Ulrich Nitschke

Ulrich Nitschke (born December 24, 1879 in Grottkau ; † May 26, 1971 in Schönau im Odenwald) was a German painter and sculptor .

Life

Nitschke was the third child of the Prussian tax officer Ernst Nitschke and his wife Ernestine. He was married to Hadwig Baedeker; their daughter Nike was also a painter and was known as a carver of puppet figures (46 characters).

Ulrich Nitschke, who was supposed to become a teacher, attended a preparatory institute after finishing school in Breslau . His artistic talent enabled him to join Prof. Ernst Schurth's drawing class at the Karlsruhe Art Academy in 1898 , where he made a lifelong friendship with Franz Mutzenbecher .

Together with Paul Klee , Wassily Kandinsky and Hans Purrmann , he studied from 1900 with Franz von Stuck at the Munich Art Academy (matriculation number 2167), where he practiced painting from nature (male and female nudes ). Anatomy lectures for visual artists at the Ludwig Maximilians University were essential for his later sculptural work . During this time he came into contact with the poet Max Dauthendey through Melchior von Hugo and was able to go in and out of the studio of the sculptor Karl Albiker . In the summer of 1901 he cycled from Munich to study in Florence and Rome , and then to the Louvre in Paris . He later traveled repeatedly to Switzerland , Austria , Italy and France .

From 1903 to 1907 he was a master student of Leopold von Kalckreuth and Adolf Hölzel at the Kunstakademie Stuttgart , where he painted large-format tempera pictures and received a silver medal from King Wilhelm II of Württemberg as 2nd prize at an exhibition for a landscape painting . In Stuttgart he belonged to a group of friends around the architects Bruno Taut , Paul Bonatz and Oscar Pixis, which the architect Walther Baedeker joined in 1904, with whom he worked closely for about ten years.

During his training his interest in architecture-related art developed and in 1906 he was commissioned by the Hamburg architect Walther Baedeker to design the three-door portal of the recently built Karstadt department store in Lübeck with larger-than-life allegorical statues, six full figures and twelve reliefs, in hard sandstone . Then in 1907, at the invitation of Theodor Fischer , he created the wall paintings for the concert hall of the Pfullinger Hallen with Louis Moilliet , Hans Brühlmann and Melchior von Hugo ; he painted the east wall with the themes of fear and appeasement through music .

In the same year Walther Baedeker asked him to participate in a competition for the University of Hamburg. He then hired him to work in his own architectural office in the “White House” in Blankenese and, during a lengthy illness, made him responsible for current affairs from planning to construction management.

In 1908 Bruno Taut arranged for him to design five terracottas 2 meters high for Arthur Vogdt as a “welcome” to the house at Bismarckstrasse 10. Since the technology for this was forgotten, he researched Etruscan tombs and invented a method in a brick factory in West Prussia to build stable, large, hollow figures from moist, kneadable clay without burning hard cracks, and these unharmed after long transport at great heights to mount the facade. He made another terracotta for a facade on Potsdamer Platz.

In 1909, Paul Ludwig Troost commissioned him to create two larger-than-life figures from basalt with the theme "Encounter" for the house at Bismarckstrasse 12; the conversion from clay to hard natural stone required a different, strenuous technique.

In 1911 he modeled a round sculpture and a Janus head with little boy for the garden house of the poet Richard Dehmel in Blankenese. Further terracotta orders followed, which caused a sensation, so that his terracottas could be seen at the annual spring exhibitions of the Berlin Academy on Pariser Platz. Louis Moilliet wanted to win him with August Macke and Paul Klee for a trip to Tunis in April 1914, but he was bound by obligations in Hamburg.

During the First World War he was a volunteer on the Western Front in northern France.

From 1923 to 1943 he had his studio at "Knie" (today's Ernst-Reuter-Platz ) in Berlin-Charlottenburg . He received orders from architects, especially from Arthur Vogdt, for wall paintings, terracottas and sculptures made of stone and marble concrete . In 1923 he won the competition for the redesign of Nollendorfplatz , for which 88 designs had been submitted. In 1929 the architect Hermann Dernburg commissioned him to create larger-than-life terracotta heads "from all over the world" for the Wertheim department store in Breslau.

From 1930 to 1932 he stayed on the Côte d'Azur - in Cassis , Saint-Tropez , Sanary , Menton - and painted landscapes and portraits in oil; Terracotta and a portrait of Nike were created in Cagnes .

His studio was completely destroyed by bombs on November 23, 1943. Then he lived in Salzburg and moved to Neckarsteinach in 1952 . From 1959 he lived in Schönau near Heidelberg , where, at the age of 80, he built a house on the ground floor with the help of his family, which he decorated with frescoes and larger-than-life sculptures made of stamped marble concrete ( Adam and Eve , Noli me tangere ).

Wertheim department store in Wroclaw / “Renoma” Wroclaw

The Wertheim department store was built in Breslau from 1928 to 1930. The architect Hermann Dernburg commissioned Ulrich Nitschke to create 25 models for three-dimensional heads of types from all over the world. In each case, four times in terracotta, the 100 heads with their faces turned downwards were attached to the supporting pillars between the windows. In addition to the 56 upward-facing floral sculptures by Hans Klakow , the heads virtually entered into a dialogue with the people in the streets and squares around them.

During the Second World War, the department store was badly damaged by bombs and grenades and only poorly repaired. The restoration of the building only began in 2007 according to Dernburg's plans, but the restoration of the facade sculptures initially seemed impossible. Through the mediation of the sculptor Dietrich Klakow , the Wrocław monument conservator, Krystyna Kirschke, came into contact with Yvonne Bannek, Nitschke's granddaughter. The sculptor Pola Ziemba was able to access the studio photos of the original models en face and en profile, which were not destroyed during the war, as well as excerpts from the artist's diaries and various photos of the still-preserved unfired sculpture Hadwig with dimensions, and thereby restore the damaged sculptures and 72 Create replicas.

Works

• 1904 At the summit , painting at the exhibition of the Stuttgarter Künstlerbund in Dresden
• 1906 allegories , six larger than life statues made of sandstone and twelve reliefs on the three-arched portal of the Karstadt department store in Lübeck
• 1907 mural painting fear and appeasement through music in the concert hall of the Pfullinger Hallen
• 1908 Welcome , five terracottas 2 m high and clay reliefs in Berlin, Bismarckstrasse 10 (building destroyed)
• 1910 encounter , two larger than life basalt figures in Berlin-Charlottenburg
• 1910 Three sculptures at the "Ettershaus" in Bad Harzburg
• 1911 Januskopf with Bübchen , Richard Dehmel's garden house in Hamburg-Blankenese
• 1924 Dome painting and wall painting of the cemetery chapel in Berlin-Lindenhof
• 1925 Berlin actress , terracotta, Berlin-Charlottenburg
• 1926 Young Hamburg woman and Bavarian girl , terracottas in Kallmünz
• 1926 Strong Women , Monument am Knie in Berlin-Charlottenburg
• 1929 Wall painting in the Muthesius House in Berlin-Wannsee
• 1929 From all over the world , 25 models for terracottas on the facade of the Wertheim department store in Breslau
• 1930 Postal traffic , wood inlaid murals in the ballroom of the Oberpostdirektion Berlin on Lietzensee
• 1931 dancers , stamped concrete, Berlin-Charlottenburg
• 1930–1932 landscape paintings, portraits in oil, on the Côte d'Azur
• 1931 Nike , terracotta and portrait, in Cagnes sm
• 1933 Young woman , sculpture in Berlin-Schöneberg
• 1935 The Sower , large relief in Berlin, Kantstrasse
• 1936 shoe salon , u. a. six reliefs in stamped concrete for the retail trade in Berlin
• 1937 E. T. A. Hoffmann fountain for Lutter & Wegner in Berlin-Mitte
• 1938 Cow with maid , life-size sculpture in Berlin, Potsdamer Strasse
• 1952 Fresco on the facade of a school in Bergheim near Salzburg
• 1953 Yve , terracotta and portrait in Neckarsteinach
• 1954 Noli me tangere , large sculpture in Neckarsteinach
• 1955 Nike , portrait in Neckarsteinach
• 1957 Adam and Eve , large sculpture in Neckarsteinach
• 1960 Boy's torso, marble concrete, in Schönau
• 1961 Sgraffito at the school home in Schönau
• 1961 Franziskus , marble concrete sculpture in Karlsruhe
• 1962 Hadwig , portrait, Schönau
• 1963 Lovers , cast concrete, Schönau
• 1964 widow supported by a young woman , life-size sculpture, Schönau

swell

• Ulrich Nitschke's diaries (family property)

literature

• Sculptor Ulrich Nitschke 75 years old. In: Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung , No. 301 (Christmas edition 1954), p. 6.
• Sculptor Ulrich Nitschke 85 years. In: Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung , December 24, 1964.
• Leo Mülfarth: Small lexicon of Karlsruhe painters. Badenia Verlag, Karlsruhe 1987, ISBN 3-7617-0250-7 , p. 218.
• Am Weg , Kunst-Spiegel of the Berliner Tagblatt , January 26, 1926.
• Three reliefs. In: Beton und Stein Zeitung , June 25, 1938, p. 187.

Web links

• [1] - Information and gallery of the works of Ulrich Nitschke

Individual evidence

1. ^ Art exhibition Dresden 1904. In: Die Kunst für alle , 20th year, 1904/1905, No. 3, p. 58, ISSN  1435-7461 .
2. ↑ The Pfullinger Halls. In: Decorative Art , 11th year 1907/1908, No. 5, pp. 207 ff.
3. ^ The Pfullinger Hallen, a cultural monument of the early 20th century. (Brochure) Stadtverwaltung Pfullingen 1992, p. 45 f., P. 76 f.
4. ↑ History Association Pfullingen e. V. (Ed.), Hermann Taigel (Red.): The Pfullinger Hallen and their founder Louis Laiblin. 2nd, revised and expanded edition, Pfullingen 2007, p. 38 f.
5. ↑ German Art and Decoration , Volume 30, 1926/1927, No. 10 (July 1927).
6. ^ André Meller: Ulrich Nitschke Terre cuite originale, Monument place de Knie. In: La Revue du vrai et du beau , born 1927, p. 9.
7. ↑ Deutsche Bauzeitung , Volume 64, 1930, No. 53/54, July 2, 1930, p. 410.
8. ^ Spring exhibition academy. In: Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung , Volume 72, No. 233, May 19, 1933