Otto Speidel (painter)
Otto Alfred Ludwig Speidel (born January 9, 1896 in Stuttgart ; † November 20, 1968 ) was a German painter, graphic artist and restorer who is counted among the lost generation .
Life
Otto Speidel was born as the son of the confectionery manufacturer Alfred Robert Speidel (May 10, 1872– January 20, 1943) and his wife Marie Karoline Speidel, b. Jauchstätter (June 10, 1868– April 2, 1934) was born. He attended secondary school in Stuttgart and in 1912 was accepted at the Stuttgart School of Applied Arts with the professional goal of commercial graphics. In 1946 he married his longtime partner Eleonore Eckstein. They lived in Stuttgart at Alte Weinsteige 17 until his death, where he also had his studio.
Experiences in the First and Second World War
During the First World War he was drafted into the Air Force at the age of 21. He survived a plane crash seriously injured in 1917. The experiences and experiences of the war made him a staunch pacifist. In 1919 he was admitted to study at the Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart . He attended Christian Speyer's painting class. He later moved to the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich . From 1932 to 1935 he attended the seminar for absolute painting founded by Max Ackermann . He had a close friendship and creative artistic collaboration with Ackermann. After the National Socialists came to power, he had fewer and fewer opportunities to participate in exhibitions and sell paintings in the Reich. He was considered a “ degenerate ”, “cultural Bolshevik” and politically unreliable. In the following years he earned his living mainly as a restorer and by selling paintings in Switzerland.
Time in jail
On August 17, 1943, he was arrested by the Gestapo in his studio in Stuttgart at Esslinger Strasse 18 for subversive activities and first taken to the police prison on Büchsenstrasse and later to the remand prison on Archivstrasse in Stuttgart. On November 9, 1943, the special court for the higher regional court district of Stuttgart sentenced him to 7 years in prison and 7 years of loss of honor for continuously listening to enemy broadcasts and distributing their messages. He and friends had listened to foreign stations in his studio and passed the news on to confidants. He was sent to the Schwäbisch Hall prison and later to the Kaisheim prison near Donauwörth. In prison he did grinding work on steel springs from the Robert Bosch company . During these years I developed pulmonary tuberculosis . On May 28, 1945 he was liberated by foreign troops and returned to Stuttgart.
When he was arrested, the Gestapo stole several oil paintings. The remaining oil paintings and watercolors were put in a storage room by friends, where they were destroyed in an air raid on September 12, 1944 . In 1946 Otto Speidel applied for reimbursement of the sums of money that had been seized by the Gestapo when he was arrested for subversive activities. The Württemberg public prosecutor's office in Stuttgart then ordered “... confidential and careful investigation ...” about his economic circumstances. “As an artist, he will probably earn well now.” The latter has not come true.
"Red Rider"
After the Second World War, he made a name for himself not only through his artistic work, but also as an initiator and founder of artist groups and a publicist. He was a founding member and chairman of the southern German artist and exhibition group " Roter Reiter ", founded in Traunstein in 1945/1946 . The name "Red Rider" was chosen based on the annual Georgiritt held in Traunstein , which is held in memory of the Parzival saga. The artist group did not represent a unified artistic direction. She organized exhibitions in Traunstein, Bad Reichenhall, Munich, Stuttgart, Berlin, Regensburg, Constance and elsewhere. At the anniversary exhibition in Traunstein for the 10th anniversary of the artist group, artists from ten nations were represented. The “Red Rider” jumped over all borders of art and nations. The painters and sculptors represented in the “Red Rider” were united by “... the commitment to the independence of form and color from the image of nature”.
From 1946 to 1949 Otto Speidel was a lecturer in art history and modern art at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart and the Adult Education Center in Backnang.
In 1951 he founded the sw "Südwest" group with Max Ackermann, Erich Schurr and the art historian Kurt Leonhard . His apartment and studio at Alte Weinsteige 17 in Stuttgart were also the office of the sw group. Well-known members, also known abroad, such as Willi Baumeister and Otto Baum (sculptor) belonged to the group. They were united by the rejection of reproductive naturalism without restriction to any particular direction. They organized exhibitions in the Galerie 17 in Munich, in the Kunstverein Munich with the Munich artist group “The Independent”, in the Stadthaus in Freudenstadt, in the Galetzky Gallery at Marienstraße 32 in Stuttgart and in the Amerika-Haus in Stuttgart.
He was also a co-founder and board member of the “Kulturbund Stuttgart”, where he was responsible for the visual arts. The “Kulturbund Stuttgart” presented works not only at classic exhibition locations, but also “mingled with the people”. Exhibitions were held in the “Weißenhofbäck” café restaurant. The works of art should speak to the people, prove their power of impression and not be limited to debates about their mysteriousness. Otto Speidel gave its name to the Kulturbund's artist festival in 1952: Brushabim. The artists of the Kulturbund gave the Metropol building in Stuttgart, including the cinema, pub and shopping street, a colorful look.
He was also active in the "Association of Visual Artists Württemberg". In the 1950s, the association held sales exhibitions in the Kursaal Bad Cannstatt, which were certified as having a high average quality. These sales exhibitions helped the artists to help themselves, whose economic situation was often difficult and sometimes hopeless.
For health reasons, he had to resign from all offices in 1954. The lung disease weakened him increasingly. Otto Speidel died in Stuttgart on November 20, 1968 at the age of 72. He was buried in the Stuttgart forest cemetery.
plant
His path led him from late impressionism through expressionism to an objectivity approaching abstraction , a synthesis of objectivity and abstraction and finally to non-objective, abstract painting. His works move seamlessly between stylized representationalism and non-representational abstraction. His own technique of abstract painting consists of powerful compositions of colors and shapes that have their own tension and dynamics, their own rhythm. His graphic works are characterized by an expressive interplay of black and white. There is also little object painting with industrial landscapes and animals.
Like many representatives of abstract art, he was confronted with the question of whether abstract artists were unable to paint objectively. He was not tied to a rigid program, but was inspired by developments, as Bauhaus artist Georg Muche put it: “Everything new is out of date, new things will always arise.” His concern was the freedom of art, the search for new ways and means of expression in art . His work was particularly inspired by Max Ackermann, the circle around Adolf Hölzel and the École de Paris .
graphic
Ink drawing
Oil painting, oT
literature
- Speidel, Otto . In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General Lexicon of Fine Artists of the XX. Century. tape 4 : Q-U . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1958, p. 327 .
- Gert Nagel : Swabian artist lexicon. From the baroque to the present. Art and antiques, Munich 1986, ISBN 3-921811-36-8 , p. 148.
- Günther Wirth : Forbidden Art 1933–1945. Persecuted artists in the German southwest. Hatje, Stuttgart 1987, ISBN 3-7757-0243-1 , p. 330 and 1 illustration p. 150, no. 135.
- The artwork , Volume 4, 1950, Issue 8/9, p. 91, p. 110 (illustration).
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ State Archives Ludwigsburg EL 350 I, Bü 42181; State Archives Ludwigsburg K 50, Bü 4067.
- ↑ State Archives Ludwigsburg E 31, Bü 695.
- ↑ Lot Tissimo - Information on Otto Speidel. Retrieved November 17, 2019 .
- ↑ dpa: Southwest German "Red Riders" exhibit. In: Stuttgarter Nachrichten of August 6, 1956.
- ↑ N .: International exhibition “Roter Reiter” - artists from ten countries show modern painting. In: Traunsteiner Nachrichten of August 2, 1956, issue No. 92/1956.
- ↑ N .: Art exhibition Roter Reiter. In: AZ Allgemeine Zeitung for Württemberg from August 25, 1950.
- ^ Christoph Wilhelmi: Artist groups in Germany, Austria and Switzerland since 1900. A manual. Stuttgart 1996, pp. 337-339: No. 212 "SW, Gruppe".
- ↑ State Archives Ludwigsburg FL 300/31 IV Bü 38.
- ^ E. St .: Art in a hospitable place. In: AZ Allgemeine Zeitung for Württemberg from April 2, 1951.
- ↑ Sch .: The color magic in the Metropol. In: Stuttgarter Zeitung of January 15, 1952
- ^ VBKW Association of Visual Artists Baden-Württemberg. In: VBKW Association of Visual Artists Baden-Württemberg. Retrieved November 17, 2019 .
- ↑ ker: Württemberg artists exhibit. In: Stuttgarter Zeitung of May 6, 1950.
- ^ ES: Art in Württemberg. In: Cannstatter Zeitung of May 9, 1950.
- ^ Ker: Exhibition Roter Reiter - Galerie Swiridoff. In: Stuttgarter Zeitung of September 24, 1947.
- ^ Fritz Schneider: The reality of the picture. In: AZ Allgemeine Zeitung for Württemberg from March 27, 1950.
- ↑ WiPl: Why do you paint abstractly? In: Stuttgarter Nachrichten of August 10, 1952.
- ↑ WiPl: Why do you paint abstractly? In: Stuttgarter Nachrichten of August 10, 1952.
- ^ Fritz Schneider: Otto Speidel 60 years old. In: Allgemeine Zeitung für Württemberg from January 10, 1956, issue No. 7/1956.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Speidel, Otto |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Speidel, Otto Alfred Ludwig (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German painter, graphic artist and restorer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 9, 1896 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Stuttgart |
| DATE OF DEATH | 20th November 1968 |
| Place of death | Stuttgart |