Paul Oberhoff

Grave of Paul Oberhoff and his wife Käthe in the cemetery in Dresden-Loschwitz

Paul Oberhoff (born September 16, 1884 in Iserlohn , † April 23, 1960 in Dresden ) was a German painter , graphic artist and composer .

Life

The Dresden painter Paul Oberhoff was born on September 16, 1884 in Iserlohn / Westphalia as the last of six children. His father was a building contractor. At the age of 12, Oberhoff became an orphan. First, after finishing school, Oberhoff completed a degree in mechanical engineering in Mittweida . After graduating, he came to Dresden , where he studied painting at the Art Academy from 1903 to 1908 with Oskar Zwintscher and as a master student of Gotthardt Kuehl . Nevertheless, independently of these great teachers, he developed his own expressive style. Originally Oberhoff wanted to study music, but since he was an orphan and his property was in the care of a manager, he decided to study art, which was less expensive but just as interesting for him. In Dresden, the painter also met his future wife Katharina Schreiter at an artists' ball. After graduating, Paul Oberhoff moved to Berlin , where he initially worked as a freelancer. From 1914 he worked again in Dresden, where he lived in Loschwitz on Pillnitzer Landstrasse.

His oeuvre mainly comprised oil paintings, watercolors and drawings with portraits, landscapes, but also still lifes. During the war years of the First World War , Oberhoff occupied himself intensively with sketches of everyday war life. He served as a soldier in France and Belgium from 1914 to 1918 and used the time there intensively as a front painter .

Buyers were found among a wide variety of interested parties. Works by the painter are not only privately owned, but also in various museums, galleries, in the Dresden Kupferstichkabinett , and in the Semperoper , which bought paintings in 1934 and 1986, owned by the Dresden City Gallery and the Dresden State Art Collections .

Before the Second World War , Oberhoff made several study trips to Italy , South Tyrol , Bohemia , Austria and Turkey . His art was also highly valued by Jewish families during this period. He painted numerous portraits in Chemnitz and the surrounding area.

His artistic talent also related to his own music making and composing. The numerous house concerts often encouraged him to capture what he had experienced on canvas. Many of his motifs can be found in the family environment. He often portrayed his wife Katharina, daughter Ingeborg and his grandchildren. In the house built in 1937 in Dresden-Loschwitz on Robert-Diez-Straße 6b, where he retired when he was old, there was also his own studio. Furthermore, the artist painted children, mothers, farmers, workers (“bond between art and people”), doctors, scientists, writers, other painters and musicians (Bongartz, Masur and others), as well as singers. Oberhoff was extremely popular as a portrait painter. For example, he received orders from Richard Birnstengel , Josef Hegenbarth , Georg Gelbke and Otto Griebel . Back then he was still painting in his studio in the old house. To paint from photo templates did not correspond to his artistic feelings. The atmosphere around the model was particularly important to him.

Paul Oberhoff often stayed with his family in the Bohemian Forest. They lived there on the estate of a former Viennese lawyer. Through his friendship with him, the painter gained access to the Viennese circles and other commissions from artists and the nobility.

With increasing age, Oberhoff developed severe health problems. He suffered from a right-side shaking palsy of the back and a strong deformation. Despite everything, he now painted with his left hand, which resulted in wonderful paintings. However, he withdrew completely from public life and exhibitions. Paul Oberhoff died on April 23, 1960 in Dresden. His grave is in the Loschwitz cemetery .

Acquaintances

Oberhoff maintained a lively friendship with the painter Oskar Döll , whom he met while studying art in Dresden. Döll himself made a bust of the painter in 1910/1913, which is in the Dresden sculpture collection . The portrait of a wanderer (often also: "The Hüttenvater") by Oberhoff is now regarded as a Döll portrait. Intimate expressions of friendship and stories about meetings and trips to Bohemia have been preserved from several of Döll's letters from 1906–1914. Döll also repeatedly addresses the fact that he can only have an open conversation about art with Oberhoff. In addition to art, Oberhoff and Döll also shared a passion for hiking, hunting and a love of nature. At the age of 27, Oskar Döll died in the first weeks of the First World War.

Oberhoff also had a close friendship with Otto Griebel , whom he probably also got to know while studying art in Dresden. Griebel lived with his family in Dresden-Loschwitz on Malerstraße. He also used the local proximity to Oberhoff to hold some evening meetings with him and the sculptor August Schreitmüller over wine and music. Like all people who were personally close to Oberhoff, he also portrayed Griebel. He was known, however, probably for his compositional activity and his frequent visits to operas and concerts, with singers such as Minni Nast and Eva Plaschke-von der Osten (whom he portrayed for the Semperoper).

Awards

In 1931 Oberhoff received the Dürer Prize from the city of Nuremberg for the picture "Teasing". He also received an honorary pension from the city of Dresden and for several of his works declarations of honor, endowed with various sums of money.

Exhibitions in Dresden

• Galerie Arnold (several times from 1916)
• "Exhibition of the Dresden Academy" (1927)
• Sächsischer Kunstverein , Brühlsche Terrasse, Dome Hall (collective exhibition 1928)
• Gallery "Sandel" (1931)
• "Artists' Association" (year unknown)
• "Saxon Art Exhibition" (1934)
• "Art Cooperative" (1925–1939), "100 Years of Dresden Art Cooperative", exhibition at the Sächsischer Kunstverein, 1938
• "Art Exhibition Dresden" (1939)
• "Great Dresden Art Exhibition" (1941)
• "Semper building exhibitions of Dresden artists" (1951/1952)
• "September Exhibition of Dresden Artists" (1951, 1952, 1953)
• "1. District exhibition of the Association of Visual Artists "(1954/1955)
• “Sound colors. The composing painter Paul Oberhoff (1884-1960) ”, exhibition in the Carl-Maria-von-Weber-Museum Dresden (2019)
• "Paul Oberhoff", exhibition in the Villa Eschebach Dresden (1998)
• Exhibition at the Saxon State High School for Music in Dresden (2008–2009)
• "Paul Oberhoff - Painting and Graphics", short-term care Loschwitz (2018)
• "100 Years End of the First World War", Institut Français Dresden (2018)

Permanent exhibition

• K&S senior citizens' residence Dresden

Outside Dresden, Oberhoff was able to exhibit in his hometown of Iserlohn / Westphalia in 1938 and 1952. There, works by the painter from the “Haus der Heimat” were also purchased. There were also works in Darmstadt , Leipzig (purchased in 1934 from the “Museum of Fine Arts”), Hamburg , Munich , Berlin , Vienna , Prague and Ankara .

Exhibitions outside of Dresden

• "German Spring Exhibition", Darmstadt, 1934
• "The Leisure Time", an art exhibition within the performance exhibition of the Nazi community "Strength through Joy", Hamburg, 1939
• "Great German Art Exhibition", Munich, 1938/1939
• "Great Berlin Art Exhibition", Berlin, 1941
• "National Gallery Berlin 1942"
• Exhibition in the Pirna City Museum (2018)

In 1920 a traveling exhibition started with ten oil paintings. The works could be seen in Sweden , Holland and Switzerland . After Oberhoff's death, exhibitions were also held in the “Kunst der Zeit” gallery, the cooperative of visual artists, the “Kühl” gallery and the “Neue Dresdner Galerie” on the Altmarkt. Even recently, works by the artist are still on public display. For example in 1998 in the Villa Eschebach and since 2014 on loan in the senior citizens' residence of the K&S group of companies in Dresden.

In Klippenstein Castle is presenting a special exhibition on Paul Oberhoff in the period from 28 March to 1 November 2020th

literature

• The painter Paul Oberhoff: Loschwitz portrait painter par excellence, Elbhang-Kurier , (1998), 8, pp. 12-13
• Artists on the Dresden Elbhang, first volume, Elbhang-Kurier-Verlag, Dresden 1999, p. 121
• Great Dresden Art Exhibition 1941, plastic painting, organized by the Dresden Artists' Association July 5th - October 5th, Brühlsche Terrasse, self-published exhibition (exhibition catalog)
• Great German Art Exhibition 1938, In the House of German Art in Munich from July 10th - October 16th, 1938, self-published of the exhibition (exhibition catalog)
• Great German Art Exhibition 1939, in the House of German Art in Munich from July 16 to October 15, 1939, self-published of the exhibition (exhibition catalog)
• "100 Years of Dresden Art Cooperative", anniversary exhibition at the Saxon Art Association, organized by the Dresden Art Association from April 13 to May 22, 1938, Sächsischer Kunstverein Brühlsche Terrasse, self-published exhibition (exhibition catalog)
• Art exhibition Dresden 1939, organizer: Deutscher Künstlerverband Dresden, Dresdner Kunstgenossenschaft, Künstler-Vereinigung Dresden, from May 17 to the end of August, self-published the exhibition (exhibition catalog)
• German Spring Exhibition Darmstadt Mathildenhöhe 1934, May – August, painting - graphics - sculpture, self-published the exhibition (exhibition catalog)
• Saxon Art Exhibition Dresden 1934, catalog and guide, self-published the exhibition, Dresden (exhibition catalog)
• Reprint from the 'Yearbook of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden 1978/1979', Oskar Döll on the memorial - A contribution to Dresden sculpture before 1914, Max Fischer and Ulli Arnold
• Memories of the painter Otto Griebel, Elbhang-Kurier, February 2017, pp. 14-16