Peter Hecker

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Peter Hecker (born April 13, 1884 in Türnich , † December 28, 1971 in Odenthal- Scheuren) was a German painter .

life and work

Hecker mainly painted devotional pictures , mostly directly on church walls. A few mundane paintings were found in the Ordensburg Vogelsang and in the destroyed Cologne Opera on Rudolfplatz.

Between 1906 and 1908, Hecker attended the Düsseldorf Art Academy . He was a soldier in the First World War . His experiences at the front flowed into his church wall paintings , for example in some wall paintings in the St. Audomar church in Frechen . One of Hecker's early works was the painting of the St. Mechtern Church in Cologne-Ehrenfeld , which was arranged by the Cologne Institute for Religious Art . St. Mechtern was largely destroyed in the Second World War. Some remains of the painting have been preserved, but it was not his Savior of the 20th century . In this picture, Christ gathers people battered by fate, while the decadent nightlife of the big city of the 1920s is shown in the background.

The fate of destruction also overtook the painting of an old church in Arnoldsweiler near Düren. After the Second World War, Hecker was again commissioned to paint the church. In addition to his obligatory images of saints, one now sees a grim reaper riding on one of the deadly planes of the war that has ended.

The painting of the Exaltation of the Cross in Wissen an der Sieg is also important . This was completely preserved and is conceptually interesting as the painting is concentrated on the altar. It is thus in harmony with the ideas of the liturgical movement , which placed the altar or Christ-centeredness at the center of its considerations. The Arnoldsweiler painting does not know this, as the actual altar is in a historicist main church next to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher of St. Arnold.

Hecker painted several other churches over the years, most of them in the Rhineland . But his services were also requested in the St. Hedwig's Cathedral in Berlin . One last work can be found in Cologne Cathedral . Under the concrete organ loft he dedicated himself to the subject of music. Biblical references in which music is addressed, such as the trumpets of Jericho , are represented there. This work also contains a small tribute to the client: the famous Archbishop of Cologne , Joseph Cardinal Frings, plays the violin.

See also: Expressionist church painting

Churches with paintings by Peter Hecker

literature

Web links

Commons : Peter Hecker  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Museum Kunstpalast : Artists from the Düsseldorf School of Painting (selection, as of November 2016, PDF )
  2. ↑ Description of the picture on the website of the municipality
  3. ^ History of the Church of St. Barbara Neuss with a brief description of the fresco on the choir wall
  4. ↑ kirche-dueren-nord.de
  5. ↑ kirchenmusik-dueren.de
  6. ↑ WDR local time Bergisch Land from July 20, 2009
  7. ↑ Description of the picture on the website of the municipality
  8. ^ Norbert Rauh: The Hecker pictures in the forum. (No longer available online.) In: grundschule-hersel.de. Archived from the original on May 25, 2016 ; Retrieved May 25, 2016 .
personal data
SURNAME Hecker, Peter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter
DATE OF BIRTH April 13, 1884
PLACE OF BIRTH Türnich
DATE OF DEATH December 28, 1971
Place of death Odenthal