Thilo Maatsch

Thilo Friedrich Maatsch (born August 13, 1900 in Braunschweig , † March 20, 1983 in Königslutter ) was a German graphic artist , painter and sculptor . He was an artist of abstract and concrete art as well as constructivism .

Life

Maatsch's interest in art, especially modernism, began early. At the age of 16 he visited an exhibition by Franz Marc in the gallery Der Sturm :

“Through the passionate zeal with which I researched every art exhibition that was available to me, I experienced, more unconsciously, the span of modernity: a decisive moment when I was in a storm exhibition of Franz Marcs mandrill and his horse woodcut in 1916 (among other things) was seized. "

- Thilo Maatsch : on August 14, 1970

His enthusiasm for art was not limited to the visual, but he probably started working as an artist before 1918:

"In 1918 my first little watercolor was hanging from friends next to a drawing by Paul Klee under a sign ."

- Thilo Maatsch : on August 14, 1970

In 1918 Maatsch founded the “Society of Friends of Young Art” in Braunschweig with Rudolf Jahns and Johannes Molzahn . Its members included a. Lyonel Feininger and Paul Klee. Also designed Wassily Kandinsky , promoted the Maatsch and Maatsch as his father revered, the logo of the group. In the same year Maatsch made friends with the art collector Otto Ralfs . In 1919 and 1921 he visited Heinrich Vogeler in Worpswede .

Since he could not finance his living from painting alone, he turned to the teaching profession and began training in 1922. After two years he was employed as a primary school teacher in Holzminden . Maatsch dealt intensively with painting. So intense that family and work hardly played a role anymore .

In 1924 the Brunswick collector Otto Ralfs bought a work by Thilo Maatsch for the first time. For this he came with Nina and Wassily Kandinsky to Maatsch's one-room apartment to choose an oil painting. It was a great honor for Maatsch to have his picture in a collection alongside works by Mondrian , Kandinsky , Klee and other well-known artists at the time. In 1925 Ralfs initiated an exhibition of the "Society of Friends of Young Art".

Despite his work as a teacher, Maatsch did not succeed in realizing his wish to study at the Bauhaus . Mainly because he still had a small family to support. However, he succeeded in studying during the holiday weeks at the Bauhaus in Weimar and later in Dessau. There he made the acquaintance of Paul Klee , Lyonel Feininger , László Moholy-Nagy , William Wauer and Lothar Schreyer . Kandinsky , Klee and Moholy-Nagy allowed him to stay in their studios and study with them. He was not only friends with Kurt Schwitters , but also shared a similar design language, which is why Maatsch is sometimes included in the Schwitters group.

In the same year Maatsch joined the November Group and became a member there. An annual participation in the "Great Berlin Art Exhibition" followed until 1932. In 1927, Herwarth Walden even organized a solo exhibition for him in his gallery Der Sturm , as Maatsch proudly reported in retrospect in 1970, “at least 50 graphics and around 10 watercolors and some paintings”. Now he was exhibiting in the very same gallery that sparked his passion for modernism.

As for many other avant-garde artists, the fall came under National Socialism . As early as 1933, works of art by Maatsch were confiscated for the first time. In 1934 he was excluded from the Reich Chamber of Fine Arts , and Maatsch was listed as " degenerate ". Unlike Emil Bartoschek , for example , Maatsch did not continue abstract painting in secret, nor did he turn to systematic representational painting. Maatsch preferred to interrupt his career as an artist as much as possible and devoted himself to his learned profession as a teacher. In 1943 he was called up to serve as a medic and was taken prisoner by the Soviets.

After the wars

After the liberation from Soviet captivity and the return home, the situation in early post-war Germany did not allow existence as a freelance artist. Forced to support his family, he resumed his old teaching job and after some time took it to the headmaster. Ernst Jünger described these activities after a visit to him in 1947: "Thilo Maatsch, the teacher, painter, translator, recorder of dreams, bibliophile and archaeologist, is also the center of society."

In the 1950s he stayed in Paris several times on behalf of UNESCO. Around 20 years after the end of the war, it was rediscovered from around 1966, and from that point on, exhibition after exhibition followed in close succession. Works by Maatsch have been acquired from better known private collections, including the Deutsche Bank Collection. Stephan Hupertz, Carl Lazlo and Alfred and Elisabeth Hoh. Thilo Maatsch passed away from his life in Königslutter in 1983.

plant

Sun sign in front of blue
Thilo Maatsch , November 15, 1927
Oil on canvas
66.5 × 59.5 cm
Privately owned Link to the picture (please note copyrights )

Maatsch became known in the 1920s primarily for his geometric-abstract color surface pictures, in which any spatial and depth effect is dissolved.

Jan Winkelmann wrote in 1994: “A comparable reduction of the image motifs to flat geometric elements in connection with a largely renouncement of spatial effect becomes clear in the works of Thilo Maatsch and Lou Loeber. Here, the static, formal repertoire of decorative colors is reduced to basic geometric shapes such as rectangles, circles, and rhombuses. ”This reduction was also criticized:“ Works by Piet Mondrian or Thilo Maatsch, for example, were of the clarity and use of white surfaces Very interesting, but because the geometry was too strong, a representation of the dynamics occurring in music could not be realized, ”wrote Claus Hoffmann of his bachelor thesis.

This Maatsch era is repeatedly cited as a source of inspiration, for example by Silvain Joblin and Horst Schmidt.

Late work

After the end of the Second World War , Maatsch also turned to biomorphic abstraction, which also featured floral and figural motifs. Works on paper, woodcuts and smaller sculptures were created that differ fundamentally from those works that are considered characteristic of Maatsch.

The organically rounded figurations and floral elements join the organic art of the 1950s and 1960s, as represented by Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth. His late work is overshadowed to this day by the consistently constructivist works with which Thilo Maatsch caused a sensation in the 1920s.

Counterfeit works on paper

In particular, simpler works on paper appear at online auctions. The amount of supply fluctuates and sometimes reaches a large, almost inflationary number. The works are partly atypical, kept very simple and always on paper. One can suspect that they are fakes.

Exhibitions (selection)

Solo exhibitions

• 1925: Society of Friends of Young Art together with Rudolf Jahns and Johannes Molzahn
• 1927: Solo exhibition in the gallery Der Sturm
• 1931: Solo exhibition in the Kunsthalle Dörbrandt , Braunschweig
• 1972: Rationale Speculation , Mönchengladbach
• 1974: Thilo Maatsch , Bartha Collection
• 1976: Thilo Maatsch, watercolors 1955-1966 , Städt. Duisburg-Rheinhausen collections
• 1979: The painter and sculptor Thilo Maatsch retrospective in the Städtisches Museum in Braunschweig
• 1980: Thilo Maatsch: Exhibition for the 80th birthday , Helmstedt and Königslutter
• 1985: Thilo Maatsch - watercolors from fifty years , Hardenberg Castle Velbert, and Villingen.
• 1991: Thilo Maatsch: Works 1920–1980 , Galerie Reichard, Frankfurt
• 2009: Thilo Maatsch (1900-1983) , Galerie Irene Lehr, Berlin

Thematic exhibitions with works of art by Maatsch (also from private collections)

• 1925–1932: annual participation in the Great Berlin Art Exhibition
• 1971: German Avantgarde 1915–35 , Cologne
• 1972: Constructivism , Cologne
• 1973: The Non-Objective World 1914–1955 , London
• 1977: Trends in the 1920s , Berlin
• 1978: Avant-Garde of Constructive Art , Galerie Schreiner, Basel
• 1994: The New Reality. Abstraction as a world design Wilhelm Hack Museum Ludwigshafen 1994
• 1996: Walter Dexel, Thilo Maatsch and Rudolf Jahns , Reichard 1996.
• 1998: International Languages ​​of Art: Paintings, drawings and sculptures of Classical Modernism from the Hoh Collection , Lindenau Museum , Altenburg ; Cultural History Museum and Felix Nussbaum House , Osnabrück; Museum am Ostwall , Dortmund ; Germanic National Museum , Nuremberg .
• 2000: Don't give up until the earth is square! Mannheimer Kunstverein, collection of Marli Hoppe-Ritter ( Museum Ritter ).
• 2005: Art without borders, works of the international avant-garde from 1910 to 1940 from the Hoh Collection , Ernst-Barlach-Haus , Hamburg
• 2008: Departure into the modern age: graphics of the early 20th century from the Gerd Gruber collection
• 2009: Bauhaus encounter: Kurt Schmidt and avant-garde artists, from Kandinsky to Vasarely , Gera art collection
• 2013: BUILT PICTURES: Works from the Hupertz Collection , Ernst-Barlach-Haus Hamburg

Publicly owned works

• Museum Haus Konstruktiv , Zurich
• Museum Ritter , Waldenbuch
• Museum of Art , Indianapolis, USA
• Dubniczay House Collection Carl Laszlo (Károly László), Veszprém
• Sprengel Museum Hannover
• City of Salzgitter, art collection

literature

• Maatsch, Thilo . In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General Lexicon of Fine Artists of the XX. Century. tape 3 : K-P . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1956, p. 280 .
• Carl Laszlo : Thilo Maatsch, 1st Panderma Publishing House, Basel 1974.
• Peter Lufft : The painter Thilo Maatsch. Städtisches Museum, Braunschweig 1979. ( Working reports from the Städtisches Museum Braunschweig. Volume 30). 14 pages.
• Peter Lufft: Maatsch, Friedrich Thilo. In: Horst-Rüdiger Jarck , Günter Scheel (ed.): Braunschweigisches Biographisches Lexikon - 19th and 20th centuries . Hahnsche Buchhandlung, Hannover 1996, ISBN 3-7752-5838-8 , p. 395 .
• Thilo Maatsch. Works 1920–1980. Galerie Reichard, Frankfurt / Main 1991, ISBN 3-927335-07-X . (Exhibition from May 3 to June 28, 1991, Galerie Reichard. Texts by Bernhard Holeczek , Peter Lufft and Thilo Maatsch; exhibition catalog, 61 pages).
• Maatsch, Thilo. In: Kurt Schmidt, Holger Peter Saupe: Bauhaus encounter: Kurt Schmidt and avant-garde artists, from Kandinsky to Vasarely. Art collection Gera, 2009.

additional

Thilo Maatsch is the namesake of the following school:

• Thilo Maatsch School for children and young people with learning disabilities in Königslutter am Elm .
• The work Für Thilo by Horst Schmidt is dedicated to Thilo Maatsch.

Web links

• Thilo Maatsch (German, 1900-1983). artnet.de

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Ursula Peters, Susanne Aschka: International Languages ​​of Art: Paintings, Drawings and Sculptures of Classical Modernism from the Hoh Collection. Pp. 154 and 158.
2. ^ Complete works by Ernst Jünger, p. 635, Klett-Cotta, 2001.
3. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from July 19, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Tabular curriculum vitae at teaching art auctions, accessed on July 2, 2011. 
4. ↑ art.db.com accessed on September 26, 2013.
5. ↑ christies.com, accessed December 4, 2013.
6. ^ The Purity of Form , accessed September 26, 2013.
7. ↑ thesingingcanvas.de
8. ↑ saatchionline.com. Retrieved November 30, 2013.
9. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original from September 28, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed November 30, 2013. 
10. ↑ vonbartha.com
11. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original dated December 2, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
12. ↑ aerzteblatt.de
13. ^ The Non-Objective World 1914–1955. The non-representational world 1914–1955. London, Austin, Basel 1973, exhibition catalog, pp. 120–121, with ill .: Komposition, 1929, oil on wood.
14. ↑ Trends of the Twenties. 15th European Art Exhibition Berlin 1977. (Catalog) Reimer, Berlin 1977, pp. 1/213, B / 41.
15. ↑ ernst-barlach-haus.de accessed on September 26, 2013.
16. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original dated December 2, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved November 27, 2013. 
17. ↑ museum-ritter.de accessed on September 26, 2013.
18. ↑ imamuseum.org accessed on September 26, 2013.
19. ↑ budapest.com
20. ↑ sprengel-museum.de (PDF) accessed on September 26, 2013.
21. ↑ salzgitter.de
22. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original from September 28, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.