Theo Matejko
Theo Matejko (born June 18, 1893 in Vienna , † September 9, 1946 in Vorderthiersee ) was an Austrian press draftsman and illustrator . He was a war correspondent in the First World War . His technical drawings and illustrations of sporting events appeared in numerous magazines from 1921 to 1946. He drew on the Graf Zeppelin's trip to America and took part in car races himself. Matejko designed the covers of books and numerous posters.
Life
Until 1920
Theo Matejka's parents (he didn't take the name Matejko until around 1907) came from Kranitz in Bohemia . He was self-taught as a draftsman and painter . In Vienna he often changed his place of residence. On the registration forms under the heading “Character and Employment” in 1913 the profession “draftsman” is given. At the end of 1913, another registration slip instead reads “Applied Applicants” and, from the beginning of 1914, “Akad.”. In the years that followed it was always called “painter”. His first verifiable poster was made in 1913 for the opening of the Flottenverein cinema in Vienna, and the oldest picture of the artist from 1914 has been preserved in the Army History Museum in Vienna.
The Sarajevo shots also changed Matejko's life. Matejko became a soldier in the Austro-Hungarian Army in the First World War .
The editor-in-chief of the illustrated magazines , Otto Sonne, later personally campaigned for the further promotion of Matejko. In January 1917 he wrote to General von Hoen, the director of the Austro-Hungarian War Archives . Only a few days later, Sonne received the promise that Matejko should introduce himself to the “art group of the kuk war press quarter” and submit his request for admission as a press illustrator. In April 1918 he was supposed to undertake a longer trip to the Orient. However, this no longer came about because Matejko married on April 25, 1918.
From 1920
After the end of the war, the first major phase of the poster artist Matejko took place, during which there was at times a collaboration with Marcell Vertes . In 1920 Matejko and Vertès parted ways. Vertès went to France and Matejko to Berlin shortly after the end of the Kapp Putsch . His first drawings in the Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung appeared in October 1920. They not only show how Matejko explored his new area of life, but also give indications of his special areas of interest. He drew the film exchange , pictures from the “Berlin Underworld” or illustrated magazine articles about gambling clubs or the problem of drugs. In Berlin he lived in the Hotel Bristol, according to Szatmari's book of Berlin a meeting place for high society.
Matejkos worked on technology, especially engine technology and the automobile. In 1921 pictures of car and motorcycle races appeared. In the following years he was a guest artist at AVUS and other German and European race tracks. At Pentecost 1924 he suffered a serious car accident. In 1925 Matejko took part in an actor's race, a car race on the Avus. In 1931 he started the Mille Miglia in Italy. He was also interested in sports, especially boxing and cycling.
In 1921 Matejko divorced his first wife. Following a suggestion from Hermann Ullstein, Theo Matejko created the figure of Raffke , the newly rich who made money as a war profiteer . The Ullstein publishing house offered prizes for the best saying that Mr. Raffke could have made in the present picture Matejko. The character of the war profiteer became so popular that it was even used as a model for a film. In 1923 a poster by Matejko advertised a time picture in 6 acts under the title Fräulein Raffke .
Matejko worked as a poster artist. In 1924 he sat next to OHW Hadank, Fritz Koch-Gotha and Paul Simmel on the jury of the poster art exhibition for film advertising in the “Film Industry” club. The catalog published for this exhibition not only shows posters by Matejko, but also two newspaper advertisements for the film Dr. Mabuse . For this Fritz Lang film , he had also drawn the poster for the premiere. His collaboration with the film industry went beyond drawing posters for a long time. For Murnau's film The Last Man , he created a portfolio of lithographs for the guests of honor at the premiere. Matejko made sketches of film preparations in Neubabelsberg for the magazine Film-Kurier .
1933 Matejko took over as driver of Rohr eight-cylinder vehicle at the Germany tour in part, the then km crossed the 2000th In the same year he drew a horror scenario with bombs over us or bombs on Berlin , which at the beginning of the Second World War was also depicted in the US American LIFE magazine with current aircraft models .
1933-1945
After the National Socialists came to power in 1933, Matejko stayed mainly with his previous focus, technology and sport, and as another important area of his work, poster art. In 1935 Matejko went to the United States on behalf of Ullstein Verlag . he drew the American way of life and also sheets on the history of the Indians .
After the publication of these drawn travel reports, Matejko's collaboration with Ullstein-Verlag ended. In the mid-thirties, as the artist colleague Wilhelm M. Busch later reported , Matejko was "guilty of a moral offense, a crime that today would probably not be considered as such". After he was released early from prison, he was no longer put under contract with the German publishing house , which Ullstein had meanwhile become. He then worked for the magazine Die Wehrmacht . In this propaganda magazine he worked in the interests of the National Socialists and, for example, showed the newly armed Wehrmacht in maneuvers or reported on the operation of the Condor Legion in Spain. Matejko delivered his pictures up to the last issue of the "Wehrmacht". In 1945 he designed a 12 + 38 Pf - special stamp of the Reichspost for the paramilitary support force NSKK, which was no longer issued .
On October 8, 1936, he married the film actress Erika Fiedler. The entry "without profession" at Erika Fiedler is to be understood as an indication that she was not allowed to practice her profession during the Third Reich.
From 1945
Shortly before the end of the Second World War, he left with his wife and the racing driver Hans Stuck under constant bombardment by the Allies lying Berlin . Matejko is said to have lived with Hans Stuck in southern Germany for the first months after the end of the war. A drawing for the Stuck towing company was made during this time. As of March 3, 1946, the Matejko couple is registered in a guest list in St. Anton am Arlberg , Tyrol. Under the French occupation established in Tyrol after the end of the war, he carried out political propaganda drafts as early as 1945 on behalf of the Commandement en Chef francais en Autriche (Direction L'Information) . From November 1945 he worked for the satirical magazine homunculus in Bregenz , where he met Walter Gotschke at editorial meetings . One of his early papers for this magazine was titled J'accuse , I Accuse.
The film work of the wife Erika also took the Matejko couple to Vorderthiersee in the Kufstein district, because the Passion Play House there was used as a film studio. Theo Matejko died there of a stroke on September 9, 1946 . The last title page he drew for the magazine homunculus was entitled The tired apocalyptic horsemen . "Crooked back and crooked horses, four riders drag themselves across the earth - even they, the ghosts of war and murder, themselves to the horror, have grown tired."
Other works (selection)
Poster "Children in Need", 1914
Movie poster for the silent film " The Doll " 1919
Chariot race from the film " The Ten Commandments ", 1923
U 31 , the lost and found submarine from World War I
Mercedes-Benz “ Silver Arrow ” on the Avus, 1938
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List of works, posters
1917
1918
1919
1920
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1921
1922
1923
1924
1925
1926
1927 1928
1930
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1931
1932
1933
1934
1935
1936
1937
1938
1939
1940
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1941
1942
1943
1944
Undated
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Web links
- Literature by and about Theo Matejko in the catalog of the German National Library
- Poster 'Hands off the Ruhr area' in the German Historical Museum
- Poster 'Stop with the German self-tearing!' in the German Historical Museum
- Theo Matejko's posters in the film poster archive
- René Grohnert: Theo Matejko's poster for the appearance of the magician Erik Jan Hanussen, Vienna 1919
- Christian Maryska: The Austrian silent film poster using the example of Theo Matejko and the “Trioplakat” studio
literature
- The Theo Matejko book. Drawings as records from two and a half decades. Kommodore-Verlag, Berlin 1938.
- Harry Niemann: The Star Painters. Mercedes-Benz advertising from a century. Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart 2008, ISBN 978-3-613-02864-7 , pp. 126-137.
- R. Schmidt: Matejka Theodor. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 6, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1975, ISBN 3-7001-0128-7 , p. 137.
- Helma Türk: Filmland Tyrol! A journey through Tyrol's film history. 2nd, enlarged and corrected edition. Self-published, Innsbruck et al. 2007, p. 67 ff.
- Otto Weber: The press illustrator Theo Matejko. 1893-1946. The book for the 100th birthday. Association for Local History, Ober-Ramstadt 1993 (book accompanying the 1993 exhibition in the Museum Ober-Ramstadt).
Individual evidence
- ^ "Bombs over us", prophetic drawings by a German artist. In: LIFE , September 11, 1939, p. 26 .
- ↑ a b strength, speed and dynamism . Wiener Zeitung, July 13, 2014
- ↑ Source: Marriage certificate No. 856, Berlin-Charlottenburg registry office, Berlin State Archives.
- ^ Otto Weber: The press illustrator Theo Matejko. 1993.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Matejko, Theo |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Matejka, Theo |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Austrian illustrator |
| DATE OF BIRTH | June 18, 1893 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Vienna |
| DATE OF DEATH | September 9, 1946 |
| Place of death | Vorderthiersee |