Reinhard Schmidhagen

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Reinhard Schmidhagen (born September 5, 1914 in Schalksmühle ; † July 8, 1945 in Marburg ), actually Reinhard Schmid, was a German painter and wood cutter of late expressionism .

Self-Portrait (1944)

Life

Reinhard Schmidhagen's parents were the businessman Johann Hermann Schmid (1882–1955) and Anna Schmid geb. Heinrich, who worked as a housewife (1883–1966).

As a schoolboy, Schmidhagen fell ill with a chronic lung disease ( bronchiectasis ), which repeatedly forced him to long hospital and spa stays and was ultimately responsible for his early death at the age of 30. After attending school in Schalksmühle, Arnstadt (Thuringia), Hagen and the Waldorf School in Stuttgart , Reinhard Schmidhagen graduated from high school in Arnstadt in 1934.

From April 1934 to August 1935 he studied at the art academy in Munich with Professor Karl Caspar , among others , but broke off. During the semester break he traveled to Switzerland, Worpswede and the Netherlands with numerous museum visits. After returning to Munich, he took a woodcut course with Albert Falscheer and he created his first own woodcuts under the influence of the works of Edvard Munch , Frans Masereel , Ernst Barlach and Käthe Kollwitz .

After a serious health crisis in 1935, a long spa stay in Bad Reichenhall followed . He worked on watercolor studies , especially floral motifs and portraits. Here his growing artistic commitment to anti-fascist resistance is already beginning to show.

From March 1936 to June 1938, cure and exile in Switzerland ( Lugano , Porza ) followed. There Schmidhagen met the writers Ludwig Renn , Erich Maria Remarque and Louis Fürnberg as well as the painter Christian Rohlfs . In his own work, he mainly focuses on portraits and woodcuts. The horror of the bombing of the Basque city of Guernica by the German Condor Legion in the Spanish Civil War resulted in the woodcut cycles "Guernica" and "The Other Front" from 1937.

In June 1938 Reinhard Schmidhagen returned to Germany (Hagen) for financial reasons. As a result, he created other woodcuts with literary themes (including "Narcissus and Goldmund" after Hermann Hesse ). In 1940 he moved to Marburg and began studying art history there in 1941 with Richard Hamann , who enabled Schmidhagen to continue his artistic activity by providing a studio .

During his time in Marburg he met Lili du Bois-Reymond , who had heard of his food donations for the so-called Marburg Jewish House in 1941. The granddaughter of the composer Fanny Hensel wrote to Käthe Kollwitz herself , whereupon Schmidhagen met his great role model for the first time on November 12, 1941. Schmidhagen also met Marie Luise Kaschnitz and the young lyric poet Wolfgang Lohmeyer in Marburg , with whom an intensive correspondence developed. The manuscript of the autobiography “The First Decade” from 1939 was discovered in Lohmeyer's estate , in which Schmidhagen gives an account of his artistic development to date.

In 1941 and 1942 he visited the revered Käthe Kollwitz in Berlin several times , who would later write to him: “Dear Reinhard, with what joy I hold out my hand, with what gratitude I feel that my hand has had an effect. I see you as the comrade who continues to carry the flag. ”(Letter of December 8, 1943)

In the year before his death, Schmidhagen turned to painting again. Impressive colored portraits were created, including of his teacher Richard Hamann and other people from his circle of friends.

Only a few weeks after the end of the Second World War , on July 8, 1945, Reinhard Schmidhagen died in Marburg of the consequences of his lung disease.

Services

Despite his short life, Reinhard Schmidhagen left behind a wide range of works. The focus of his work was, among other things, portraits, but also self-portraits and various flower still lifes.

But he is still known today for his poignant woodcuts that deal with the atrocities of war - e.g. B. the cycles “Guernica” and “The Other Front”, which can still be seen in exhibitions on the subject of anti-fascism .

A complete catalog of works can be found in Barbara Bessel (1990), in: Museum Bochum (ed.), Reinhard Schmidhagen 1914-1945, paintings and graphics (exhibition catalog).

The main part of the works is in the Kunstmuseum Bochum .

Works

  • Self-Portrait with a Palette (1931)
  • "Guernica" cycle (1937)
  • Cycle "The Other Front" (1937/38)
  • The drum (1944)

Exhibitions

  • September 12 - October 19, 2019: Reinhard Schmidthagen, Meridian Gallery Zurich
  • June 26 - October 15, 2017: Käthe Kollwitz and her friends, Käthe-Kollwitz-Museum Berlin
  • June 14, 2015 - August 16, 2015 Artistic freedom in spite of everything! Reinhard Schmidhagen and his Marburger Kreis, 1940–45 , University Museum for Art and Cultural History Marburg, Marburg Castle .
  • October 26, 2014 - January 31, 2015 in the Kunstmuseum Bochum , House Kemnade
  • 2013–2014 traveling exhibition “Adaptation - Survival - Resistance. Artists in National Socialism ”, shown a. a. 2013 in the Wewelsburg and 2014 in the Städtische Galerie Lüdenscheid
  • 2013 “Against the current or with the wind” in Bersenbrück
  • 2011/2012 "Between Distress and Resistance - International Art of the Years 1933-1945" in Wittenberg
  • Reinhard Schmidhagen (1914–1945) memorial exhibition in 1945; Paintings, woodcuts, drawings.

Fonts

  • Reinhard Schmidhagen: The first decade. Autobiography of an Unfinished . Taching am See 2014, ISBN 978-3-937211-68-8 .

literature

in the order of publication

  • Kunsthalle Rostock (ed.): Reinhard Schmidhagen (1914–1945). Woodcuts . Rostock 1979 (exhibition catalog).
  • Kulturbund der DDR , Stadtleitung Dresden (Ed.): Reinhard Schmidhagen (1914–1945). Sheets against fascism and war (= Orbis pictus , vol. 35). Dresden 1982 (catalog of the exhibition in the Galerie Comenius, November 27, 1982 to January 9, 1983).
  • Karl Ernst Osthaus Museum (Ed.): Reinhard Schmidhagen. Graphics and paintings 1933–1945 . Hagen 1985 (catalog of the exhibition from August 17 to September 15, 1985).
  • Museum Bochum (ed.): Reinhard Schmidhagen - paintings and graphics . Bochum 1990.
  • Stefanie Heckmann, Hans Ottomeyer (ed.): Kassandra. Visions of doom 1914–1945 . Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin 2008. ISBN 978-3-940319-54-8 (exhibition catalog). In it the commentary by Christoph Otterbeck a. a. to Reinhard Schmidhagen.
  • Käthe-Kollwitz-Museum Berlin (Ed.): Käthe Kollwitz and her friends . Berlin 2017 (catalog for the special exhibition on the occasion of Käthe Kollwitz's 150th birthday). In it the contribution by Geogina Koch: "Vorwärts liebe Schmidhagen" - Käthe Kollwitz and Reinhard Schmidhagen, pp. 113–121.

Web links

Commons : Reinhard Schmidhagen  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ see Hessisches Staatsarchiv Marburg (HStAMR), Best. 915 No. 5769, p. 394 ( digitized version ).
  2. ↑ Georgina Koch: "Forward dear Schmidhagen" - Käthe Kollwitz and Reinhard Schmidhagen . In: Käthe-Kollwitz-Museum Berlin (ed.): Käthe Kollwitz and her friends . Berlin 2017, ISBN 978-3-86732-282-9 , pp. 121 .
  3. ↑ [1] , accessed on August 28, 20195.
  4. ↑ [2] , accessed on August 28, 20195.
  5. ↑ Schmidhagen exhibition in Marburg Castle ( Memento of the original from July 30, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed June 14, 2015. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.uni-marburg.de
  6. ↑ Reinhard Schmidhagen
  7. ↑ Press release of the Paderborn district ( Memento of the original from October 25, 2014 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. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.wewelsburg.de
  8. ↑ Press release from the city of Lüdenscheid
  9. ↑ press release
  10. ↑ kunst-magazin.de ( Memento of the original from August 8, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / kunst-magazin.de
  11. ^ Commemorative exhibition of R. Schmidhagen in the University of Marburg archive
personal data
SURNAME Schmidhagen, Reinhard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schmid, Reinhard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter and wood cutter of late expressionism
DATE OF BIRTH September 5, 1914
PLACE OF BIRTH Schalksmühle near Hagen in Westphalia
DATE OF DEATH July 8, 1945
Place of death Marburg