Otto Prase
Andreas Emil Otto Prase (born December 29, 1874 in Heringen ; † June 25, 1956 in Lößnitz ) was a German master painter who made a name for himself especially in the field of color theory .
Life
Otto Prase grew up in Rudolstadt and was trained there by his uncle, the decorative painter Alfred Prase. From 1892 to 1897 he went on tour as a painter's assistant, and in 1897 he became the first assistant to the head master in Ilmenau . There he also passed his master's examination. In 1910, the German painter's newspaper Die Mappe published his article Basic features of a color order and naming in a series distributed over several issues.
He applied to the color card manufacturer Paul Baumann (1869–1961) in Aue and joined his company in 1911. Together with him, he published an order system with 1,300 samples in 1912. This work "Baumann's new color shade card (Prase system)" contained precise formulations for the pigment mixture and therefore received the highest awards at trade fairs in Leipzig and Dresden. In a study on industrial usability commissioned by the Deutscher Werkbund at Paul Krais, they were judged to be the best available tool for these purposes for industry, trade and handicrafts, and many editions were still printed years later. Until the beginning of the First World War , Prase worked as a commission traveler for Baumann. In the early summer of 1915, at a meeting with Wilhelm Ostwald in Großbothen near Leipzig , Prase exchanged an idea for arranging the colors in a triangle, but the prospect of a collaboration did not materialize. Ostwald published his color arrangement in the color primer in 1917 ; Prase's preliminary work in the form of his color cards is not mentioned in it.
In 1917, Prase met August Kirschmann , Wilhelm Wundt's assistant, in the reserve battalion in Leipzig , and thus gained access to fundamental works of color theory in the Leipzig University Library. This enabled him to develop the thousand-part color cube , a new system based on the three primary colors, the main idea of which he published as a three- color cube for color analysis of three-color printing in 1923 in the German painter's newspaper Die Mappe under the title color measurements and color orders in several series. The system is characterized by three basic colors, red, yellow and blue, the intensity of which is expressed in a number between 0 and 9. The combination of the three basic colors in a three-digit number, in which each position is assigned to a certain basic color, thus represents a certain hue. B. 999 as a combination of the three primary colors blue, yellow and red in full intensity for the hue black, 333 represents a light gray with a lower saturation, 909 as a combination of yellow and blue in full intensity for the hue green.
In 1922/23 Prase published a newly developed color atlas and color fan together with Baumann. The second edition of the Prase color card system in 1928 shone with twelve bronze tones and some textual improvements. It now contained a total of 1359 shades. Around 1933 he started a business in Lößnitz for manufacturing and sales. a. of painting supplies and color cards for painters and handicrafts independently.
With his work he also laid the foundation for the later elaboration of a color cube for the printing ink systems by Hickethier and Küppers that are in use today . Its decimally structured numerical values for the various color components are important pillars of the RGB and CYMK color palettes even today in the digital age.
Between 1944 and 1946 he self-published the sketch of a thousand-part color cube and UNIFAKA - proposals and experiments for a universal color card based on color spinning measurements carried out with Nagra paints . In 1954, parts of an unpublished biography were created under the title From the Memoirs of an Old Master Painter . Part of his estate is in the color theory collection of the Technical University of Dresden . On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of his death, the TU Dresden organized an exhibition on his special works.
Works (selection)
- Color scales and color names, basics of a color order and naming , in: Die Mappe , Deutsche Malerzeitung , Volume 30, Issues 18–22, 1910.
- Baumann's new color shade card System Prase (1359 colors) , Verlag P. Baumann, Aue / Sachsen, 1st edition 1912, 2nd improved edition 1928, further editions in the period from 1930 to 1946 (including a new edition 1937 at DNB).
- New color atlas , 680 hand- painted shades based on an eight-part trigonal row , 1922.
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Color fan, color wheel, pyramids of the same color , Sächsischer Malertag, Pirna, 1923.
- published under Paul Baumann: The key to color harmony: New color atlas in card form u. Color fan , Baumann publishing house, Aue / Saxony, 1922.
- Color measurement and color order , in: The Portfolio , Volume 43, Issues 31–34, 1923.
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Experimental studies on color theory , self-published, Lößnitz (Erzgebirge), 1941–1946, therein
- Part 1: Color pyramid freely based on Becke , 1941.
- Part 2: Color cubes freely based on Becke , 1941.
- Part 3: "Unifaka", suggestions and attempts for a universal color card , 1944/1946.
- Part 4: The thousand-part color cube , 1945.
Web links
- Abstracts of a lecture by Priv. Doz. Eckhard Bendin on the occasion of the Color Info 2006 , Annual Congress 2006 of the German Color Center e. V. in Dresden
- 50th anniversary of the death of an almost forgotten, famous Lößnitz citizen , laudation on the 50th anniversary of death, by Eckhard Bendin, TU Dresden in the Lößnitzer Heimatblatt , official and informationsheet ofthe city of Lößnitz, No. 187 of July 26, 2006 p. 6, PDF on arch .tu-dresden.de (10 kB)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Biography: Otto Prase ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF), accessed January 27, 2009
- ↑ Flyer collection of color theory ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF) of the Institute for Basics of Design and Representation , Faculty of Architecture, Technical University of Dresden
- ↑ Interface color II ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Exhibition on the 50th anniversary of Otto Prase's death at the Institute for Basics of Design and Representation , Faculty of Architecture, Technische Universität Dresden, accessed January 27, 2009
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Prase, Otto |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Prase, Andreas Emil Otto (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German master painter and color researcher |
| DATE OF BIRTH | December 29, 1874 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Herrings |
| DATE OF DEATH | June 25, 1956 |
| Place of death | Loessnitz |