Volker Boehringer

Böhringer's birthplace in Esslingen, Wehrneckarstrasse

Volker Böhringer (born November 7, 1912 in Eßlingen am Neckar ; † October 9, 1961 there ) was a German painter and graphic artist who was close to the New Objectivity and Surrealism.

Life

Childhood and youth

In 1912, Volker Böhringer was born as the youngest of five children of the real high school teacher Georg-David Böhringer and his wife Anna Friederike. In 1929 he began his studies at the Württemberg State School of Applied Arts in Stuttgart with Ernst Schneidler . In 1930 he switched to the academy and continued his studies, from 1933 as a master student, with Hans Spiegel.

National Socialism

During the time of National Socialism , Volker Böhringer refused to join the Association of German Painters and Graphic Artists in 1937, and was subsequently banned from working and exhibiting. He secretly continued to paint in his parents' house until a serious lung disease forced him to spend several years in sanatoriums. During this time, from 1944 to 1947, his work was limited to drawings. After the resection of eight ribs and a thoracoplasty , he was released in 1948 and after the death of his parents initially lived on social welfare with a friend of the family.

post war period

Shortly after 1945 there was a particular interest in Switzerland in the art that arose in Germany under the dictatorship, unless it was adapted to the propaganda style. As early as 1947, the exhibition “Modern German Art since 1933” was shown at the Kunstmuseum Basel and the Kunsthalle Bern. Böhringer was represented with the large-format paintings “Waiting” from 1935 and “Hafenbild” from 1944. Böhringer was also able to show two large pictures in the show held in Zurich in 1949 under the title "Art in Germany 1930 - 1949". In 1949 Böhringer took part in the First General German Art Exhibition in Dresden. The young painter was celebrated by the press of those days. This is how the Berner Abendblatt called him “in the first place” among the Surrealists. The Weltwoche counted him among “the only ones who gave an inkling of the fate of Germany in those years”, and the Basler Nationalzeitung spoke of the “amazing Volker Böhringer, who painted exactly the pictures that one would have expected from Dix”.

Last years

However, these successes did not continue in post-war Germany, where non-representational art soon dominated. Böhringer remained an outsider. In his painting he turned increasingly to religious themes in the 1950s. It was only shortly before his death in 1960 that Böhringer had his first solo exhibition in Esslingen (Lanolinshof) and a joint exhibition with Otto Dix in Heilbronn (Kunstverein). In 1961, Böhringer died of heart failure at the age of 49.

art

Industrial landscape and machine world

The examination of the machinization of the lifeworld runs like a red thread through the artistic work of Volker Böhringer. In his homeland, the middle Neckar valley and the Filstal, Böhringer had the rapid transformation of a previously lovely river landscape into a high-tech industrial area in mind. Medium-sized and large companies, Daimler-Benz, Esslingen machine works and many others have settled in agricultural floodplains with tranquil villages and small towns. Despite his critical attitude towards the overpowering technology and machine world, on the one hand, Böhringer was fascinated by everything technical. He built model steam engines and a radio receiver for his own use. His industrial graphics also show an extraordinary understanding of machines and technical devices. 

Painting technique

In preparation for his pictures, Volker Böhringer either drew directly on the hardboard or drew up sketches that he transferred to packing paper on a scale of 1: 1 and paused on the pre-glued, white-primed board. He applied oil paint, tempera, but mostly casein paint in a mixed technique. Several of his pictures have three-dimensional emphasis. He achieved this by applying up to 40 layers of a primer until the desired reliefs were created by recessing, inserting, sanding and smoothing. Then the work was done with a graver and razor blade in order to cut out the inner contours from the surface of the painting ground. A special technical feature is the frequent use of gold and silver foils, which he put on before applying paint. “A lengthy application and drying process was required, as well as careful handling of the materials. Böhringer distinguishes himself as an artist with excellent craftsmanship. With his application of paint, in which no brushstroke can be seen, he stuck to the old masters tradition. ”(Quoted from the table in the exhibition Esslingen 2006). The old masters' glaze painting, executed with the greatest care, with which Böhringer finely superimposed 40 to 50 layers, he developed further in the 1940s into so-called "sculpture painting", as Röttger calls it. (Röttger 1987, p. 49). Distinctive image details are treated in such a way that they emerge vividly.

Volker Böhringer and Otto Dix

When Volker Böhringer began his academic studies in 1929/30, Otto Dix, who was at the height of his work, was a “shining example”. His disappointment was all the greater when, after 1933, Dix was forced to flee into landscape painting. In a letter to the writer Hans Georg Breuer in 1943, Böhringer describes the change in his attitude towards Dix: “... Otto Dix was a 'shining example' to me in the beginning. Even more: fanfare! Unfortunately after the 'upheaval' you had to experience that the sound was completely different. The fanfare blasts gave way to the hooters in a children's trumpet. Oh, what a disappointment for me at the time! ... The matter (the artistic design of the machine age) had been shamefully given up by Dix. I felt it was treason. ”While Böhringer looked up to Otto Dix in the 1930s, Dix became aware of Böhringer after 1945. Dix spoke of the “well-painted pictures of Böhringer, which one cannot ignore” (Conzelmann 1976, p. 3). In 1960 the artists exhibited together at the Heilbronn Art Association.

Works in public collections (selection)

Düsseldorf, Museum Kunstpalast Foundation: gas boiler (1944)

Esslingen, art association

Esslingen, Municipal Gallery

Frankfurt am Main, Städel Museum: Rural Idyll (1935)

Karlsruhe, Municipal Gallery: The Praying Executioner (1944)

Stuttgart, art museum

Stuttgart, State Gallery

Exhibitions (selection)

E = solo exhibition

• 1946 Dresden, General German Art Exhibition
• 1949 Zurich, Kunsthaus, "Art in Germany 1930 - 1949"
• 1949 Dresden, “2. German art exhibition "
• 1949/50 Exhibition of the “Cultural Institutions” of the “Office of Land Commissioner for Wuerttember-Baden” in Stuttgart, Schwäb. Gmünd, Geislingen, Heidenheim, Ulm, Karlsruhe, Pforzheim, Schwäb. Hall, Heilbronn, Berlin., "Watercolors of German painters"
• 1950 Esslingen, Old Town Hall, "Essling painters and sculptors"
• 1952 Stuttgart, Württembergischer Kunstverein together with Heinrich Wildemann (E)
• 1952 Düsseldorf, Ehrenhof, art exhibition "Iron and Steel"
• 1953 Acron, Ohio
• 1953 Hamm / Westphalia, Gustav-Lübcke-Museum, "Industry in contemporary art"
• 1954 Hanover, Art Association, "Work, Social Affairs, Profession in Art"
• 1954 Darmstadt, Mathildenhöhe, "The Image of the Landscape 1945-1954"
• 1955 Baden-Baden, State Art Gallery, spring exhibition of the Artists' Association of Baden-Württemberg
• 1955 Stuttgart, Württembergischer Kunstverein
• 1958 Stuttgart, Galerie Senatore, together with H. Fähnle, M. Köhler, R. Müller and F. Ruoff (E)
• 1960 Esslingen, Lanolinshof (E)
• 1960 Heilbronn, Kunstverein, together with Otto Dix (E)
• 1961 Stuttgart, Gallery of the City of Stuttgart, reopening in the art building
• 1962 Heilbronn, Kunstverein, memorial exhibition (E)
• 1963 Stuttgart, State Gallery
• 1964 Stuttgart, Württembergischer Kunstverein (E)
• 1966 Stuttgart, Maercklin Gallery
• 1971 Stuttgart, Württembergischer Kunstverein, "Realism between revolution and seizure of power 1919-1933"
• 1974 Munich, Galleria del Levante, "Oil paintings and gouaches from the New Objectivity"
• 1974 St. Etienne, "New Objectivity"
• 1975 Parma, Galleria della Rocchetta
• 1975/76 Esslingen, Esslinger Kunstverein (E)
• 1977 Vienna, Museum of the 20th Century, "New Objectivity and Realism - Art Between the Wars"
• 1978 Berlin, Akademie der Künste, "Art between resistance and adaptation"
• 1978 Milan, Aspetti della nuova oggettività tedesca
• 1980 Munich, Galleria del Levante, “Still life and landscape pictures of the New Objectivity”.
• 1980 Munich, city. Gallery in the Lenbachhaus, "Art and Technology in the 1920s"
• 1981, Karlsruhe, Gallery of the City of Karlsruhe for the opening of the Prinz-Max-Palais
• 1987 Esslingen, Gallery of the City of Esslingen (E)
• 1990 - 1996 traveling exhibition, "From Expessionism to Resistance, Art in Germany 1909 - 1936", The Janet and Marvin Fishman Collection
• 2006, Esslingen, Stadtmuseum, in cooperation with the Villa Merkel, “Real-Surreal. Pictures from the work of Volker Böhringer. "
• 2017, Stuttgart, Galerie Valentien, "Volker Böhringer and Franz Lenk"

literature

• Galerie Valentien (Ed.): Volker Böhringer - Pictures from the years 1930-1950, Stuttgart 2017
• Bettina Besler (ed.): Volker Böhringer, industrial graphics. Catalog for the exhibition "Real Surreal, Pictures from the Work of Volker Böhringer", Esslingen City Museum, 2006
• Reinhold Heller: Art in Germany 1909–1936 . From Expressionism to Resistance . Prestel, Munich 1990, ISBN 0-944110-02-9 .
• Friedhelm Röttger: Volker Böhringer . Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1987, ISBN 3-608-76244-2 .
• Otto Conzelmann: Volker Böhringer's machine landscape and his machine man. Edited by Galerie Valentien, Stuttgart, 1976.
• Heribert Glatzel / Hans-Jörg Reim: Volker Böhringer, 1912-1961, Oevre catalog. Edited by Esslinger Kunstverein eV, 1975.