Paul Hamann
Paul Hamann (born December 18, 1891 in Hamburg , † January 16, 1973 in London ) was a German sculptor , draftsman and graphic artist who took on British citizenship after his emigration . He was particularly known for his live masks .
First years
Paul Hamann attended the State Art School in Hamburg from 1910 to 1914 with the sculptor Richard Luksch . During this time he got the opportunity to work as an assistant to Auguste Rodin in Paris. In 1914 Hamann was called up for military service and ordered to work as a portfolio draftsman on the fronts in East and West.
After the end of the war, Paul Hamann established himself as a freelance artist in Hamburg on Mundsburger Damm 59. In 1919 he was one of the co-founders of the Hamburgische Sezession artists' association , of which he was a member until it was dissolved in 1933. In addition, he became a member of the Hamburg Art Association , acted as chairman of the Association of Artists Festival Hamburg and worked as a lecturer at the State Art School. He made abstract wood carvings, small sculptures, portraits and life-size sculptures - mostly female nudes - for gardens and parks. Most of his early works did not survive the war. In 1920 he married his student, the painter Hilde Guttmann . In 1924 he founded the Franco-German friendship group Groupe artistique franco-allemand .
In 1926 Paul Hamann developed a gentle procedure for removing living masks , which significantly improved the previously time-consuming and painful procedures of plaster casts and was able to anticipate death masks. His goal was to create a gallery of portrait busts of important contemporaries based on these living masks .
Until 1926 the Hamanns lived alternately in Hamburg and in their farmhouse in Worpswede . In the same year they moved to Berlin to the artists' colony on Breitenbachplatz . Paul Hamann was in contact with the Novembergruppe , an artists' association that took its name after the November Revolution of 1918 and that did not maintain a uniform art style, but was close to avant-garde currents such as cubism, futurism and expressionism. There were closer contacts to Ernesto de Fiori , Hermann Haller and Renée Sintenis . At the invitation of the diplomat Sir Harold Nicolson , Paul Hamann made several long-term visits to London.
As early as 1932 the Novembergruppe showed the first signs of disintegration, the pressure of the National Socialists on the cultural scene made itself felt. After the seizure of power , the artists' association was forced to stop its work.
emigration
The one-sided understanding of art of the new rulers and the Jewish background of their families forced Paul and Hilde Hamann to emigrate . In April 1933 they first went to Paris, moved into a studio in the Cité Fleurie and frequented the circles around André Gide and Jean Cocteau .
In 1936 the couple moved on to London and opened a studio in West Hampstead. Hamann became a founding member of the Free German League of Culture (FDKB) and a member of the Hampstead Arts Council . He became friends with Ewan Philipps, who after the end of the war became a cultural officer in Hamburg, which was ruled by the British occupying forces .
In 1940 Paul Hamann - like many German refugees - was taken to the Hutchinson Internment Camp , an internment camp on the Isle of Man . There he met the painters Kurt Schwitters and Erich Kahn, among others . He heard from Germany that his farmhouse in Worpswede had been expropriated. After his release in 1941, the Hamanns separated - but later both worked on joint projects again. Paul Hamann founded a private art school in London, the Camden Art Center , which was mainly visited by German refugees.
After the war
In 1950 Paul Hamann became a British citizen. From 1953 he visited his hometown Hamburg several times and tried in vain to work as a lecturer at the state art school. The attempt to regain his confiscated farmhouse in Worpswede was also in vain. The Hanseatic City of Hamburg awarded him a lifelong pension.
Towards the end of his career, his gallery of living masks had grown to 96 works, including portraits of Bertolt Brecht , Gustaf Gründgens , Jean Cocteau, Aldous Huxley , Man Ray , Renée Sintenis, Lady Churchill and Lion Feuchtwanger . Four of his portrait busts are now in the London National Gallery, the Lion Feuchtwanger bust found its place in the Villa Aurora in Los Angeles. Further works are kept in the Berlin National Gallery , the Hamburger Kunsthalle (including the Brecht bust), the Museum of Hamburg History and the Museum of Art and Industry . Paul Hamann died in London in 1973.
literature
- Family Kay Rump (ed.), Maike Bruhns : Der Neue Rump, Lexicon of the visual artists of Hamburg , 2nd edition. Wachholtz-Verlag, Neumünster / Hamburg 2012, p. 173. ISBN 978-3-529-02792-5
- Klaus Düring, Peter Elze: Artists in the district of Osterholz , 2nd edition. Worpsweder Verlag, Lilienthal 1981, ISBN 3 922516-24-6
- Maike Bruhns: Art in the Crisis, Volume 2, Artist Lexicon Hamburg 1933–1945, pp. 177ff
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Hamann, Paul |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German-British sculptor |
| DATE OF BIRTH | December 18, 1891 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Hamburg |
| DATE OF DEATH | 16th January 1973 |
| Place of death | London |