Paul Nicolaus

Paul Nicolaus (born September 17, 1904 in Trier ; † May 1945 in captivity in the former Yugoslavia ) was a German painter and graphic artist.

Origin and education

Paul Nicolaus came from a modest, but music-oriented background. His father Ferdinand Nicolaus, who worked as city secretary after dropping out of theology studies, was enthusiastic about Trier's finds, old crosses and chapels, which he recorded in meticulously precise drawings. The mother Anna Nicolaus, born Kaiser, who was trained at the Conservatory in Strasbourg, loved socializing and celebrations where she played music. Both parents encouraged their son's artistic talent, which was evident at an early age, and placed him in an apprenticeship as a lithographer after his high school years. After graduating in 1923, Paul Nicolaus studied painting and graphics at the Trier School of Crafts and Applied Arts under Prof. August Trümper , the teacher of numerous Trier painters. Among his students at that time were the painters Reinhard Heß and Edvard Frank , with whom Paul Nicolaus became friends. Trümper represented a German late impressionism that was based on the painting of the Berlin Secession . He was also at the beginning of his development for Paul Nicolaus, who from November 1928 worked as Trümper's assistant in the design class for decorative painting.

Freelance artist in Trier

After completing his studies and the first of several trips to Italy, Paul Nicolaus settled in Trier as a freelance artist in 1929. Networked nationwide in the “ Association of German Commercial Graphics ”, from then on his work in the graphic field, advertising contracts for Trier breweries and cigarette factories, illustrations and font design for clubs and communities contributed to his livelihood. Two handwritten compendia that have been preserved show the fascination that writings and their development, house symbols and pictograms exerted on him.

Despite his affinity for the graphic arts, Paul Nicolaus saw himself primarily as a painter and draftsman. According to his painter friend Reinhard Hess, he gave appropriate lessons at the municipal secondary school in Trier for a long time. At the same time, an extensive oeuvre of landscape, architectural and figurative painting was created in the course of the 1930s, which he exhibited with the Trier artist groups operating in changing compositions, most recently between 1930 and 1932 as a member of the Society of Fine Artists and Art Friends in the Trier district. An outstanding event was the participation in the “Great Berlin Art Exhibition 1932” as part of a “Special Show of Contemporary Art in the Saar.” Hermann Keuth (1888–1974), Director of the City Museum of Local History in Saarbrücken, was invited to the “Trier artist group around Paul Nicolaus "And at the same time proposed their inclusion in the" Reichsverband Saar ". Paul Nicolaus successfully organized the presentation of the exhibits, which had previously been selected by the Saarbrücken jury, alongside his own work, the oil painting "View of the Street", including works by the Trier painters Reinhard Heß and Peter Krisam .

The early work

Paul Nicolaus' starting position as a late impressionist is evidenced by a "Moselle landscape", which, as evidenced by its dedication on the reverse, was created in 1929 at the latest and still betrayed the influence of his teacher Trümper in terms of style and choice of colors. But emancipation followed quickly. In 1930 Paul Nicolaus created a portrait of the Trier sculptor Heinrich Hamm (1889–1968), which is one of the best and most independent of his (surviving) works: the focus of the composition is the sculptor as a figure from the back while working on a larger than life sculpture. The temporary-looking interior and work space under a tarpaulin interlocks seamlessly with the exterior and threshold space framed by workpieces. The predominant gray tones in front of a little leaf green signal dust and physically hard work with hammer and chisel when hammering out of the natural stone. At the same time, however, they point to the painter's turning away from impressionistically colorful colors. Following the Europe-wide tendencies of the 1930s, Paul Nicolaus's painting also began to solidify into a realism with fixed contours and clearly defined areas of color, approximating the local tone. He admired the representational works of the painters André Derain and Karl Hofer and combined his own realistic positions with a highly concise order, which was also owed to the art movement of the New Objectivity . A very specific trace of naivety complemented this mixed situation, for example in his architectural pieces from 1930/31: Monaise Castle in Trier or Porta Nigra from the west. In contrast, his Roman impressions from the mid-1930s read as notes in a travel diary.

Working during the Nazi era

After the National Socialists came to power in 1933, Paul Nicolaus was also accepted into the Trier district group of the Reich Chamber of Fine Arts in order to continue working as a licensed artist. In the same year he had already received an order from the city of Trier to design the certificate for the honorary citizenship awarded to Adolf Hitler on April 19, 1933. The draft of the honorary citizenship certificate including the case, which was presented to the Reich Minister of Education Bernhard Rust on November 10, 1936 in Trier, came from his hand. As a striking fact, however, it should be noted that Paul Nicolaus - unlike the majority of Trier painters - was no longer involved in any of the art exhibitions that were numerous and party-controlled from 1933 to 1944 by the Museum of the City of Trier, the "Kulturverband Gau Moselland" and the so-called. Kunsthaus Luxemburg. Even if no painting bans directed against individual artists have come to light in Trier: Paul Nicolaus was obviously "forcibly privatized". In the years 1935/36 he made repeated study and work stays with relatives in Rome and Meran. A long visit to his friend Edvard Frank in Berlin is documented for the summer of 1938.

Paul Nicolaus found a last field of activity after the end of the French campaign in 1940 with documentation work in the so-called "reconstruction area Saarlautern" (Saarlouis) in the German-French border area. Several groups of artists and architects were commissioned by the state to record the effects of the war on site with drawings, watercolors, oil paintings and photos in order to be able to establish the planned spacious “German village architecture” after clean-up work and demolition (including intact buildings). Paul Nicolaus and the painter Mia Münster (1894–1970), with whom he soon developed a close friendship , also belonged to the team, which stayed for months mainly in the badly destroyed village of Ihn near Wallerfangen in the then evacuated "Red Zone" Association. In numerous watercolors and tempera works, both reproduced the remains of the village, once praised as particularly beautiful, and the surrounding landscape. Paul Nicolaus also created several portraits of the painter Mia Münster as well as a sketchbook dedicated to her, in which he captured snapshots of their time together with verve and a sure line. An exhibition of his views, which he - already recalled to the military - urgently asked the director of the Trier City Museum, Walter Dieck, in June 1941, was also denied him. In later, very personal letters to Mia Munster, he complained, among other things, of the “eternal landscape painting that got up his neck, he wanted to finally paint figuratively again, finally nude again.” That never happened. On home leave in July 1942, he married Leni Kleber from Trier, whom he knew from a young age, while still in Zeltingen / Mosel. In May 1945 he died as a prisoner of war in the former Yugoslavia. With a few exceptions, his works were lost due to the war, and Paul Nicolaus was forgotten.

Late appreciation

For the first time as part of the project “Painter friendships in threatening times - The 30s in the region”, exhibition from March 30th to November 4th 2001 and catalog of the City Museum Simeonstift Trier, Trier 2001, the “representational modernity” of Paul Nicolaus was also included rediscovered the research on the environment of the artist friends Joseph Kutter , Peter Krisam, Edvard Frank and Mia Münster. His few works, which are in private ownership and in the holdings of the city museum, can be stylistically assigned to the collective term "expressive realism". Paul Nicolaus is an example of the artists of the “missing generation” born around 1900, whose work and careers were vehemently impaired or abruptly ended by the Nazi dictatorship and World War.

Picture gallery

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  Paul Nicolaus: Moselle landscape, with a dedication from 1929, oil on canvas, 47 × 65.3 cm, Stadtmuseum Simeonstift Trier, inv. No. III 1521.

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  Paul Nicolaus: Sculptor Heinrich Hamm, 1930, gouache, 58 × 44 cm, Stadtmuseum Simeonstift Trier, inv. No. III 1390.

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  Paul Nicolaus: Monaise Castle in Trier, 1931, gouache, 21 × 29.5 cm, private collection.

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  Paul Nicolaus: Porta Nigra von Westen, 1931, oil on canvas, 60 × 49.5 cm, private collection.

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  Paul Nicolaus: Garden pavilion near St. Marien, around 1930, oil on canvas, 60.5 × 49.5 cm, Stadtmuseum Simeonstift Trier, inv. No. III 1433.

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  Paul Nicolaus: Roman street scene, around 1935, watercolor, 35 × 48 cm, private collection.

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  Paul Nicolaus: Roman women at the window, around 1935, watercolor, 48 × 35 cm, private collection.

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  Paul Nicolaus: Houses destroyed in the war in the village of Ihn near Wallerfangen, 1941, watercolor, 42 × 59 cm, private collection.

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  Paul Nicolaus: Portrait of the painter Mia Münster, 1941, gouache, 65 × 50 cm, private collection.

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  Paul Nicolaus: At the easels, 1941, pen drawing from the sketchbook dedicated to Mia Münster, 18 × 27 cm, private collection.

literature

• Paul Mauder: Trier painting - Trier painter groups and Trier painters . In: Trierische Heimat 7, 1931, pp. 97–99 and pp. 117–119.
• Reinhard Heß: Trier painter: Paul Nicolaus . In: New Trierisches Jahrbuch 1965, pp. 134–135.
• Wieland Schmied: Starting point and transformation . In: Christos M. Joachimides (Ed.): German Art in the 20th Century: Painting and Sculpture 1905-1985 , Munich 1986, pp. 21–72.
• Rainer Zimmermann: The Art of the Lost Generation - German Painting of Expressive Realism from 1925 to 1975 . Düsseldorf / Vienna 1980; Revised new edition under the title: Expressive Realism: Painting of the Lost Generation . Munich 1994.
• Günther Scharwath: The collective exhibition of Saarland artists at the Great Berlin Art Exhibition in 1932 . In: Journal for the History of the Saar Region 44, 1996.
• Matthias Arnold: The Ignored “Parallel Art” - Expressive Objectivity of the 20th Century in Germany . In: Rolf Jessewitsch, Gerhard Schneider (Ed.): Ostracized. To forget. Rediscovered - Art of Expressive Objectivity from the Gerhard Schneider Collection . Cologne 1999.
• Bärbel Schulte: Nikolaus (sic), Paul, painter . In: Heinz Monz (Ed.): Trier Biographical Lexicon . Trier 2000, pp. 326-327.
• Anita Büttner : Paul Nicolaus (1904-1945) . In: Elisabeth Dühr (Hrsg.): Painter friendships in threatening times - the 30s in the region . Exhibition catalog Trier 2001, pp. 65–77.
• Günther Scharwath: Between the Siegfried Line and the Maginot Line. The visual arts in the Saarlautern district 1939/41 . Saarbrücken 2002.
• Bärbel Schulte (Hrsg.): "For the refinement of forms and taste education" - the Werkkunstschule Trier . Trier 2003. With contribution Bettina Leuchtenberg: The class for painting 1900-1930. "Copying, tracing and re-enacting what has been there will not open up new avenues for us ..." , pp. 147–159 and article Biographical Directory of the Teachers of the Werkkunstschule 1900-1971 . Pp. 399-447, here p. 426.
• Bettina Leuchtenberg: The Trier Municipal Museum in the Nazi era 1933–1945. An institutional story . In: Kurtrierisches Jahrbuch 52, 2012, pp. 303–351.
• Catherine Lorent: The National Socialist Art and Cultural Policy in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg 1934-1944 . Trier 2012, especially data appendix pp. 381–386.
• Cornelieke Lagerwaard: On the way . In: Exhibition catalog Mia Münster - fashion drawings. St. Wendeler Land and "Lothringer Bilder" 1925-1945 , Museum St. Wendel, April 13 to June 1, 2014.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Ferdinand Nicolaus personal file, Trier City Archives T 12/6504. In it curriculum vitae, pp. 11–12; Retirement as city secretary on December 31, 1932, unpaginated. Address and business manuals of the city of Trier, 1910 - www.dilibri.de/periodical/pageview/484208, as well as 1914, 1921/22, 1928 and 1936.
2. ↑ His training company was the respected company Schaar & Dathe, Graphic Art Institute for Book, Stone and Collotype in Trier.
3. ↑ "List of those employed in teaching and workshops for auxiliary services at the arts and crafts school in Trier", status winter half year 1928/29, Trier city archive, Tb 19/319.
4. ↑ On his business card he "traded": Paul Nicolaus - painter and graphic artist BDG - Trier.
5. ↑ Information from his niece Anita Büttner, cf. Lit. Verz, Catalog 2001, p. 69. The contemporary advertising graphics of the Trier companies mentioned do not have any signatures and, due to a lack of comparable material, they cannot be stylistically assigned to Paul Nicolaus.
6. ↑ Paul Nicolaus: Script I and Script II. Undated compendia, Trier City Archives, Reinhard Heß legacy, folders 6 and 12.
7. ↑ It was probably an assistant teacher after the retirement of the teacher and painter Anton Schneider-Postrum in 1932. According to information from the Trier City Archives, Ms. Schömer, dated May 11, 2015, there is no Paul Nicolaus personal file.
8. ↑ The dedication written in black ink on the stretcher reads: “To the young couple for their wedding. Trier 1929. P. Nicolaus “.
9. ↑ Anita Büttner, such as Lit. Verz., Catalog 2001, p. 70. The date is not known. In any case, he was not one of the first eight Trier painters to be accepted on September 9, 1933, but was a successor. Cf. Trier Nationalblatt of September 16, 1933. According to information from the Federal Archives of May 28, 2015, no archival material could be found on Paul Nicolaus, in particular no NSDAP central or Gaukartei and no archival records from the holdings of BArch R 9361-V, Personal documents of the Reich Chamber of Culture (RKK).
10. ^ From the minutes of the meeting of the city council of Trier on April 19, 1933, the resolutions on the unanimous acceptance of the application for the granting of honorary citizenship to Adolf Hitler and the award of the design "to a local artist in the best form." should be made available from the funds of the city council. City Archives Trier, Council minutes 1928 to 1933, Tb 100/52, pp. 565/566. According to his niece Anita Büttner, the contract was given to Paul Nicolaus. See Lit. Verz., Katalog 2001, pp. 70, 72 with note 18.
11. ^ Trierischer Volksfreund dated November 11, 1936 and letter from the crafts school of November 5, 1946 to the press office of the city of Trier. City archive Trier Tb 19/461 and Tb 19/462 as well as photo folder Tc
12. ↑ Quoted from Peter-Klaus Schuster: Art for None - On the Inner Emigration of German Modernism. In: Christos M. Joachimides (Ed.): German Art in the 20th Century: Painting and Sculpture 1905-1985 , like Lit. Verz. Pp. 455–457.
13. ^ Postcard from Paul Nicolaus and Edvard Frank of July 5, 1938 from Berlin to the Dubreuil family in Lingen. Fig. In: Elisabeth Dühr (Hrsg.): Painter friendships in threatening times - the 30s in the region . Trier 2001, article by Bärbel Schulte: Edvard Frank, pp. 79–91, here pp. 82–83.
14. ↑ This work was initially commissioned by the chairman of the "franking staff" District Administrator Dr. Franz Schmitt, then also the Gauleiter and Reich Governor Josef Bürckel.
15. ↑ The works remained in private ownership (estate Mia Münster).
16. ↑ Handwritten letter from the painter - "as a soldier" - dated June 2, 1941 from Wiesbaden to Dr. Walter Dieck in Trier, in which he emphasizes the quality and the partisan innocence of the documentation, measured against other exhibitions of the museum, e. B. that of the painter Carl Barth . City archive Trier, autograph collection.
17. ^ Letter from Ahrweiler, dated March 23, 1942. A total of eight letters and a field postcard from the period between September 1941 and March 1943, privately owned (Mia Münster estate).