Ugi Battenberg

Self-portrait 1941

Ugi Battenberg (born March 11, 1879 in Alzey ; † June 12, 1957 in Bad Nauheim ) was a German painter .

life and work

Ugi Battenberg was the eldest son of the teacher Friedrich Wilhelm Battenberg and his wife Mathilde. His parents gave him the first name Heinrich Rudolf Hermann; the short name Ugi goes back to the early word creation of his one year older sister Mathilde Battenberg . The family moved to Frankfurt in 1884. Battenberg visited a Frankfurt School and was a 17-year-old at the Städel art school received, first in the sculpture class of Christoph Hausmann . He met his future wife, Fridel Carl (1880–1965), as a 15-year-old, whose wealthy family was reluctant to join, but finally agreed in 1897 and agreed to the engagement two years later; eight years later, in 1907, the marriage took place.

After completing his military service (1898) Battenberg continued his studies, however, contrary to the usual conventions, with a painter: Ottilie W. Roeder Stein , a teacher of his sister Mathilde, fort, stayed in 1900 - he is a very lucky - in Barbizon, studied in Paris and . a. with Gustave Courtois and from 1902 with Max Thedy in Weimar, where he met Max Beckmann , a momentous encounter for both of them. Max Beckmann will depict him and his wife in many of his paintings (picture: The Synagogue in Frankfurt am Main, 1919) and vice versa (Frankfurter Mainufer, 1921). Battenberg attracted attention in the art scene in 1905 with a solo exhibition in Frankfurt. Further exhibitions and commissions follow. With his portraits , nudes , still lifes , landscapes and interiors, he enjoys public recognition.

He created religious images for the St. Peter's Church in Frankfurt , where his father had been pastor since 1884. Battenberg soon counted "despite criticism of his pictures and a lack of protection ... among the most interesting and most promising talents of the younger Frankfurt artistic tradition".

In 1908, the couple Ugi and Fridel Battenberg moved into an apartment with a studio (top floor) in the house of Carl’s in-laws on Schweizer Straße. The wealth of his wife gives Ugi Battenberg a free hand to develop his painting art. The Battenbergs took their friend Max Beckmann into their apartment in 1915, initially for care; Battenberg leaves his studio to Beckmann, which he uses as an apartment and - after the house was sold in 1919, the Battenbergs move - as a studio until 1932.

Through appropriate relationships, Battenberg managed to avoid being deployed at the front during World War I and to work as an inspector for the Frankfurt hospitals . After the war he was a member of the Frankfurt Painting Committee, resigned from the conservative Frankfurt Painters' Guild and supported the redesign and modernization of Frankfurt's cultural life. After the First World War, the couple first moved to the right bank of the Main (Photo: Frankfurter Mainufer), in 1932, the economic situation had turned to their disadvantage, into a more modest, newly built city apartment. During the time of National Socialism , Battenberg tried in vain to gain advantages for his promotion by joining the NSDAP party ; He is accused of being hostile to the state and having contacts with Jewish painters. After a bomb attack in 1943 - the studio in Kaiserstraße was destroyed, the pictures there could be saved - the Battenbergs moved to Bad Nauheim to see the painter Milli Langebartels. Battenberg received an honorary pension from the city of Frankfurt until his death.

Services

Ugi Battenberg belonged with his wife Fridel (pianist) and his sister Mathilde (painter) to those artists who significantly revitalized Frankfurt's culture between the wars . Battenberg developed late impressionist ideas and decisively influenced artists such as Max Beckmann. After the Second World War, Beckmann's works could be removed from the Battenberg collection, thus closing gaps that the Nazi state tore: Beckmann's art was not considered worthy of protection from 1937 and was destroyed if necessary.

Works (selection)

Frankfurter Mainufer (1921), Städel Frankfurt;
Ugi Battenberg (ground floor) greets Max Beckmann (balcony, with Fridel Battenberg)

• Still life (1903/4)
• Portrait of a Lady (1905)
• Jacob Emden (1905; portrait)
• Theodor Neubürger (1907; portrait)
• Still life with roses, fruits and a bottle (around 1910)
• Still life with roses (around 1920)
• Frankfurt bank of the Main (1921)
• Mary and John on Golgotha (1927)
• Frankfurt view with rainbow (after 1929)
• Self-portraits (1933; 1941; 1942)
• Portrait of Susi Veit (1941)
• Portrait of a lady Helene L. (1944/5)

literature

• Esther Walldorf: The painter Ugi Battenberg - biography and insight into his artistic work. In: Ed. 1822 Foundation of the Frankfurter Sparkasse: The artist family Battenberg. Students of OW Roederstein and friends of Max Beckmann. Frankfurt am Main 2007, pp. 40–74 (Walldorf evaluates numerous exhibition catalogs and scattered documents, including in Max Beckmann's letters.)
• Esther Walldorf: From Weimar to Schweizer Straße 3. Max Beckmann and the lovely Ugis . In: Ed. 1822 Foundation of the Frankfurter Sparkasse: The artist family Battenberg. Students of OW Roederstein and friends of Max Beckmann. Frankfurt am Main 2007, pp. 75-84

Web links

• Portrait of Fridel Battenberg , Städel Museum Frankfurt am Main.
• Städel Museum Frankfurt am Main .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Courtois is considered the most successful portrait painter of the 1880s / 90s in Paris (Walldorf: Battenberg , p. 44).
2. ^ Walldorf: Battenberg , p. 49.
3. ↑ In 1916 the drawing of Beckmann's portrait Fridel Battenberg was created, haunting and very personal .
4. ↑ The prestigious address, Schöne Aussicht 9, was equivalent to a social rise: the most famous Frankfurt thinker, Theodor Adorno , lived in the house next door and, a few doors down, Arthur Schopenhauer .
5. ↑ There are pictures by both artists that can be read as a dialogue: The synagogue in Frankfurt am Main , 1919, and Battenberg's Frankfurter Mainufer (Walldorf; Der Maler etc. , p. 54) and Willemerhäuschen (ibid., P. 62) , 1931, to the home of Beckmann and his wife Quappi , 1926/33 in Steinhausenstrasse .