further improved edition 2006. ISBN 3-931182-30-4 , ISBN 978-3-931182-30-4
  • Rüdiger Helmboldt: Otto Knöpfer - the early years in Holzhausen, published in: Zeitschrift Stadt und Geschichte Erfurt , August 2006.
  • Otto Knöpfer, a Thuringian painter, book accompanying the exhibition Otto Knöpfer - Paintings, Watercolors, Drawings (Kunsthaus Apolda Avantgarde, March 2, 1997 - April 20, 1997), published by Weimarer Land, Erfurt. Text selection: Bärbel Reuter, image selection: Dr. Rüdiger Helmboldt. 1st edition March 1997
  • Kunstraum Thüringen, aspects of painting and graphics in the 20th century, catalog, edited by Jürgen Winter and Rolf Luhn on behalf of the Mühlhausen museums, Glaux Verlag, Jena 1999. ISBN 3-931743-27-6
  • Thuringia pictures, artists discover the people, writings of the Museum für Thüringer Volkskunde 25, 2005, edited by Marina Moritz, with contributions by Peter Arlt, Jörg-Heiko Bruns, Cornelia Dörr and Herbert Schönemann.

Web links