Otto Möller (painter)

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Otto Möller (born July 20, 1883 in Schmiedefeld , Thuringia , † February 29, 1964 in Berlin ) was a German painter, graphic artist and drawing teacher. In his work Möller went through different styles such as impressionism , expressionism , cubofuturism and new objectivity . He achieved his fame as a representative of the Berlin November group and expressionist of the second generation.

life and work

Childhood and youth

Otto Möller was born as the second of three children to parents Emma Fanny (née Haubeiss) and the businessman Franz Hermann Möller in Schmiedefeld / Thuringia. After completing his school education, he moved to Berlin with his older brother Rudolf Möller in 1903 . Between 1905 and 1907 he and his brother trained as a drawing teacher at the Royal Art School with Philipp Franck . After completing his training, he stayed briefly in Lovis Corinth's studio between 1907 and 1908 . The influence of Corinth's teaching found expression above all in the portraits of Otto Möller and in the few nudes. At the same time, Möller's first attempts in the field of printmaking began.

Immediately after his stay at Corinth's studio, Otto Möller began working as a drawing teacher at the municipal Paulsen Realgymnasium in Berlin-Steglitz. In 1910 Otto Möller exhibited for the first time at the Berlin Secession as one of the youngest . Like his role models and teachers Philipp Franck, Max Liebermann and Lovis Corinth from the Berlin Secession, Otto Möller preferred to create landscapes, avenues, market and street impressions as well as everyday scenes.

In 1913 Otto married his fellow student Erna Minna Juliana Senkbeil (called: Anni). Anni gave birth to her first son Hans on June 12, 1915 .

First World War and Weimar Republic

In 1915 Otto Möller was drafted and stationed on the western front between Alsace-Lorraine and Switzerland. After the war he left the Protestant church and joined the revolutionary Berlin artists' association Novembergruppe . Together with his brother Rudolf, he was represented at the first and almost without interruption at all other exhibitions of the November group from 1919. Artistically Otto Möller turned to late expressionist tendencies in art. From Expressionism , Dadaism , Constructivism and Futurism , Otto Möller developed a style syncretism that was characteristic of the artists of the Novembergruppe. As a drawing teacher, Otto Möller belonged to the educational wing of the November group alongside Bernhard Hasler , Moriz Melzer , Heinz Fuchs , Rudolf Ausleger , César Klein , Bernhard Klein and Georg Tappert .

Otto Möller's second son Peter was born in 1919.

Between 1920 and 1940, Otto Möller took an active part as a lecturer for methodology and pedagogy in the reforms to redesign art education at the Central Institute for Teaching and Education .

From 1926 to 1945 he taught at the Prinz-Heinrichs-Gymnasium in the Schöneberg district of Berlin.

In 1929 his wife Erna "Anni" Senkbeil died. A year later Otto Möller married his second wife Margarete Selma Uhlmann, the younger sister of the later famous sculptor Hans Uhlmann .

National Socialism

With the onset of National Socialism , Otto Möller stopped exhibiting. In the course of the destruction of so-called degenerate art by the National Socialists, at least one work by Otto Möller, a seascape from the Kunsthalle in Kiel , was also destroyed.

Otto's son Peter died in the war in 1944.

Post War and Death

From 1945 to 1946 he worked as a teacher at the Lilienthal-Gymnasium in the district of Berlin-Lichterfelde. In 1946 Otto Möller took over a professorship for painting and drawing in the art education department of the Berlin University of Fine Arts . During these years Otto Möller published a number of educational writings that reflect his efforts to upgrade children's drawing since the 1920s and his reform efforts for art classes. In 1955 he retired. Otto Möller died on February 29, 1964 in Berlin.

Otto Möller was a member of the German Association of Artists .

Works (selection)

  • 1920 Street noise, oil / canvas, Berlinische Galerie (Inv.nr. BG-M 4060/88)
  • 1921 The gentle , portfolio with 10 woodcuts on Dostojewski , Berlinische Galerie (inv.no. BG-G 8873/00 00–10), Moyland Castle (inv.no. 12224–12229), Lindenau Museum Altenburg (inv.no. G 1997-1103 to 1113)
  • 1921 city, oil / canvas. National Gallery Berlin
  • 1921 chess player, oil on canvas, Berlinische Galerie (inv.no.BG-M 4513/90)
  • 1921 The Karamazov brothers , portfolio with 10 woodcuts on Dostojewski, Berlinische Galerie (inv. No. BG-G 8874/00 1–10)
  • 1924 Fishing boats with yellow-brown sails, oil / canvas, Altonaer Museum, Hamburg (Inv.nr. 1975/17)
  • 1926 Portrait of Walter Kampmann , oil / canvas, Berlinische Galerie (Inv.nr. BG-M 0491/77)
  • 1928 balcony, oil / canvas, Berlinische Galerie (inv.no.BG-M 4512/90)

Exhibitions (selection)

  • 1910 - 1912 exhibitions at the Berlin Secession (summer and winter exhibition)
  • 1916 V. Jury-free art show Berlin
  • 1919-1923, 1926-1928, 1930-1931, 1958 and 1959 Great Berlin Art Exhibition
  • 1919 First exhibition by the November Group . Paintings and sculptures. Fränkel and Co., Josef Altmann, Berlin
  • 1920 graphic by the November group , Casa del arte italiana, Rome
  • 1924 First general German art exhibition , Moscow-Leningrad
  • 1928 artist group Porza , second exhibition. Painting, architecture, sculpture, Charlottenburg
  • 1960 Berlin - Place of freedom for art , Recklinghausen, Vienna, Oslo, Berlin, Charlottenburg Palace
  • 1961 New Objectivity , Haus am Waldsee , Berlin
  • 1967 Magical Realism in Germany 1920-33 , Art and Museum Association Wuppertal
  • 1967 Berlin-1920s , house on Lützowplatz , Berlin
  • 1969 Realism in painting in the twenties , Frankfurter Kunstverein
  • 1970 Expressionism in Berlin 1908-1930 , Bonn / Bad Godesberg
  • 1990 Berlin tricks . The collection of the Berlinische Galerie is a guest in the Museum of Fine Arts in Leipzig , and in the New Berlin Gallery of the Center for Art Exhibitions of the GDR in the Altes Museum Berlin
  • 1994 November group , Bodo Niemann Gallery, Berlin
  • 2004 New Objectivity in Weimar Germany , Ubu Gallery, New York
  • 2015 Otto Möller: Paintings - Watercolors - Prints , Galerie Nierendorf , Berlin

estate

Otto Möller's second wife, Margarete Uhlmann, took care of his artistic estate after his death. The Berlinische Galerie now owns a partial estate with a large number of written and artistic documents . Further works can be found in national and international collections, such as the Lindenau Museum in Altenburg, the Museum Schloss Moyland , the Altonaer Museum in Hamburg and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art .

literature

  • Otto Möller . In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General Lexicon of Fine Artists of the XX. Century. tape 3 : K-P . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1956, p. 405 .
  • Otto Möller . In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General lexicon of fine artists from antiquity to the present . Founded by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker . tape 25 : Moehring – Olivié . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1931, p. 9 .
  • Otto Möller: Evaluation of children's drawings in elementary school. Berlin 1948.
  • Otto Möller: Children's drawings in class. Berlin 1950.
  • Otto Möller: How today's art lessons developed from the technical subject of drawing. In: Streiflichter, Dec. 1950, pp. 3–5.
  • Otto Möller: The transformation of nature in the Soviet Union. Berlin 1952.
  • Rudolf Pfefferkorn: Otto Möller. Berlin 1974, ISBN 3-87776-702-8 .
  • Jeannette Brabenetz: Otto Möller 1883-1964. Between the Berlin Secession and the November Group. Catalog raisonné of printmaking, II volumes, Berlin 2008 (Master thesis, FU Berlin).
  • Otto Möller. Exhibition cat., Art sheets from Galerie Nierendorf, No. 16, Berlin 1969
  • Otto Möller. on the occasion of his 90th birthday, exhibition cat. Art Office Wedding, Berlin 1973
  • Otto Möller. Woodcuts, lithographs, watercolors, exhibition catalog, Kunstamt Wedding, Berlin 1976
  • Three painters - minted in Berlin, Otto Herbig, Bernhard Klein, Otto Möller. Exhibition catalog, art sheets from Galerie Nierendorf, No. 48, Berlin 1987
  • November group. Galerie Bodo Niemann, exhibition cat., Berlin 1994
  • Otto Möller - paintings and watercolors. Exhibition catalog, art sheets from Galerie Nierendorf, No. 67, Berlin 2000
  • Otto Möller: paintings - watercolors - prints. Exhibition catalog, art sheets from Galerie Nierendorf, No. 97, Berlin 2015

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ordinary members of the German Association of Artists since it was founded in 1903 / Möller, Otto ( kuenstlerbund.de ).
personal data
SURNAME Möller, Otto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter, graphic artist and drawing teacher
DATE OF BIRTH July 20, 1883
PLACE OF BIRTH Schmiedefeld , Thuringia
DATE OF DEATH February 29, 1964
Place of death Berlin