Paul Scheffer (painter)
Paul Scheffer (born April 20, 1877 in Kassel , † April 4, 1916 in Berlin ) was a German painter.
Life
Paul Scheffer attended the art academy in Kassel for four years and the one in Düsseldorf before he moved to the art academy in Karlsruhe in 1896 to Robert Poetzelberger , then to Viktor Weishaupt , as his pupil he did a lot of animal studies in addition to landscape painting. One focus in Karlsruhe was on the art of lithography .
Paul Scheffer returned to Kassel in 1905 after the death of his teacher Weishaupt . Because of his excellent observations and drawings of animals, he was commissioned to work on Otto Schmeil's textbook on zoology.
When the town hall in Kassel, built between 1905 and 1909, was to be painted, Scheffer won first prize in the competition advertised for it in 1908 and was commissioned to paint it. Bantzer later wrote (1939): “The life of Kassel was portrayed by Paul Scheffer, who died in the World War, in his frieze-like paintings in the new Kassel town hall. Kassel citizens and the military, as well as country people on the way to the market pass us here ”. For this extensive commission, many of Kassel's citizens had their portraits, and farmers came to town with their animals to model.
In 1912 Scheffer was commissioned to paint a room with a frieze of allegorical representations in the Kassel town hall together with Prof. Arno Weber . The work was completed just before the outbreak of war in 1914. This frieze was restored a few years ago and now adorns the “blue” hall of the town hall.
Scheffer belonged to the new group of artists, the "Hessen", with whom he organized many exhibitions. He also stayed regularly in Willingshausen . There he found many Schwalm motifs, sketched the traditional costumes and painted the life of the farmers. He also received great recognition from Prof. Carl Bantzer , with whom he had long been a friendly correspondence.
Since his in-laws lived in England, he spent long periods there with his family. The many pictures from England reflect the fascination that the sea and rocks, sun, clouds and fog exerted in constant change.
Above all, Scheffer loved the Hessian landscape with its changing moods in all seasons: the wide views of the Hessian landscape, with small villages between the fields, with clouds moving over them that bring the landscape to life, or old trees - bare, with Blossoms, autumn leaves and snow.
Scheffer also worked on a number of lithographs; Among other things, the “Rotenburger Mappe” was created, which is eleven stone prints with views of Rotenburg an der Fulda .
At the beginning of the First World War in 1914, Scheffer was drafted first as a nurse and later as a soldier. In 1916 he was wounded near Verdun and taken to a hospital in Berlin , where he did not survive the operation.
At 39, Scheffer was only just beginning his own style, which, thanks to the mature, confident and yet relaxed brushwork, makes his later sketches and pictures appear so lively and spontaneous.
literature
- Carl Bantzer: Hessen in German painting . Elwert, Marburg 1939 ( contributions to Hessian folklore and regional studies 4).
- Veronika Jäger, Helmut Burmeister: The Kassel and "Schwalm" painter Paul Scheffer (1877-1916) . Booklet accompanying the exhibition in the Hofgeismar City Museum. Association for Hessian History and Regional Studies eV 1834 Kassel = "The history of our homeland" No. 48, Hofgeismar, 2008, 24 pp.
- Veronika Jäger, Helmut Burmeister: 100 years ago: Everyone knows Paul Scheffer. At an exhibition in 2008 in the Hofgeismar City Museum . In: Hessischer Gebirgsbote , Volume 111, No. 2, 2010, p. 86.
- Georg Gronau : The Hessians, a new group of artists . In: Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst , 46 = NF22, 1911, pp. 39–44.
Individual evidence
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Scheffer, Paul |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German painter |
| DATE OF BIRTH | April 20, 1877 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | kassel |
| DATE OF DEATH | April 4, 1916 |
| Place of death | Berlin |