Otto Tillkes
Otto Tillkes (born May 13, 1884 in Krefeld , † September 27, 1949 in Uelzen ) was a German painter .
Life
He spent his youth in Pforzheim , where he attended the Grand Ducal School of Applied Arts from 1902 to 1904 after graduating from high school. From 1904 to 1908 Tillkes studied at the Munich Art Academy a . a. in the drawing class of Peter von Halm . Until shortly before the outbreak of the First World War he lived a. a. in Paris . In 1913 he married Martha Frauer, divorced Baroness Voith von Voithenberg, in London . In the First World War he took up the officer career and was promoted to lieutenant in the reserve. In 1915 he was injured and was awarded the Grand Duke of Baden's Silver Medal of Merit. After the war Tillkes moved with his wife to Hallwangen near Dornstetten in the Black Forest . The economic situation led to the couple moving to Lindau in 1924, to the family home of the Frauer family. In Lindau Tillkes became a member of the artists' association " Der Kreis " of visual artists on Lake Constance , the u. a. the following artists belonged: Albert Bechtold , Adolf Dietrich , Theo Glinz , Stephanie Hollenstein , Hans Purrmann , Kasia von Szadurska and Rudolf Wacker . In 1930 Tillkes took up his residence in Munich , while his wife continued to live in Lindau. Martha Tillkes died in 1939. During the Second World War Otto Tillkes was initially used as a reservist, later he was released from military service due to the long-term consequences of his war injury from the First World War (including almost complete deafness ). In 1941 he married the correspondent and later managing director of the artists' association Uelzen Margarethe Krüger. The Munich studio Tillkes in Schwabinger Barerstraße was destroyed. In 1944 the couple moved to Uelzen, where Tillkes died on September 27, 1949. Tillkes left an illegitimate son with the same first name who was born in Munich in 1904.
plant
Tillkes initially drew naturalistic and "old masters". Drawings from the 1930s became more graphic and seem inspired by Art Nouveau. In addition to oil paints, he often used tempera in painting. His landscape painting of the early twenties, especially in the Black Forest and Lindau, is influenced by impressionism and works a lot with light and shadow. Since the mid-1930s he switched to a more naturalistic-realistic painting. In the course of this development, and probably also due to his residence in Munich, he also turned away from landscapes and towards still lifes . His great passion and probably also ability was portrait painting. Here a change takes place from drawing dominated (in the early 1930s also rather stylized) works to large-format colored portraits, which include the background of the room in the composition. Tillkes always made sure to let the portrayed person and their characteristics express themselves and to withdraw themselves as much as possible. This "objectivity" in his work was already noted in 1926 in the Book of Lake Constance. Tillkes often worked on his pictures for several years, some of which he changed in detail again after years. In the 1930s and 1940s he created several oil paintings that were visibly based on the then prevailing art doctrine of naturalism and which almost completely lacked the floating nature of the work of the 1920s.
Works by Tillkes - presumably mostly or exclusively portraits - were shown in collective exhibitions of the district in 1926 and 1927. In Munich Tillkes u. a. in exhibitions of the Munich artists 'cooperative, in Uelzen in exhibitions of the local artists' association. He also made commercial graphic works, for example for posters and the like.
Many of his works, probably the main part, are today destroyed or lost due to his relatively frequent moves and the destruction of his Munich studio. Remaining works by Otto Tillkes are in the possession of the Museum Schloss Holdenstedt near Uelzen, in the art trade and in private ownership.
literature
- Martina Peter: Concentrated objectivity. The painter Otto Tillkes in Lindau (1923-1930) , in: Writings of the Association for the History of Lake Constance and its Surroundings , Issue 131 2013, ISBN 978-3-7995-1719-5 , pp. 209-227
Web links
Individual evidence
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Tillkes, Otto |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German painter |
| DATE OF BIRTH | May 13, 1884 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Krefeld |
| DATE OF DEATH | September 27, 1949 |
| Place of death | Uelzen |