Richard Menges

Richard Menges (born May 18, 1910 in Kaiserslautern ; † November 23, 1998 ibid) was a German stone sculptor who lived and worked in the Palatinate .

Life

Richard Menges came from an old sculpting dynasty that was founded about 200 years ago by great-grandfather Peter Menges (1793-1859), who immigrated from Blieskastel . His descendants too: Jakob Menges d. Ä. (Grandfather, 1817–1881), Ludwig Menges (1827–1880), Jakob Menges the Elder. J. (1846–1916), Karl Menges (father, 1853–1937), Joseph Menges (1856–1916) and most recently Richard Menges were all sculptors. Richard Menges had two children with his wife Elisabeth: his daughter Dorothea (born 1951) is a doctor, his son Karl (1941–2018) worked as a German studies specialist , literary scholar and university professor.

After completing secondary school in Kaiserslautern, Richard was trained as a stone sculptor at the master school for craftsmen (from 1927 to 1930) under Karl Dick. This was followed by studies in Munich at the academy (1930–1934) with Professors Karl Killer and Josef Henselmann .

Back in his hometown, he worked in his father's studio and mainly created tombs , fountains and cenotaphs up to the beginning of the Second World War . His great creative period began after the war and imprisonment. Numerous testimonies to his artistic work can be seen in the "Barbarossastadt Kaiserslautern" to this day.

Act

The major themes in Richard Menges' work are history and the appreciation of man and nature.

Menges researched the roots of his family, who came from Burrweiler and the surrounding area and finally settled in Kaiserslautern via Blieskastel . For Burrweiler he created the "Relief of the Seven Men", which shows the only survivors of the Thirty Years' War in this village. Worn faces indicate the atrocities and hardships just experienced. Among these men was an ancestor: Franz Jakob Menges.

Richard Menges designed the sandstone on the square in front of the abbey church in Otterberg , which on the one hand tells of the Cistercians who founded the church and monastery. On the other hand, the stone shows the Walloon refugees who later immigrated to Otterberg. They lost their homeland just like the ancestors of his mother, who came from Upper Austria and were expelled because of the faith.

Richard Menges himself experienced history first hand during the Second World War and during the time in the prison camp in France. He processed the deep impressions he gained here in drawings of comrades. This opened up a completely new area of ​​activity. Portray his personality in the image can be felt sinking into another man,: means for Richard Menges. In this way he gained an eye for the essentials that remained with him throughout his life.

Clear lines, the abandonment of all flourishes and decorative accessories characterize the style of all of Richard Menge's works. Similar to Barlach , the expression is achieved through an economical body language reduced to the essentials.

Richard Menges not only made numerous drawings and heads made of bronze, clay or plaster of family, friends and clients. He also took part in the life and death of people when designing tombstones and memorials. The Ganymed relief at the entrance to Otterberg points to the death of a boy who was killed here in 1982. A gravestone in the main cemetery in Kaiserslautern with a couple of parents who let two pigeons fly out of their open hands depicts the fate of the couple Paul and Charlotte Tuteur , neighbors of Richard Menges, who lost their children in Auschwitz . At the memorial in Neustadt an der Weinstraße , two simple figures - a mother and her dead son who appeared to her - express the pain and grief in a very haunting way. The oak relief in the cemetery hall of the main cemetery in Kaiserslautern shows people in various life situations in their grief.

Richard Menges created numerous works on Christian subjects: the fountain on the legends of St. Martin and the one on the subject of "I am the vine, you are the branches", depictions of the Lord's Supper in St. Paul's Church and on the pulpit of the Apostle Church , the twelve Apostle door handles as well as the main portal of the collegiate church in Kaiserslautern . When the wings of the portal close, a circle of believing, happy people meets. A work that was particularly close to his heart was “The Creation of the World”: Two hands protect the earth in the vortex of the Big Bang, the world is held by God.

Further works by Richard Menges can be found in public spaces - such as the copper relief “The big fish haul” on the Stadtsparkasse building and a wall relief in the Pfalztheater - as in nature, for example. B. the "wild boar group" in the Kapiteltal.

From the 1960s, Richard Menges published local history stories, books of poetry and illustrated books with drawings and sketches. His literary work - with precise powers of observation and a fine sense of humor - forms an arc of tension with the rough sculpture. Like sculptural works, it tells of people and animals as creatures and of the course of time. “ We are clay in God's hand ” is the title of a poem. And “ Let me with full hands / scatter the seeds again / before the days turn ” he wrote in March 1946. Turning to the future, he wishes in the poem “ Outlook ”: “ New things will then arise / Out of the creative Silence ".

Aftermath

Menges daughter Dorothea founded the Richard Menges Foundation in 2012 in honor of her father and his six ancestors , which supports sculptors and sculptures from the Palatinate. It is endowed with 40,000 euros.

Furthermore, a street in Kaiserslautern bears his name.

literature

• Hildegunde Prütting: Reverence for life. Exhibition in the Volksbank Kaiserslautern eG. Kaiserslautern, February 1993.
• Hildegunde Prütting, Günther Walter (Hg): Richard Menges. Inner face. Perspectives of an artist. Kaiserslautern in February 1994.
• Erich Schneider: Yearbook on the history of the city and district of Kaiserslautern. Arbogast, Otterbach 1998.
• Claudia Germann: Richard Menges. Exhibition in the Palatinate Library. Kaiserslautern 2020.

Works (selection)

Kaiserslautern

• Bronze door and 12 apostle door handles on the collegiate church
• Oak relief in the cemetery chapel and Pieta in the forest cemetery
• Last Supper relief at the Pauluskirche
• Pulpits / altar / baptismal font in the St. Luke and Apostle Church
• Wall relief at the Pfalztheater
• Portal at the employment office
• “The big fish haul”, copper relief on the Stadtsparkasse / art in architecture
• "Wild boar group", sandstone relief in the Kapiteltal
• "The Bremen Town Musicians", forest fountain in the entrance hall of the Geschwister-Scholl-Schule
• Gravestones in the forest cemetery: u. a. for the Gehlen family with a Charon motif and for the Tuteur family; Vine motif added to the Menges family's own tomb

Burrweiler

• The relief of the seven men

Otterberg

• sandstone relief on both sides on the fountain in front of the abbey church

Otterbach

• Bronze relief on sandstone with Ganymede motif as a memorial stone for an injured boy

Newcomers

• Executioner's Cross

Neustadt an der Weinstrasse

• cenotaph

Blieskastel

• Memorial plaque on the retaining wall in the Alte Pfarrgasse

Awards

• Theodor Zink Medal from the Palatinate Historical Society
• Honorary member of the Theodor-Zink-Museum , Kaiserslautern

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Richard Menges died. Obituary by Roland Paul in Die Rheinpfalz on November 25, 1998.
2. ↑ Information on the relationship from: Claudia Germann: Richard Menges
3. ↑ cf. Hildegunde Prütting: Richard Menges. Reverence for Life, p. 5.
4. ↑ Hildegunde Prütting: Richard Menges. Reverence for Life, p. 20
5. ↑ Hildegunde Prütting: Richard Menges. Reverence for Life, p. 7
6. ↑ cf. Hildegunde Prütting: Richard Menges. Reverence for Life, p. 14
7. ^ Claudia Germann: Richard Menges, p. 10
8. ↑ cf. Hildegunde Prütting: Richard Menges. Reverence for Life, p. 10
9. ^ Claudia Germann: Richard Menges, p. 13
10. ^ Inner face - Perspectives of an artist -, Verlag Becker & Müller, Landstuhl 1994
11. ↑ Hildegunde Prütting, Günther Walther: Richard Menges. Inner face.
12. ^ Richard Menges Foundation. Retrieved June 3, 2018.
13. ^ Evangelical Paulus Church. Technical University of Kaiserslautern . Retrieved December 1, 2016.
14. ^ Art in the City (139). ( Memento of the original from September 11, 2016 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. lautringer.de. Retrieved December 1, 2016. 
15. ↑ Donkey monuments, page 2. Kaiserslautern. les-murtes.jimdo.com. Retrieved December 1, 2016.