Ursula Fesca

Haarlem with decor 2873 (later sold as Polka or Dots & Co ): egg cup with tray, glazed stoneware, Waechtersbach, 1930s. Design: Ursula Fesca. Inventory no. VK 1989 / 343-1-9, Landesmuseum Württemberg, Museum of Everyday Culture in Württemberg

Ursula Fesca (born March 1, 1900 in Hohenbucko in Brandenburg , † June 9, 1975 in Schlierbach in Hesse ) was a German ceramist .

It shaped the ceramic taste of the 1930s and 1950s. Its importance becomes more conscious, since research is concerned with the artist in both a “Research Project Ursula Fesca” and in the “Project Wächtersbach”. “It is probably thanks to three reasons that Ursula Fesca's importance for the history of modern ceramic art has become more aware today: the rediscovery of her work for the Elsterwerda ceramics factory by the art historian Karla Bilang, the finding and making accessible of her artistic estate from the property of the Family and the increased interest in their pieces by specialists and collectors, also and especially through the Internet. The increased attention to her work is documented by the exhibitions that have shown her work or aspects of her work within larger contexts in recent years. "

Life

origin

Ursula Fesca's father, Adolf Fesca, came from Berlin and studied forestry in Eberswalde . Her mother, Margarete, née Philippi, came from an officer's household. Ursula Fesca had two brothers and three sisters. She is the second child and the oldest of the sisters. In addition to the big household, her mother found time to paint oil paintings. Fesca probably got her talent from her. The future artist grew up in an educated middle class household and on the other hand also in nature, the forest world. This was characterized by comfort and security.

education

In 1920 Ursula Fesca began her art studies in Dresden . Under Hermann Harkort , she specialized in the field of ceramics at the arts and crafts school. In 1921 she continued this in Berlin . Charcoal and pencil drawings from this period are available, which were probably created in connection with the Association of Berlin Women Artists . Since there was still no professional objective, she trained in nude and portrait drawing with Willi Jaeckel in 1923/24 .

Artistic creation

Waechtersbacher ceramics, decor-dancing Hessen couple, design Ursula Fesca

In 1924 the artist began her ceramic work as a handicraft director. Between 1924 and 1928 Fesca created designs for the Velten-Vordamm stoneware factory . Since her designs are not identified by name with the later "F", it is difficult to assign them to her. What is certain is that it was strongly influenced by Theodor Bogler , who worked as the factory's artistic director and was a Bauhaus student under Walter Gropius . The aim was to design and manufacture high-quality industrial ceramics.

In 1928 she designed for the stoneware factory in Elsterwerda . Ceramic newspapers from this period have ticks, so that one can probably conclude that the items ticked are your designs. Some designs from this period were found in the Waechtersbacher Keramik archive . There they were then also produced after a revision towards a clearer expression. In 1931 her most successful creative period began as a leading form and decor designer in the Waechtersbach ceramic factory in Schlierbach . She created new shapes, tried out new techniques and created classics of ceramic household and art products. With many products, users were certainly not aware that they came from Ursula Fesca because they were standard. During the time of Fesca, Waechtersbacher ceramics became the largest ceramics manufacturer in Germany, which from 1960 also exported to the United States . The classics include, for example, the Haarlem service, the “Düsseldorf”, “Bonn” and “Duisburg” tea sets or the Pisa pattern. In 1938 Fesca received an award for special merits at the first international craft exhibition.

Ursula Fesca emancipated herself from the comfort and security of her childhood atmosphere and now worked in an abstract, objective, simple and strict form. "Her creative focus was on modern surface treatment using innovative techniques such as stencil decorations, matt glazes and craquelure glazes." In 1939 Fesca fell ill with typhus and cured her illness in Blankenburg in the Harz Mountains . From 1947 to 1965 she worked freelance again for the Waechtersbach stoneware factory. In addition to her ceramic work, there are also drawings, paper cuttings, transparencies and picture stories from this period, which were often ironic and satirical. Wilhelm Busch's animal drawings and the children's books by Sibylle von Olfers served as models . This ironic, satirical style can also be found on the so-called “Hessentellern” and on many cards that she has given people in Schlierbach on various occasions. Because “although Ursula Fesca was an internationally recognized artist, she had also become a Schlierbacher. The Schlierbachers knew them and she knew many of them. On special occasions she used to draw greeting cards to give away. ”. Fesca Hessian traditional costumes were also very popular.

Ursula Fesca died on June 9, 1975 in Schlierbach, Hesse, a district of the Brachttal community in the Main-Kinzig district .

Ursula Fesca in contemporary art

In his Leipzig exhibition “FORMSCHÖN” in the gallery for contemporary art in Leipzig in 2007, the artist Tilo Schulz combined the former opponents “figuration and abstraction”, “realism and formalism” and tried to merge them. He connects the modern with ceramics by Fesca. “A modernist stainless steel sculpture by Schulz becomes the base of the“ arts and crafts ”objects. In this way, he updates the question of the separation of autonomous and applied art, as it is still practiced today in traditionally progressive institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York . Although the MOMA was one of the first houses in the 20th century to collect contemporary design in addition to painting , sculpture and drawing from the very beginning , the separation of non-purposeful and purposeful art was firmly adhered to. Tilo Schulz undermines this hierarchy by placing art and design on an equal footing and ending his tour of the exhibition with the presentation of Ursula Fesca's work. "

Collections

Works by Ursula Fesca are among others. a. in

• Carnegie Museum of Art , Pittsburgh , Pennsylvania
• Museum of Everyday Culture , Waldenbuch in Württemberg,
• Jever Castle Museum

literature

• Günter Meißner (Ed.): Fesca, Ursula In: General artist dictionary: the visual artists of all times and peoples. Vol. 39, Saur, 2003, p. 189.
• Ursula Fesca and ceramics in the Elbe-Elster area. Crinitz, Elsterwerda, Hohenleipisch, Klingmühl 1900–1960. Catalog for the exhibition From Töpferhof to the stoneware factory Ceramics from southern Brandenburg 1900 to 1960 in the Atelierhof Werenzhain eV Karla Bilang. Kulturland Brandenburg, Brandenburg 2000.
• Monika Dittmar: Ursula Fesca - a life for ceramics. An exhibition in the Oven and Ceramics Museum Velten . In: Werner Endres (Ed.): Ceramics as a sign of regional identity. Contributions from the 36th International Pottery Symposium… 2003. Austrian Museum for Folklore, Vienna 2005, pp. 341–358.
• Thomas Wurzel (Ed.): Waechtersbacher Steingut: The Collection of the Sparkassen-Kulturstiftung Hessen-Thüringen , Frankfurt 2001.
• Museum of Applied Arts Frankfurt: Waechtersbacher ceramics: play of skin and body , publication for the design competition "think new about tea". Shape and Surface 2008, Frankfurt 2008.
• Heinz and Lilo Frensch: Waechtersbacher Steingut , Königstein i. Ts. 1978.
• Brachttal Museum and History Association, Ulrich Berting and Erich Neidhardt (eds.): Waechtersbacher Steingut : Figures and figurines, Brachttal 2007.
• Insight into a piece of the ideal world , life and work of the designer Ursula Fesca in Schlierbach, Lindenhof Ceramic Museum in Streitberg. In: Gelnhäuser Neue Zeitung , December 10, 2012.
• Karla Bilang: Salt glaze, Bauhaus design and neo-expressionism, Elbe-Elster ceramics in a Saxon-Brandenburg dialogue. Art Association Atelierhof Werenzhain (Ed.) 2014.

Web links

• The research project "Ursula Fesca"
• Factory history of Waechtersbacher ceramics
• “The designer Ursula Fesca” in the Jever Castle Museum

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Research project Ursula Fesca
2. ^ Museum of Applied Arts Frankfurt: Waechtersbacher ceramics: Play of skin and body, publication for the design competition "think new about tea". Shape and Surface 2008, Frankfurt 2008, p. 51.
3. ↑ [Museum of Applied Arts Frankfurt: Waechtersbacher ceramics: Play of skin and body, publication for the design competition "think new about tea". Shape and Surface 2008, Frankfurt 2008, p. 50.]
4. ↑ [Brachttal Museum and History Association, Ulrich Berting and Erich Neidhardt (eds.): Waechtersbacher Steingut: Figures and figurines, Brachttal 2007, p. 114]
5. ^ Project Wächtersbach
6. ↑ Andreas Höll: When ideologies become form, 2007. Comments on more recent works by Tilo Schulz ( Memento of the original from April 19, 2010 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. 
7. ↑ OCLC 672384112 , teapot u. a. Parts of a tea set, acquired in 1932.
8. ^ Service Haarlem , Jever Castle Museum Inv.Nr. 02729.