Otto S. Grewe

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Otto S. Grewe (born December 21, 1917 in Klein-Berkel near Hameln ; † December 14, 1965 in Celle , actually Otto Schepelmann-Grewe ) was a German-Austrian surrealist painter and inventor of the Miroitage collage technique .

Life

Otto Schepelmann, born on December 21, 1917 in Klein-Berkel near Hameln and raised in Northern Germany, studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna under Carl Fahringer . After military service and imprisonment, Albert Paris Gütersloh introduced him to the Vienna Secession , of which he was a member from 1949 to 1960. In 1955 he joined the “Society of Fine Arts Vienna, Künstlerhaus ”. In addition to working as a freelance artist, he also worked as an illustrator, commercial artist, interior designer and exhibition designer.

In 1959 Otto Schepelmann took the stage name Otto S. Grewe on the occasion of an adoption. From that year he signed his works with “Grewe”, before that with the letters “Sch”. Otto S. Grewe was married to the set and type designer Erika Rieder (1919–1995) and had a son (Wolfgang, 1947–2014). He died on December 14, 1965 at the age of 49 after a brief, serious illness.

Artistic work

Until the early 1960s, Grewe mainly created drawings and figurative impasto oil paintings. Illustrations and caricatures appeared in books as well as in the short-term satirical magazine Der Basilisk , for which u. a. and Vera Ferra and Helmut Qualtinger worked.

At the beginning of the sixties Grewe experimented with impression techniques and in February 1962 he invented the so-called Miroitage (from French miroir , Spiegel). This collage technique, by means of which parts of printed paper are transferred to the painting surface by splitting the paper with the help of a solvent, has only been partially reconstructed to this day. In the three remaining years up to his death, mainly works were created using the new technique, which quickly attracted the attention of critics and led to artistic and commercial recognition. The artist's illness and early death brought these successes to an abrupt end and let his work fall into oblivion for years.

"Grewe was allowed to find his style as the appropriate means of expression for him, but unfortunately prevented from enjoying the ripeness of the harvest."

- Obituary in the Wiener Zeitung

Style and interpretation

In terms of content, the pictures, especially the Miroitage, are very complex and dense. Excerpts from old and contemporary newspapers, from facsimiles or letters are combined like collages to form symbolic, surrealistic landscapes or scenes.

“The result is a very unique, fantastic, mirrored world of visions, a land behind the mirror, a distorted, partly immaterial, illusory world that contains almost as many possibilities, associations and confusions as our lives. At the same time, the assembled newspaper clippings arouse associations with Dada and Kurt Schwitters ' Merz collages. "

- Simone Mattow

A common motif is the unicorn .

“The unicorn (is) a leading figure that ran through his entire work in numerous variations. It interprets his knowledge of the puzzling and unexplored, the mysterious and also paradoxes in the world, which believes to reach and prove everything. "

- Kristian Sotriffer

Works (selection)

  • 1952: Three Greeks , Oil, Austrian Federal Ministry of Education
  • 1955: Crown pigeons , oil, Artothek des Bundes im 21er Haus , Vienna
  • 1955: Bathing sparrows , oil, Artothek des Bundes im 21er Haus , Vienna
  • 1956: St. Stephan in the evening , oil, Artothek des Bundes im 21er Haus , Vienna
  • 1957: Linen , mixed media, collection of the cultural department of the City of Vienna (MUSA)
  • 1959: Bassena , Öl, Austrian Federal Ministry for Education
  • 1962: The temptation of the father of the anchorites Antonius Magnus , Miroitage and Oil, private property
  • 1962: Clock stand by the sea , Miroitage and oil, collection of the Cultural Department of the City of Vienna (MUSA)
  • 1964: Où sont les hommes , Miroitage, Österreichische Galerie Belvedere , Vienna
  • 1964: Eye and Egg , Miroitage, Lentos , Linz
  • 1965: Er , Miroitage, Österreichische Galerie Belvedere , Vienna
  • 1965: It has been achieved , Miroitage, Phantastenmuseum , Vienna

Exhibitions and prizes

Exhibitions

  • 1942 Participation in the anniversary exhibition of the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts
  • 1944 Participation in the military exhibition of the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts
  • 1949–1953 regular participation in the exhibitions of the Vienna Secession ("New Young Art", Wiener Festwochen )
  • 1954 Participation in the Christmas exhibition Galerie St. Etienne, New York
  • 1956–1965 regular participation in the exhibitions of the Wiener Künstlerhaus (Wiener Festwochen, autumn exhibition, shop window)
  • 1962 Solo exhibition at the Peithner-Lichtenfels Gallery, Vienna
  • 1963 Galerie Hans E. Frey, Basel; Del Parnaso Gallery, Milan
  • 1964 Solo exhibition Miroitagen, Galerie Peithner-Lichtenfels, Vienna
  • 1965 Participation in the DADA exhibition in the New Gallery of the City of Linz
  • 1967 Memorial exhibition in the Vienna Künstlerhaus
  • 2013 Solo exhibition at Galerie Bassenge & Galerie Klaus Spermann, Berlin
  • 2014 Galerie Rotes Antiquariat, Vienna

Prices

  • 1943 and 1944 sponsorship awards from the Vienna Künstlerhaus
  • 1962 Albin Egger Lienz Prize from the Vienna Künstlerhaus

Literary work

Otto S. Grewe worked as a journalist throughout his life and exchanged letters with Max Rychner , the Dostoevsky translator Arnold Wasserbauer and Gustav René Hocke . He wrote essays for the radio and poetry for the weekly newspaper Die Furche . Several novels and plays in the expressionist - symbolist style remained unpublished.

Literature about Otto S. Grewe

  • Galerie Bassenge & Galerie Klaus Spermann, ed. (2013): "Otto S. Grewe, Ölbilder und Miroitagen". Exhibition catalog. Berlin.
  • Galerie Peithner-Lichtenfels, ed. (1964): "Otto S. Grewe, Miroitagen". Exhibition catalog. Vienna.
  • Gerhard Habarta (2013): Lexicon of Fantastic Artists, Vienna: IFAA, p. 199
  • Renate Knorr & Ingo Timm (2014): The Miroitage. On the painting technique of Otto S. Grewe (1917–1965). In: VDR contributions 1/2014. Regensburg: Schnell & Steiner.
  • Ernst Köller (1963): Otto S. Grewe. In: Old and Modern Art VIII, 68/1963. Vienna: MAK

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ cf. Renate Knorr & Ingo Timm (2014): The Miroitage. On the painting technique of Otto S. Grewe (1917-1965). In: VDR contributions 1/2014. Regensburg: Schnell & Steiner.
  2. ^ Wiener Zeitung , obituary dated January 18, 1966
  3. ↑ Simone Mattow: The temptation of the father of the anchorites, Antonius Magnus. In: Galerie Bassenge & Galerie Klaus Spermann, ed. (2013): "Otto S. Grewe, Ölbilder und Miroitagen". Exhibition catalog. Berlin, p. 10.
  4. ↑ Fig. Of a watercolor , 1958, accessed on January 5, 2016. The monogram "Sch" is probably wrongly read here as "JA".
  5. ^ Gallery Peithner-Lichtenfels, ed. (1964): "Otto S. Grewe, Miroitagen". Exhibition catalog. Vienna.
  6. ↑ Gerhard Habarta (2013): Lexicon of Fantastic Artists, Vienna: IFAA, p. 199
  7. ↑ Directory of exhibitions 1868-2010 , in: Aichelburg, Wladimir: 150 Jahre Wiener Künstlerhaus Wien 1861-2011, accessed on January 5, 2016
  8. ↑ Awards and honors , in: Aichelburg, Wladimir: 150 Jahre Wiener Künstlerhaus Wien 1861-2011, accessed on January 5, 2016
personal data
SURNAME Grewe, Otto S.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schepelmann, Otto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian painter
DATE OF BIRTH December 21, 1917
PLACE OF BIRTH Klein-Berkel near Hameln
DATE OF DEATH December 14, 1965
Place of death Celle