Theo Eggink

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Theo Eggink (born June 7, 1901 in Riga , † March 30, 1965 in Hohnstein (Saxon Switzerland) ) was a German wood sculptor and silhouette artist .

life and work

Theo Eggink came from the very aristocratic German Knigge family , but from a branch that resulted from an extramarital relationship between one of the barons and an improper, which is why the descendants were not allowed to bear the name Knigge. The only concession was the permission to carry the name in reverse spelling - Eggink.

Theo Eggink rarely created works of art that were taller than 13 or 14 centimeters, and yet his works have shaped an entire art movement to this day - namely the art of carving dolls' heads for puppet shows .

In the 1920s, Eggink got to know the aspiring puppeteer Max Jacob , the still young principal of the Hartenstein puppet shows, which would later become world famous as the Hohnstein puppet theater . Both Eggink and Jacob came from the Wandervogel movement , they both shared the same ideals, and so a deep friendship and artistic collaboration soon ensued: Eggink helped Jacob to find a new type of the traditional Kasper character through his carving skills; Instead of a wild knight, like the puppet from the old fairground puppet show, a happily laughing friend from children was now on the stage and for the first time showed plays with educational standards that could also be performed in schools and youth care facilities.

Kasper von Eggink ( Piccolo Puppet Collection )

Theo Eggink became the regular carver of the Hohnsteiner Puppet Theater and created hundreds of fantasy figures and character figures, some of which still shape the appearance of the hand puppets of modern Punch and Judy players: pioneers for the now familiar Punch and Judy ensemble with king and princess , witch and devil , Seppel and Grandmother was Theo Eggink and his colleague Elisabeth Grünwaldt , who was responsible for the clothing of the hand puppet heads made by Eggink.

Eggink himself was characterized by a quiet and reserved nature. In his autobiography Mein Kasper und ich , Max Jacob described the mostly unsuccessful attempts to use the puppet carver as a puppeteer - excessive stage fright made it impossible for Eggink to act in front of an audience, and several times he had fled before the performances.

He knew the fame of the Hohnstein puppet theater only from the stories of the players and press reports; his place of work always remained the carving workshop. “With the devotion of a Madonna carver he led the knife over the devil's face,” the puppeteer Rudolf Fischer remembered the artist Eggink, who never signed his work; the expert knows how to distinguish Eggink's heads from those of his pupils and imitators because of their fine, deep and “meaty” cut.

In addition to his work for the Hohnsteiner, he also made hand puppet heads for other puppeteers as well as small carvings for sale to visitors to the town of Hohnstein in Saxon Switzerland. His very private passion was the art of paper cutting, about which little is known to this day; some small-format works are only in the possession of the local museum of Sebnitz .

Eggink died in Hohnstein in 1965 at the age of 63. He was buried right next to the puppet theater on the outskirts of town, where the puppeteer Max Jacob, his wife Marie and the costume designer Elisabeth Grünwaldt later found their final resting place.

Theo Eggink's workshop was taken over by Eggink's student Gerhard Berger after his death . Today his son Wolfgang runs the studio, where hand puppet heads based on Eggink's models are still being made for enthusiasts and for socio-educational institutions. Nowadays one rarely sees one of Eggink's puppets on stage; most of them have long been in well-deserved “retirement”.

literature

  • Rudolf Fischer: Theo Eggink . In: Freundeskreis der Hohnsteiner Puppenspiele (ed.): Annual edition 1965 , Hamburg 1965.
  • Hans Purschke: Lovable doll world . Hamburg 1962.
  • Hans Purschke: puppet show in Germany . Darmstadt 1957.
  • Max Jacob: My Kasper and me . Rudolstadt 1964.
  • Richard Schimmrich: The hand puppet amateur playbook of the Hohnsteiner . Reichenau / Saxony 1942.
  • Wolfgang Hensel: Kasper's way from east to west . Wuerzburg 2008.

See also

  • Till de Kock , next to Eggink, the Hohnsteiner's second great carver

Other sources

  • Puppet collection Gerd J. Pohl
  • State Puppet Theater Collection, Dresden

Web link

personal data
SURNAME Eggink, Theo
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German wood sculptor and paper cutting artist
DATE OF BIRTH June 7, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH Riga
DATE OF DEATH March 30, 1965
Place of death Hohnstein (Saxon Switzerland)