Richard Mutz

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Richard Mutz (born August 22, 1872 in Altona ; † November 4, 1931 in Alt Ruppin ) was a ceramist of the Art Nouveau period, known for his running glazes, a member of the German Werkbund and co-founder of the artisans' settlement in Gildenhall .

life and work

education

Richard Mutz was the first son of three siblings of the master potter and stove manufacturer Hermann Mutz and his wife Marie Auguste, née. Breadcrumbs. After attending the Oberrealgymnasium Altona up to Obertertia, he began an apprenticeship in pottery with his father and at the same time attended the trade school at Steintorplatz in Hamburg, where he received chemistry lessons. One of his classmates was Ernst Barlach , with whom he would later collaborate artistically.

Development of the running glazes, collaboration with Barlach

After his usual year of traveling, he was accepted into his father's business in 1896 as a partner and master craftsman. There he developed new colored running glazes for pottery and stoneware based on the Japanese model.

In April 1899, the Museum of Art and Industry in Hamburg opened an exhibition with Mutz ceramics. The products of the Hermann Mutz workshop are marked with the stamp Mutz Altona and from 1913 to 1929 with Mutz Wwe. Altona .

In 1904 Richard Mutz left his father's workshop in Altona, moved to Berlin and founded a ceramic art workshop in Wilmersdorf : the "Ceramic Art Workshops Richard Mutz" and from then on marked his works with his own stamp. In Berlin at that time the bare majolica plate was predominant. Richard Mutz created a semi-matte glaze with a randomly moving surface on handmade panes. Due to his good knowledge of chemistry, he concentrated on the formation of the glazes that led to the weather-resistant Mutz ceramics. He collaborated with the sculptors Richard Kuöhl and Johannes Bossard , whose fountain designs he implemented.

In 1907, Ernst Barlach exhibited the colored terracottas “Russian beggar with bowl” and “blind beggar” sculpted by Richard Mutz in the spring salon of the Berlin Secession . They are the highlight of Barlach's collaboration with Mutz's ceramic workshop. Mutz also ran an art salon from 1904 to around 1910.

Mutz ceramics for public buildings

Advertisement by Mutz with the Wittenbergplatz underground station
Elaborate column cladding (U3), manufactured by Mutz & Rother

From 1908 he relocated his workshop to Liegnitz and established a connection with the Rotherchen Kunstziegelei. Mutz ceramics were used for wall fountains, underground stations and house facades, examples are the Schurig House in Hamburg (architects Lundt & Kallmorgen ) and the Fehrbelliner Platz underground station in Berlin. The production of decorative ceramics such as vases and bowls took a back seat. Mutz had been a member of the German Werkbund since 1912.

In 1915 he left his company and from September 1915 to the end of 1919 he took over the management of the Grand Ducal Majolica Manufactory in Karlsruhe. In 1920 Mutz returned to Berlin and soon afterwards founded the ceramic works Richard Mutz, oven and pottery factory in Velten , which went bankrupt in 1922.

Gildenhall

Vase from Gildenhall, private property

Richard Mutz moved in 1923 with his second wife and colleague Käthe, geb. Havemann, moved to the newly founded Gildenhall artisan settlement near Neuruppin and again founded a ceramic workshop. With other artisans such as the blacksmith Siegfried Prütz , the sculptor Hans Lehmann-Borges and the weaver Else Mögelin , he formed the “Handwerkergesellschaft Gildenhall”. For repairs to the Ishtar Gate and the processional street in the Vorderasiatisches Museum in Berlin, he developed glazed bricks of exceptional quality and color fidelity.

Richard Mutz studied the economics of Silvio Gesell and published in 1929 in his own "publishing house for social economic order", Gildenhall, the publication Soziale Geldordnung. The end of capitalism's monetary rule .

His ceramic workshop was 1929 recession during the global economic crisis to the victim. Richard Mutz died on November 4, 1931 as a result of gas poisoning in Alt Ruppin. On the tombstone he designed himself in the Alt Ruppin cemetery there is a self-portrait and the saying: "Free yourself from the curse of gold."

Exhibitions

  • From March 22nd to May 20th, 2002 an exhibition took place in the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg , which showed the ceramics of the family business of the Altona ceramic manufactory Mutz in the Grünestrasse (it no longer exists) and also the works of Richard Mutz as an independent artist was dedicated.
  • From January to March 2018 an exhibition of his works took place in the Museum Neuruppin with the title “Master of Glaze. The ceramist Richard Mutz in Gildenhall and Velten "

literature

  • Kurt Reutti: Ernst Barlach and the Mutz workshop, Altona . 19th membership of the Ernst Barlach Society, Hamburg 1956
  • Kristina Bake: The Gildenhall open-air settlement. Crafts, life reform, social utopia . European university publications, art history, vol. 384, Peter Lang Verlag, Frankfurt / M. 2001. ISBN 3-631-37820-3
  • Hermann and Richard Mutz: Art Nouveau ceramics. Catalog for the exhibition at the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg, March 22nd to May 20th, 2002. Biography of Rüdiger Joppien .
  • List of models of ceramics from the Mutz and Mutz Witwe manufactories in Altona, Hamburg: (1899 - 1929) ; Extension volume for the catalog of the exhibition Hermann and Richard Mutz. Art Nouveau ceramics in the Museum of Art and Industry, March 22 to May 20, 2002 / Museum of Art and Industry Hamburg. Zsgest. by Uta Bach and Rüdiger Joppien . Hamburg, ConferencePoint-Verlag, 2004
  • Franklin Kopitzsch , Dirk Brietzke : Hamburg biography . Lexicon of persons. Volume 3, Wallstein, Göttingen 2006, p. 263.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Richard Mutz †. In: Bauwelt, vol. 22 (1931) issue 46, p. 1466.
  2. ↑ berlin.de U-Bahnhof Fehrbelliner Platz, accessed on October 25, 2010
  3. ^ Nicola Moufang: The Grand Ducal Majolica Manufactory in Karlsruhe. . Heidelberg: Karl Winter, 1920, p. 94.
  4. ↑ Master of the glaze. The ceramist Richard Mutz in Gildenhall and Velten , museum-neuruppin.de, accessed on December 13, 2018
personal data
SURNAME Mutz, Richard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German ceramist
DATE OF BIRTH August 22, 1872
PLACE OF BIRTH Altona
DATE OF DEATH November 4, 1931
Place of death Old Ruppin