Stuttgart Artists Association
The Stuttgarter Künstlerbund is an association of visual artists. It was founded in 1898 and is therefore the oldest artist association in Germany. The artists' association has the legal form of a registered association .
prehistory
In 1876, students at the Stuttgart Art School founded the so-called "Round Table". They met regularly, wrote newspapers for these round tables, which were lavishly illustrated.
These early products from the Round Table are collected in five books. They not only show an image of the time, but also document the artistry of the members. CVs can also be traced on the basis of the signatures or “literary mentions”.
Several members of this round table later made careers and are still listed in old and new artist dictionaries. Many of the round table participants later became members of the Stuttgart Artists Association. One of them, Karl Bauer (1868–1942), artist and writer, can be found both in the records of the Round Table and later in the circle of the “Stuttgart Secessionists”.
Appointment of Count Leopold von Kalckreuth to Stuttgart
Ludwig Herterich (1856–1932), who came to the Stuttgart Art School from Munich but accepted a call to Munich, recommended that the King of Württemberg , Wilhelm II , bring Count Leopold von Kalckreuth (1855–1928) from Karlsruhe. Von Kalckreuth was ready to come to Stuttgart and brought two more colleagues with him. The king, who had already shown a good hand by appointing Baron Joachim Gans zu Putlitz as general manager for the theater, had a composing class created especially for von Kalckreuth and made Robert Poetzelberger (1856–1930) the successor to Herterich in the drawing class Carlos Grethe as assistant teacher at Poetzelberger. Kalckreuth's entire salary and an increase in Grethe's remuneration were paid from the royal casket, since the art school, which later became the academy, had no additional funds. A highly regarded exhibition of the three new teachers and their students in 1900 quickly drew attention to them.
Foundation of the artist association
Before that, however, von Kalckreuth had already - as in 1896 in Karlsruhe - ensured that the artists got a forum that made such exhibitions possible for them. The Stuttgarter Künstlerbund was founded as a registered association. The association "Stuttgarter Künstlerbund" appears for the first time in the Stuttgart address book in 1900, with von Kalckreuth as first chairman and an address at Urbanstrasse 37, which is still the seat of the State Gallery today .
The art historian Julius Baum reports in 1913 that soon after the establishment of the "Exhibitors' Association Artists' Association" von Kalckreuth launched a "Sociable Association of Artists' Association", which should serve the artists to exchange ideas and to socialize. From the beginnings of the Stuttgarter Künstlerbund a remainder of five of the original seven hand puppets have been preserved, which should have been carved by Robert Poetzelberger, probably around 1908 to mark the farewell to Kalckreuth. The caricaturing heads were shown by professors Leopold von Kalckreuth, Carlos Grethe, Robert von Haug (1857–1922) and Alexander Eckener from the Academy, the painter Josef Kerschensteiner , the architect of the art building Theodor Fischer and the manager of the art association Hermann Widensohler.
Chair and activities until 1942
- until 1908 Leopold von Kalckreuth
- 1908 Carlos Grethe
- 1909 Hans von Heider
- 1912–1916 Robert Poetzelberger (move to the newly built art building)
- 1916 Professor Heine Rath
- 1923–1927 no entries
- 1928 Professor Robert Breyer.
In the early days of the Nazi era and the Stuttgart Artists Association was brought into line deleted from the register of associations and re-registered, first chairman was subsequently:
- Julius Kurz
- Hans von Heider
- 1941 Josef Zeitler
- until 1942 H. Kißling.
After that, the association chairmen are no longer mentioned in the address book; according to the association register, Adolf Weller was entrusted with the management of a chairman's business. Until 1958 u. a. Walter Romberg is on the Board of Directors together with Felix Hollenberg .
Exhibitions of the early period
In the early days, "exhibitions" are the key theme of the Stuttgart Artists' Association. Together with the Stuttgart Art Cooperative, the Stuttgart group appeared for the first time in 1904 in Dresden with a complete exhibition. The hall furnishings and fittings created for this by the Kunstgewerbeschule under the direction of Bernhard Pankok were later taken over by the Stuttgart Gemäldegalerie . Further exhibitions took place in 1904 in Wiesbaden, Aachen, Krefeld and Heilbronn. In 1907 Cologne was presented with an exhibition, in 1909 Dresden again. In January 1909 the Stuttgarter Künstlerbund exhibited in Mannheim, and a month later in Stuttgart in the rooms of the Kunstverein on Schellingstrasse. Exhibitions in Heilbronn, Magdeburg, Elberfeld, Krefeld and Wiesbaden followed, reports Dr. Erich Heyfelder from the Künstlerbund on the occasion of the exhibition for the 25th anniversary.
In addition, the farewell exhibition for von Kalckreuth took place in 1907, in 1909 there was a work exhibition by the academy teacher Friedrich von Keller, and from 1909 to 1911 there was a memorial exhibition for Otto Reiniger, Alexander Freiherr von Otterstedt and Hermann Pleuer. In 1912 an exhibition of works by Gustav Schönleber, also a teacher at the academy, followed.
Art building
Initially, the artists exhibited in the rooms of the Royal Gallery (today the State Gallery). For this, the permanent exhibition had to be partially cleared, as there were no other exhibition rooms. Even the art association , which bought and exhibited works, did not have sufficient exhibition opportunities.
In a petition to the King on June 27, 1907, the members of the Confederation asked for an art building to be built on Schloßplatz. Since the court theater on Schloßplatz burned down in 1902, this prestigious square had to be redesigned anyway. Although there was a design by Bernhard Pankok , the head of the School of Applied Arts at the time, the king entrusted Theodor Fischer, who was now back in Munich, with the execution of the art building that was to house the municipal gallery, art association and artist association. A representative building, in which, in addition to exhibition rooms, a restaurant, club rooms, a bowling alley for the artists' association and apartments for the caretakers and the restaurant staff, was still quite unusual and a challenge for the architect. Originally, Pankok was supposed to design the interior, but decided not to do so. Within three years, not only the new theater and the Lindenmuseum , but also the art building and the theater were built .
On May 8, 1913, the building was inaugurated in the presence of King Wilhelm II of Württemberg. Artists from Germany and local artists took part in the opening exhibition, although they had to submit to a jury. Jurors were Robert v. Haug, Christian Landenberger, Alfred Schmidt, Eugen Stammbach, Friedrich von Keller, Christian Speyer, Ludwig Habich, Robert Poetzelberger, Gustav Adolf Bredow, Josef Brüllmann and Ulfert Janßen .
With 785 exhibits from the fields of painting, graphics and sculpture, the “Great Art Exhibition Stuttgart” was rightly named. After just two months, the income from the entrance fees was higher than estimated for the entire exhibition period, and when the exhibition closed its doors on October 19, more than one hundred thousand visitors had been counted and works of art had been sold or commissioned for more than 300,000 marks.
On the occasion of the exhibition, a book by the Stuttgart art historian Julius Baum was created in 1913 - The Stuttgart Art of the Present - which, with its many illustrations, offers a picture of the diversity of this exhibition. There were works that were still in the 19th century as well as the works of Swabian Impressionism that were very popular at the time and the works by Willi Baumeister , Oskar Schlemmer and Adolf Hölzel, which pointed towards the modern age . But the "modernity" had not found its way everywhere, because part of the wall decoration that Alfred Heinrich Pellegrini had created for the fountain and for the rooms of the Künstlerbund, which showed clear Art Nouveau elements, was hung up after a short time in the Künstlerbund rooms even scraped off because it was supposedly displeasing to the members of the artists' association.
Clubrooms of the Stuttgart Artists Association
On the first floor of the new art building, in addition to three exhibition rooms and three galleries, the club rooms of the Künstlerbund were housed. The club rooms were located above the entrance area of the first floor in the south wing, facing the Schlossplatz. The stairs that led up to these rooms were the ones for which the stair tower had been added to the vestibule. From here you entered a cloakroom and from there straight ahead to the billiard room. This led into a corridor without a door, from which one got into a reading room. Straight ahead it led into the elongated club hall, which was divided into a flat-roofed and a longer, barrel-vaulted area. It was followed by a stage raised by four steps, which were bordered by two changing rooms at the rear. The windows of the rooms pointed in the direction of the dome, three of the hall - a total of five illuminated it - and that of the reading room opened onto the jewelry courtyard, the window of the billiard room looked onto the uncovered hall of the terrace above the courtyard. The architect Oskar Pfennig furnished the cloakroom and billiard room, and the reading room and the hall, with the barrel ceiling painting, was done by the painter Eduard Pfennig .
There was a bowling alley in the basement. The bowling room and lane room were designed by Theodor Fischer. The room was paneled in dark wood up to half the height of the wall, the wall surface above it was plain and light like the ceiling.
Wilhelm II seems to have had a particular fondness for his artists, because the establishment of the "King's Evenings" in the club rooms of the Artists' Union existed even before the art building was moved into.
The early years, exhibitions and activities
On the occasion of the 25-year reign of the king in 1918, there was an exhibition of the Stuttgart artists, again with a jury made up mainly of members of the artists' association. Traveling exhibitions of the Künstlerbund went to Heilbronn, Tübingen, Heidenheim, later also to Wildbad, Mergentheim a. a. From 1918 on there were regular spring exhibitions in the art building as well as exhibitions in Nuremberg, Darmstadt and other places.
The Stuttgart Secession 1923
War and inflation hit the Stuttgarter Künstlerbund, the king had withdrawn to his possessions, bypassing Stuttgart, and the traditionalists gained the upper hand in the Künstlerbund. The founding of the Künstlerbund had an early secession due to the liberal attitude of Kalckreuth . H. Separation of the progressive forces around the turn of the century as in Munich, Berlin and other cities avoided, but in 1923 there was still a Stuttgart secession. In 1918, the Üecht group around Oskar Schlemmer and Gottfried Graf was a new group that called for a reform of the academy. Now patronizing the traditionalists towards the young and using the jury as a means of power instead of "an aid to the elimination of the Mediocre "for secession. The design of the exhibitions was the main point of contention that led to this split.
The founding members of the Secession included the academy teachers Heinrich Altherr and Arnold Waldschmidt , as well as the teachers at the School of Applied Arts Alfred Lörcher and Bernhard Pankok, but also the free artists Reinhold Nägele and Jakob Wilhelm Fehrle . Altherr's leading role in the secession was generally accepted. His advocacy for intellectual development and free development in art was not shared by all secessionists at the time, but they did not want to be constantly tamed. In any case, many of the secessionists were members of the Künstlerbund.
After the secession, the 25-year exhibition
In 1925 there was an exhibition for the 25th anniversary of the artist association, the "Great Swabian Art Show" in the art building.
One looked back and showed the present. With more than 650 works and over 170 artists, mainly from Stuttgart, this exhibition was certainly appropriate in terms of size and effort for such an anniversary. If you look at the titles of the works of art, you will still find predominantly landscapes, cityscapes, animal pictures, portraits and still lifes.
Spring show April 1932
The spring exhibition in 1932 was one of the annual events. With 95 exhibitors and almost 300 works, a detailed retrospective again here. Almost all of the artists came from Stuttgart.
Persecution and conformity, confiscation
Even if the very progressives had left the artists 'association with the secessionists, persecution because of the artistic conception hit some of the members and exhibitors of the Stuttgart artists' association.
Works by Max Mayrshofer , Franziska Sarwey , Hans Brühlmann , Karl Caspar , Maria Caspar-Filser and Heinrich Eberhard were confiscated. Albert Müller left the arts and crafts school in 1942 for political reasons, Albert Unseld went into “ Inner Emigration ” in 1937 .
Käthe Loewenthal was killed in the Izbica concentration camp . Ignaz Kaufmann's trace of life disappears after 1933, he was a Jew just like Helmut Fechenbach . He was banned from painting as early as 1933. Undaunted, he stood up for other people of the Jewish faith by preparing them for their emigration. In addition, he ran his own emigration, which he and his family managed to do in 1939. He went to London, where he was initially interned as an enemy alien, but then released after a year. He created cycles that deal with his experiences and died in 1986 near London. After “suspicious” and “degenerate” teachers had already lost their offices in 1933 (Schlemmer, for example, worked under compulsory labor and initially provided buildings with camouflage paint), art was systematically brought into line from 1935 onwards. Art associations were dissolved and placed under the Reich Chamber of Fine Arts . The artist association continued to exist after a new entry in the register of associations. In 1941 there was an anniversary exhibition of the artist association members Julius Kurz , Josef Zeitler and August Köhler . In 1943 the art building was hit and destroyed by an explosive bomb. From 1944 the business of the art association ceased.
The club after the war
In the Stuttgart Chronicle of the first post-war years, the visual arts are hardly mentioned. There is talk of literature, music, the fine arts are missing. Nevertheless the club life continued. The column front of the art building was partially preserved and they met in a preserved room right behind the staircase. The art building was only reopened in 1961. Therefore, the first exhibitions took place in the House of Visual Artists on the Eugenstaffel and in Schellingstrasse. On May 9, 1953, the exhibition "Art has a thousand species" opened, in which every fortnightly works of the realistic-naturalistic, then the expressionistic-symbolic and finally the abstract-non-objective direction were shown.
From the reopening of the art building in 1961, works are regularly exhibited in the café. In 1969 the only issue of the "Announcements of the Artists' Union" was published.
From April 5th to 30th, 1982, the Stuttgart Artists' Association organized an exhibition entitled "Encounter with Art" in the premises of the Baden-Württembergische Bank and in its own premises. With over 50 exhibitors and more than 100 pictures, current works by living members as well as works by now deceased members, which had been made available by the Städtische Galerie and private lenders, were shown. In the spring and summer of 1989, sculptures were exhibited on Stuttgart's Schloßplatz.
Chairman during the war and after the war
- until 1949 Adolf Weller
- 1949–1959 Maxim Koehler
- 1962–1965 Rudolf Yelin
- 1965–1967 Otto Ludwig Kunz
- 1967–1968 Paul Stohner
- 1969–1978 Rudolf Yelin
- 1979–1984 Heinz E. Hirscher
- 1984–1988 HC Zimmerle
- 1994-1996 Inge Kern-Rossa
- 1996–2008 Rolf Bakenhus
- since 2008 Richard Böhmer
The Künstlerbund Stuttgart today
Due to the redesign of the club and the restaurant, the exhibitions of members and other groups can now take place in the rooms in the art building. In the past few years, in particular, many exhibitions have been organized for artists from the old Eastern Bloc. At the moment, works by members are shown every seven weeks. In addition, a special exhibition is organized once a year for the students of the State Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart.
"Art on Sunday" as an established cultural event of the Stuttgarter Künstlerbund eV, offers the framework for young and trendy events. The program is broad and offers music, cabaret, performance, lectures and much more.
Members
The Stuttgarter Künstlerbund currently has 134 members, made up of artists from a wide variety of backgrounds. An increasing number of younger members as well as a growing number of artists living in Stuttgart and the surrounding area who were not born in Germany creates the liveliness in the exchange of ideas that every association wants. In many ways, the tradition of cultural events in the artist association has started again. In the Stuttgarter Künstlerbund, professors from the academy, painters, sculptors, musicians, actors, dancers and writers as well as art lovers and supporters meet. The Stuttgarter Künstlerbund is a neutral forum for discussion among artists of all directions and capacities. As before, the condition for acceptance by visual artists is that they must have already proven themselves with their own exhibitions.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Main State Archives Stuttgart E14, Büschel 1664: Letter from Fleischhauer November 21, 1911 and Fleischhauer 1952 p. 164, Baum 1913, p. 9
- ↑ Stadtarchiv Stuttgart Depot B, CXX vol. 1, no. 1 (Büschel1): contract between the crown and the city on the construction of the art building
- ^ Stadtarchiv Stuttgart Depot B, CXX Vol. 1, No. 1 (Büschel1): List of members of the Art Building Commission
- ↑ City Archives Stuttgart Depot B, CXX Vol. 1, No. 1 (Büschel1): Explanatory letter from Theodor Fischer
- ^ Main State Archives Stuttgart E14, Büschel 1661: Information sheet on the large art exhibition in Stuttgart
- ↑ Schwäbische Chronik, No. 209, May 8, 1913: Report on the opening of the great art exhibition
- ↑ Swabian Chronicle, No. 264, June 11, 1913
- ↑ Daiber: 1914 pp. 4-5