Richard Gronau

Richard Gronau (born February 23, 1886 in Elbing / East Prussia , † October 4, 1964 in Osterode am Harz ) was a German painter .

life and work

For economic reasons, Richard Gronau was not granted artistic training and so he completed an apprenticeship as a painter. Due to an injury sustained during World War I, he met the nurse Ida Tappe (1892–1983) in the hospital, whom he later married. She came from Osterode and both settled at Schildstrasse 1 in Osterode, but later moved to Brauhausstrasse 1, which also housed a shop for painting supplies. Gronau worked as a specialist teacher at the vocational school and from 1937 to 1945 he was a district craftsman. In 1948 he was entrusted with painting the chess troop villa.

Parallel to these manual activities, Richard Gronau created a series of oil paintings, which primarily show motifs of the city of Osterode and the surrounding landscape. One of his best pictures was taken in 1955 and, based on the winter landscapes by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, shows two groups of refugees who have to leave their East Prussian homeland. The tension in the picture extends from the burning village in the background to the trenches with a soldier's helmet in the foreground on the right. The crucifix at the edge of the road is hardly able to give consolation, the bomb craters in the middle of the picture give an idea of ​​what happened there recently. The composition of the picture is downright unpretentious and the style of painting moves between realism and naive painting.

The museum in the Ritterhaus in Osterode has several works of art by Richard Gronau. These are currently in the depot.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Ingrid Kreckmann about Richard Gronau in "Kleines Künstlerlexikon. Painters and sculptors who were active in Osterode and the surrounding area in the 20th century", 2002