Thea Schleusner

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Thea Schleusner; Portrait photo by Minya Diez-Dührkoop

Thea Schleusner (born April 30, 1879 in Wittenberg ; † January 14, 1964 in Berlin ) was a German painter, illustrator and author of essays and travel impressions.

biography

Thea Schleusner, whose first name is actually Dorothea, was born on April 30, 1879 in Wittenberg as the second daughter of the archdeacon of the Wittenberg town church Georg Schleusner and his wife Elisabeth (née Palmie). Growing up in the house at Kirchplatz 10, she attended the Wittenberg girls' school in what is now Jüdenstrasse in Wittenberg. In 1898, at the age of 19, she made the decision to embark on an artistic career. Presumably her uncle, the famous painter Charles Johann Palmié , had an effective influence on her.

In Berlin , she took up private training with Professors Curt Stoeving , Franz Scarbina and Reinhold Lepsius . As a master student of the aforementioned, she turned to Paris . During this two-year study visit, she worked at the Académie Colarossi in Paris under Pinet and Toures and at the Academie Moderne under Carière. From her apartment in the Sacre Coeur monastery, she contacted Auguste Rodin , André Gide and Rainer Maria Rilke . In 1978 the oil painting “Paysage à la fontaine” (“Landscape at the Fountain”) from 1910 in the Louvre in Paris was recorded and assigned to the Musée d'Orsay four years later . The inventory number is 20727.

Another study trip took her to Florence , Rome and Siena in Italy where she made copies of old masters. She then traveled to London in England and in 1901 - after returning from her study trip - got her own student's studio. From 1906 to 1931 she was a member of the Association of Berlin Artists and from that time on she made portraits of famous personalities of the time such as Ricarda Huch , Albert Einstein , Mary Wigman , Emil Nolde and Friedrich Nietzsche .

The 1909 gouache painting "Lamentation of Christ" was created in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich, inspired by the painting of the same name by Botticelli .

Thea Schleusner- "Lamentation of Christ", gouache, 1909

It is a key work, as it shows, on the one hand, the influence of Italian Renaissance masters on Thea Schleusner's work and choice of topics and, on the other hand, it represents the prelude to a wealth of picture variants with this motif that Thea Schleusner has over decades and in different ways Techniques created. The picture frame is the original from 1909.

This was followed by book illustrations for Tegnér's Fritjofsage , for Oscar Wilde's fairy tale , for Annette von Droste-Hülshoff's poems and Richard Strauss ' Salome . She later switched to stained glass for private homes and churches, which were unique in their glow of color. Exhibitions such as those in the German Lyceum Club , the Association of Berlin Artists and the exhibition “War Visions” as well as the hand-colored lithograph “History Cycle” from 1927 round off the artist's artistic work.

In the 1920s, Thea Schleusner began to work as a writer. Especially during her long stay in Sweden in 1920 as well as during her trip to India in 1931 and to Italy in 1909, she collected many travel impressions, which she evaluated both literarily and artistically, for example in the illustrated travel report Spring Days in Sicily , published in the 2nd volume of Velhagen & Klasings monthly books, 40th year 1925/1926.

As a painter, Thea Schleusner belongs to the so-called lost generation . This refers to a group of around thirty artists, predominantly Expressionists, who completed their studies before or between the two world wars and were able to record their first successes in their artistic careers, but whose work was thanks to the measures of the Third Reich and had to interrupt the Second World War. Some of the works were labeled " degenerate ", some artists were persecuted or interned, and some lost many of their works in World War II. This “missing generation” includes artists such as Alexandra Povòrina , Lotte Laserstein and Hans Brass .

Thea Schleusner, whose works were largely destroyed in a night of bombing during the Second World War, continued her artistic work after 1945. The general turn to abstract art in the second half of the last century made her, who had further developed Expressionism with her works, almost forgotten.

In the meantime, the artists of the missing generation, including Thea Schleusner in particular, are experiencing renewed interest and the recognition they deserve for their outstanding artistic work. Since 2017, the Berlin-based specialist journalist and non-fiction author Mathias Tietke has been striving to gain the appreciation of the artist Thea Schleusner and her artistic legacy . He has already curated two small exhibitions with pictures by Thea Schleusner and in his book “Wittenberg. Everything except Luther ”devoted a multi-page section to the artist.

Memorial plaque for Thea Schleusner in Wittenberg, Kirchplatz 10

Oeuvre

Most of their early works were destroyed in the bombing raids on Berlin during World War II.

  • "Portrait of the Indologist Prof. Dr. Albrecht Weber ”, 1902, Academy of Sciences Berlin
  • “Self-portrait”, 1905, private collection, Berlin
  • "Lamentation of Christ according to Botticelli", 1909, Mathias Tietke Collection, Berlin
  • “Paysage à la fontaine”, 1910, Musée d'Orsay Paris
  • "Portrait of Emil Nolde" and "Portrait of Ada Nolde", 1916, Kunsthalle Kiel
  • “The 9th November 1918” and 29 other early works in the City History Museum of Lutherstadt Wittenberg
  • “Blood beech” 1930, Rolf Schwarze Collection, North Rhine-Westphalia
  • “Portrait of Georg Schleusner”, 1936, Schleusnerstift Lutherstadt Wittenberg
  • “Die Weltenharfe”, cycle “Musical compositions” 1948, Rolf Schwarze Collection, North Rhine-Westphalia

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ musee-orsay.fr
  2. ↑ Wittenberg. Everything except Luther: landscape, architecture, technology, art. Mitteldeutscher Verlag 2018, ISBN 978-3-95462-895-7 , pp. 178-183
personal data
SURNAME Schleusner, Thea
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter and writer
DATE OF BIRTH April 30, 1879
PLACE OF BIRTH Wittenberg
DATE OF DEATH January 14, 1964
Place of death Berlin