Richard Brend'amour

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Richard Brend'amour, senior director of the well-known art establishment, celebrated his 80th birthday on October 16, photo Otto Renard, 1911

Richard Brend'amour (born October 16, 1831 in Aachen , † January 22, 1915 in Düsseldorf ; full name Franz Robert Richard Brend'amour ) was a German xylograph and printer or publisher who is considered a pioneer of modern woodcut technology.

Life

Advertisement Brend'amour, Simhart & Co. in Oberkassel , 1905

Richard Brend'amour came from a Huguenot family and was the youngest son of the police inspector Johann Nikolaus Brend'amour and his wife Maria Sophia Brend'amour, née Leruth. He received his technical and artistic training from 1846 to 1849 in an apprenticeship with the Cologne wood engraver Eustach Stephan. When Stephan went to Paris in 1850, Brend'amour financed his further training at the State Academic Art School in Cologne , headed by Johann Anton Ramboux , by copying older woodcut works such as Holbein's Dance of Death, Dürer's Twelve Apostles, and at which he was from 1849/50 to 1853 attended drawing class.

On April 25, 1856, Brend'amour founded the Xylographic Art Institute Brend'amour & Cie. On Pfannschoppenstrasse in Düsseldorf (renamed Klosterstrasse in 1863) . , a "graphic art institute with several assistants", which grew steadily through the entry of his brother-in-law Rudolf Goldenberg, who took over commercial management in 1866 († 1899). His illustration of literary works with wood engravings, which he marked with his signature “XAvRB” or “XARB”, soon gained him wide recognition in art and publishing circles , including beyond Germany's borders. The activity of the institution, in which the camera obscura was used early on to transfer original drawings onto the wooden printing block, included xylographs for newspapers - including for the Illustrirte Zeitung published in Leipzig , magazines and family papers such as Über Land und Meer , Die Gartenlaube or Daheim , Book illustrations and portfolio works as well as single sheets based on works mainly by Düsseldorf artists.

The illustrated works included, for example, Carl Leberecht Immermanns Oberhof (woodcuts based on originals by Benjamin Vautier ), Heinrich von Kleist's Der zerbrochne Krug (woodcuts based on drawings by Adolph Menzel ) or the sequence of images based on the eight frescoes by Alfred Rethel in the town hall of Aachen (woodcuts after drawings by Albert Baur and Joseph Kehren ), as well as art books on Egypt and Sicily. Most of the products from Brend'amour's Kunstanstalt cannot be assumed to have been handwritten. At the international polytechnic exhibition in Moscow in 1872, it was not Brend'amour himself who received a gold medal for the wood engravings shown, but his company.

Brend'amour's Kunstanstalt gained a good reputation and was honored with many national and international gold and silver medals. The demand was so great that, from the 1870s, branches were founded in Berlin , Leipzig , Braunschweig , Stuttgart and Munich . At times, up to 60 xylographers were employed. A well-known wood engraver who emerged from Brend'amour's art institute was the German-American Gustav Kruell . Business relationships existed with Great Britain , France , Spain and Russia .

In 1898 Heinrich Simhart and Brend'amour's nephew Fritz Goldenberg founded the graphic arts institute Brend'amour, Simhart & Co. in Munich. With the development of the Oberkassel district by the Rheinische Bahngesellschaft, the art institute Brend'amour, Simhart & Co. was relocated there at the beginning of the 20th century.

From 1859 to 1915 Brend'amour was a member of the Malkasten artists 'association and the Düsseldorf Artists' Association for mutual support and help . In 1904 he was awarded the Prussian Order of the Crown, 4th class, for his services . At the age of 78 he retired from business life in 1909 and received the Order of the Red Eagle 4th class in the same year .

Illustrations

  • MB Couissinier (ed.): Picture catechism. With 112 wood engravings after illustrations by Rudolf Elster. Paris, Schulgen 1862.
  • Wilhelm Oncken (ed.): Our hero emperor. Berlin 1898.
The Württemberg Minister Hermann von Mittnacht on a contemporary woodcut by Richard Brend'amour
  • Friedrich Bodenstedt (Ed.): Album of German art and poetry. (with woodcuts based on original drawings by the artist, executed by R. Brend'amour) Grote, Berlin 1867 urn : nbn: de: hbz: 061: 2-184 Digitized edition of the University and State Library Düsseldorf .
  • Música en el Castillo. (cuadro por H. Bongert, grabado por Brend'amour) In: La Ilustración Artistica. Volume 4, No. 172 (from April 13, 1885), p. 116.

Services

Brend'amour's workshop took over new knowledge and techniques such as autotype , chemography , and halftone technology, and developed and disseminated them further. With the introduction of graphic art, he made a significant contribution to the development of an extensive art industry in the Rhineland .

Others

A street in Düsseldorf-Oberkassel is named after him.

literature

  • Joseph Kürschner (Ed.): Pierers Konversations-Lexikon. Volume 3. 1889.
  • Johann Jacob Merlo: Cologne artists in old and new times. Revised and expanded news of the life and works of Cologne artists. Published by Eduard Firmenich-Richartz with the assistance of Hermann Keussen. Düsseldorf 1895.
  • Rudolf Schmidt (Ed.): German booksellers. German book printer. Volume 1. Berlin / Eberswalde 1902, pp. 100-101.
  • Hermann Degener (Ed.): Who is it? Our contemporaries. 3rd edition, Leipzig 1908; 4th edition, Leipzig 1908; 5th edition, Leipzig 1911; 7th edition, Leipzig 1914
  • Hans Vollmer : Brend'amour, Richard . In: Ulrich Thieme , Felix Becker (Hrsg.): General Lexicon of Fine Artists from Antiquity to the Present . Founded by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker. tape 4 : Bida – Brevoort . Wilhelm Engelmann, Leipzig 1910, p. 577 ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).
  • Hans Wolfgang Singer (Ed.): General artist lexicon. Life and works of the most famous visual artists. Prepared by Hermann Alexander Müller. Volume 1, Literary Institution Rütten & Loening, Frankfurt / Main 1921.
  • Hermann Christern (Ed.): German Biographical Yearbook. Transition volume 1. Berlin 1925, p. 323.
  • Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General Lexicon of Fine Artists of the XX. Century. Volume V (Supplements). EA Seemann, Leipzig 1955.
  • Emanuel Bénézit (Ed.): Dictionnaire Critique et Documentaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs et Graveurs de tous les temps et de tous les pays. Volume II, 1976.
  • Eva-Maria Hanebutt-Benz: Studies on German wood engraving in the 19th century. Booksellers Association, Frankfurt am Main 1984, ISBN 3-7657-1262-0 , Sp. 1015, Sp. 1189 f.
  • Richard Brend'amour . In: General Artist Lexicon . The visual artists of all times and peoples (AKL). Volume 14, Saur, Munich a. a. 1996, ISBN 3-598-22754-X , p. 108.
  • Hans Paffrath (Ed.): Lexicon of the Düsseldorf School of Painting 1819–1918. Volume 1: Abbema – Gurlitt. Published by the Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf in the Ehrenhof and by the Paffrath Gallery. Bruckmann, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-7654-3009-9 , pp. 188-189 (fig.).

Web links

Commons : Richard Brend'amour  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 1869/70 on behalf of the Düsseldorfer Kunstverein as an association gift in 1870.
  2. ↑ Georg Ebers: Egypt represented in pictures and words by our first artists. 2 volumes. Ed. Hallberg, Stuttgart and Leipzig 1879/80.
  3. ↑ The island of Sicily with illustrations by Alfred Metzener (1870).
  4. ^ R. Brend'amour, Hohenzollernstrasse 1a; Brend'amour, Simhart & Co., Obercassel, Brend'amourstraße 24 , in address book for the municipality of Düsseldorf, 1902, p. 379.
personal data
SURNAME Brend'amour, Richard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Brend'amour, Franz Robert Richard (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German xylograph and publisher, woodcut pioneer
DATE OF BIRTH October 16, 1831
PLACE OF BIRTH Aachen
DATE OF DEATH January 22, 1915
Place of death Dusseldorf