Peter Foerster

This article deals with the painter and draftsman Peter Foerster; on the pedagogue and youth researcher see Peter Förster .

Peter Foerster (born August 22, 1887 in Aachen , † March 6, 1948 in Frankfurt am Main ) was a German painter and draftsman .

life and work

Peter Ludwig Foerster was the first son of the master tailor Heinrich Foerster (born April 23, 1862 in Aachen) and his wife Anna Maria, b. Pontz (born June 15, 1861). From 1905 to 1908 he attended the Aachen School of Applied Arts and then, until 1911, the Berlin School of Fine Arts and the teaching institute of the Berlin Museum of Applied Arts . His teachers included Anton von Werner , Georg Koch and Woldemar Friedrich . He completed his artistic training together with his childhood friend Mies van der Rohe , with whom he was a lifelong friend.

On August 8, 1913, Peter Foerster and Gertrud Helene Gehrmann (1886–1968) married. The couple separated around 1935. During World War I , Foerster served as a soldier from May 1915 until the end of the war. At first he and Mies van der Rohe came together to see the pioneers . After the war, Foerster resided and worked in Berlin again. The daughter Gisela was born on February 20, 1921.

In 1925 Foerster stayed in Italy for the first time . In the following years he traveled again to Italy as well as to Belgium , France and various German cities. In 1928 he was commissioned to design the German pavilion for the 1929 World Exhibition in Barcelona . Presumably he worked here as a personal assistant to Mies van der Rohe.

Peter Foerster probably also had contact with the Bauhaus through Mies van der Rohe . Among other things, he is said to have taken care of the Bauhaus archive. From 1934 he worked as a teacher at the Reimann School . In 1935 he was given a grant from the Prussian Ministry of Culture to study at the Kassel Art Academy . During this time he met his second wife, Ortrud Schultheiss.

Foerster returned to Berlin in 1936 and now had a studio in addition to 49 other artists in the 'atelier building at Klosterstrasse' - Werner Heldt , Herbert Tucholski , Käthe Kollwitz , Hermann Blumenthal and others.

With the help of the Rome Prize of Villa Massimo , Foerster was in Italy from 1936 to September 1937. There he toured Rome , Vesuvius , San Gimignano and Gubbio, among others . In 1940 he was appointed director of the newly founded municipal cultural office in Dessau . In addition, he held the position of director of the municipal art collections and the position of personal art advisor to Mayor Johannes Sander . Foerster kept the apartment and studio in Berlin, although the apartment was mainly occupied by his wife. During this time there were “quick and continuous disputes with the local or regional NS administration and leadership , among other things due to earlier work with the“ Novembergruppe ”. [...] Presumably against the background of these problems, Peter Foerster applied for admission to the NSDAP on December 10, 1940 , into which he was then admitted at the end of 1941, retrospectively to January 1, 1941. "

On May 29, 1941, Peter Foerster and Bertha Käthe Else Ortrud Schultheiss (born 1908) married in Gotha . Around 1941/1942 Foerster worked as a teacher at the arts and crafts department of the “Commercial College” in Dessau. On February 28, 1943, the Foerster's Berlin apartment was destroyed in a bomb attack and Ortrud Foerster finally moved to live with her husband in Dessau. The son Heinrich was born on June 3, 1943. Due to the increased bombing raids on Dessau, the Foersters moved to Zerbst on January 13, 1944 . At Pentecost 1944, the Dessau studio and the apartment there were destroyed in such an attack.

At the beginning of 1945, Gauleiter Rudolf Jordan von Foerster demanded “in the face of the approaching Soviet troops, the destruction of the existing or outsourced cultural assets and works of art of the Anhalt-Dessau region. [...] All works of art in the Anhaltinische Gemäldegalerie and the province [...] should be collected, brought to the Harz Mountains and destroyed there. [...] According to Ms. Foerster, the works in Braunschweig Cathedral were to be burned. Peter Foerster avoided this request by being absent for several days and thus prevented this planned action by the Gauleiter in an almost Schweykian manner. "

After the end of the war, Foerster was active as a restorer in addition to his artistic work . In addition, he was still entrusted with the care and return of the outsourced cultural assets . On November 28, 1945, the second daughter Mathilde Theresia Ortrud was born in Zerbst. On May 21, 1945 Foerster applied for a "political clearance certificate" in order to be able to work as a freelance artist from now on. This was issued to him on May 14, 1946 by the “Antifascist Committee of the City and District of Zerbst”.

On February 24, 1947, the first daughter Gisela died. At the end of 1947, Foerster and his son Heinrich fled the Soviet occupation zone of Zerbst on foot across the Harz, to Helmstedt and finally to Frankfurt am Main . During this escape, Foerster contracted pneumonia , which resulted in meningitis . He died on March 6, 1948 in Frankfurt as a result of the consequences as well as the consequences of emaciation and malnutrition. When Foerster's flight became known, his property in Zerbst was confiscated, and his wife and daughter, who had stayed in Zerbst, were to be arrested. Both managed to escape and they reached Frankfurt the day before Peter Foerster died.

From the 1960s / 1970s works by Peter Foerster were increasingly shown at exhibitions. And at the same time the art market began to show an increasing interest in Foerster's works.

Memberships

From 1919 Foerster was a member of the November Group and from 1920 he was active within the board as the second secretary. From 1933 Foerster was a member of the artist group " The Community ". He was also a member of the Berlin Artists Association .

Exhibitions (selection)

From 1920 Foerster was involved in numerous exhibitions of the "November Group". In addition, he was involved in the great Berlin art exhibitions as part of the “November Group” . At least in 1923, Foerster explicitly functioned as a member of the exhibition commission within the “November Group”.

In 1922 Foerster took part in the "First International Art Exhibition in Düsseldorf". In 1928, Foerster's works were presented to the “II. Anniversary exhibition: The Aacheners in the Reich ”shown in the Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum . This was the first time that Foerster's work could be seen in his hometown. In the same year he took part in the exhibition "German Art" in Düsseldorf.

In 1933 and 1934 Foerster played a key role in the traveling exhibition “The Community”, which also showed works by Heinz Fuchs , Paul Grunwaldt and Hans Jürgen von Nolcken, among others . In 1935 he was represented at the exhibition “Young Berlin Artists” at the Anhaltinischer Kunstverein in Dessau; in the same year also represented in the exhibition “Will to Form” in the City Museum in Szczecin .

From 1936 Foerster was involved in exhibitions of the Klosterstrasse studio community . Also in 1936 he took part in the exhibition "From beautiful and strong Germany" held on the occasion of the Olympics in the Berlin Künstlerhaus. In 1939 the first solo exhibition of Foerster's works took place in the Suermondt Ludwig Museum in Aachen. In the same year Foerster was represented at the exhibition "German Contemporary Art" in Stettin, as well as at the autumn exhibition of the "Association of Berlin Artists".

From 1940 to 1942 Foerster was represented with a total of nine works (five watercolors, two pencil drawings, one pastel and one ink drawing) at the Great German Art Exhibition in the House of German Art in Munich . The watercolor "Fuldagasse in Kassel" exhibited there in 1940 (created in the year of his study stay in Kassel 1935, cat. No. A080) was bought by Adolf Hitler for 500 Reichsmarks.

In 1941 Foerster was represented at the exhibition “German Painters See Italy” in the Künstlerhaus Berlin. In 1944 his works were shown at the exhibition "Dessau, a city and landscape from 4 centuries".

In 1960 Foerster was at the traveling exhibition “Berlin. Place of Freedom for Art ”, which was organized by the Berlin National Gallery and the Berlin School of Fine Arts . In 1961, his works were on view in the exhibition “ Neue Sachlichkeit ” as part of the Berliner Festwochen in the Haus am Waldsee.

In 1967 a work by Foerster was shown at the exhibition "Magical Realism in Germany 1920-1933" at the Kunst- und Museumsverein Wuppertal . In 1968/1969 he was represented at the exhibition "Realism in Painting of the Twenties", which was shown first at the Kunstverein Hamburg and later at the Kunstverein Frankfurt .

Prices

• 1935: Albrecht Dürer Prize of the City of Nuremberg.
• 1936: Rome price of the Villa Massimo.

Purchases

• In 1927 the Nationalgalerie (Berlin) under Ludwig Justi bought the work Southern Urban Landscape / Italian Landscape II, which was shown at the “Great Berlin Art Exhibition” .
• In 1978 the Berlinische Galerie acquired the painting Orange Still Life (with a knife) from around 1924 .
• In 1989 the Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum acquired the watercolor view of the Gothic high choir of the cathedral in Tournai (1917), the drawing St. Jacobskerk I Antwerp side view (1928) and the watercolor Landungssteg / Zeebrugge (1929 ) with funds from the Heinz-Heinrich-Gedächtnisstiftung ).

literature

• General artist lexicon (AKL), online version, artist ID: 00020776
• Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum, Aachen (ed.): Peter Foerster 1887–1948. Catalog and catalog raisonné. Four towers, Münsterschwarzach Abbey 1998.
• Art and Museum Association Wuppertal: Magical Realism in Germany 1920–1933. [Catalog for the exhibition from Sept. 10th to Oct. 29th, 1967], o. V., 1967, unpag. [P. 8th]

Individual evidence

1. ^ Suermondt Ludwig Museum, Aachen (ed.): Peter Foerster 1887–1948. Catalog and catalog raisonné. Four towers, Münsterschwarzach Abbey 1998, p. 95.
2. ^ Suermondt Ludwig Museum, Aachen (ed.): Peter Foerster 1887–1948. Catalog and catalog raisonné. Four towers, Münsterschwarzach Abbey 1998, 1998, p. 100.
3. ^ Suermondt Ludwig Museum, Aachen (ed.): Peter Foerster 1887–1948. Catalog and catalog raisonné. Four towers, Münsterschwarzach Abbey 1998, p. 106.
4. ^ Suermondt Ludwig Museum, Aachen (ed.): Peter Foerster 1887–1948. Catalog and catalog raisonné. Four towers, Münsterschwarzach Abbey 1998, p. 108.
5. ^ Suermondt Ludwig Museum, Aachen (ed.): Peter Foerster 1887–1948. Catalog and catalog raisonné. Four towers, Münsterschwarzach Abbey 1998, pp. 124, 133ff.
6. ^ Suermondt Ludwig Museum, Aachen (ed.): Peter Foerster 1887–1948. Catalog and catalog raisonné. Vier Türme, Münsterschwarzach Abbey 1998, p. 125. Foerster's NSDAP membership number is 8,253,657.
7. ^ Suermondt Ludwig Museum, Aachen (ed.): Peter Foerster 1887–1948. Catalog and catalog raisonné. Four towers, Münsterschwarzach Abbey 1998, p. 130f.
8. ^ Suermondt Ludwig Museum, Aachen (ed.): Peter Foerster 1887–1948. Catalog and catalog raisonné. Four towers, Münsterschwarzach Abbey 1998, p. 138.
9. ^ Suermondt Ludwig Museum, Aachen (ed.): Peter Foerster 1887–1948. Catalog and catalog raisonné. Four towers, Münsterschwarzach Abbey 1998, pp. 140ff.
10. ^ Suermondt Ludwig Museum, Aachen (ed.): Peter Foerster 1887–1948. Catalog and catalog raisonné. Four towers, Münsterschwarzach Abbey 1998, p. 151ff.
11. ^ Suermondt Ludwig Museum, Aachen (ed.): Peter Foerster 1887–1948. Catalog and catalog raisonné. Four towers, Münsterschwarzach Abbey 1998, p. 92.
12. ↑ Ines Schlenker: Hitler's Salon. Peter Lang, 2007, p. 247.
13. ^ Suermondt Ludwig Museum, Aachen (ed.): Peter Foerster 1887–1948. Catalog and catalog raisonné. Four towers, Münsterschwarzach Abbey 1998, p. 94 f.