Paul von Waldthausen

Paul von Waldthausen (born January 25, 1897 in Essen , † June 26, 1965 in Gersfeld ) was a German entrepreneur , painter , photographer and interior designer .

Life

He was the son of Oskar von Waldthausen (1854–1906) and his wife Bertha nee. Schmidt comes from a wealthy entrepreneurial family in Essen . He grew up in Gersfeld - the property of his uncle Bruno von Waldthausen  - and in Essen and attended the Wilhelmsgymnasium Kassel . After graduating from high school, he did military service in the cuirassier regiment v. Seydlitzand left the army as a lieutenant in the reserve. 1919–1921 he attended the technical colleges in Karlsruhe and Darmstadt to study architecture. In 1921 he broke off his studies and went to Munich to devote himself to painting. His teachers there were Heinrich Brüne and Ernst Haymann. From 1924 he went on study trips from Munich to Paris, Rome, Florence, Ibiza, Agadir and southern France. In 1935 he moved back to Gersfeld, which he had inherited from his uncle in 1926 together with his brother Oskar. The estate includes three castles, a park, extensive estates and factories. Bruno von Waldthausen had expanded the park and in 1908 built a park villa as the family home, which Waldthausen now moved into.

In 1937 he rented a studio apartment in Berlin-Wilmersdorf , Holsteinische Strasse 21. In Berlin, he took over a furniture store and worked mainly as an interior designer. He equipped the German consulate general in Algiers and the Jäckelsbruch manor for Arno Breker . He also worked as a portrait photographer and painted still lifes. In 1940 he entered the military service and worked in Paris as an interpreter and interior designer by rebuilding the German embassy in the Palais Beauharnais .

After the war he was taken prisoner by the French. After his release in 1946, he did not return to Berlin, where the studio apartment had been damaged by a fire bomb, but instead took up residence in his park villa in Gersfeld. Here he devoted himself as a painter and photographer to the Rhön landscape, interrupted by numerous study trips, especially to France.

Von Waldthausen was unmarried and had no children. His villa was converted into a sanatorium in 1981.

plant

In Munich he came into the circle of the Munich Secession , which represented German impressionism . His turn to France, where he came under the influence of the art of Paul Cézanne and Henri Matisse , shows his interest in the most modern currents. Influences of Cubism can also be seen in his work, but he stuck to the representational throughout his life. Waldthausen sent exhibitions in Paris 1932, Kassel 1935 and 1938, 1946, Berlin 1937, Essen 1947, Aachen and Munich 1949 and Fulda 1953, but did not paint specifically for a living. His pictures hardly came on the market and remained in the family and with the heirs.

literature

• About Gersfeld and Bruno von Waldthausen (PDF; 1.5 MB)
• Gregor K. Stasch: Paul von Waldthausen (1897–1965). On the threshold of modernity . Exhibition catalog: paintings, drawings and photographs. Fulda 2002
• Johannes Hürter (Red.): Biographical Handbook of the German Foreign Service 1871 - 1945. 5. T - Z, supplements. Published by the Foreign Office, Historical Service. Volume 5: Bernd Isphording, Gerhard Keiper, Martin Kröger: Schöningh, Paderborn et al. 2014, ISBN 978-3-506-71844-0 , p. 166

Individual evidence

1. ↑ burgen-und-schloesser.net
2. ↑ bbr.bund.de ( Memento of the original from October 20, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.