Waldemar Kolmsperger the Elder
Waldemar Kolmsperger (born September 5, 1852 in Berchtesgaden , † April 19, 1943 in Munich ), usually called "the elder" to distinguish it from his son of the same name , was a German neo-baroque painter .
Life and works
Waldemar Kolmsperger was the son of the elementary school teacher and city organist Theodor Karl Kolmsperger and his wife Wilgefort, nee. von der Thann. He grew up in Upper Bavaria , completed an apprenticeship in Teisendorf , Berchtesgaden, Feldkirchen and Wurmannsquick and then went on a journey as a decoration and barrel painter journeyman. He was only able to take up an academic study of painting after completing his military service; this was in the years 1874 to 1877. At that time, Carl von Piloty allowed the young soldier, who was on duty in the topographic office of the General Staff, to use the Antikensaal in his free time, and Kolmsperger later continued his studies at the Munich Art Academy until 1889 . His teachers at the academy were Julius Benczur , Andreas Müller , Georg Löfftz , Wilhelm von Diez and Georg Hiltensperger .
In 1877 he married Maria Bernstetter (1854–1927), with whom he had seven children.
During his student days he was brought in to help paint the town hall in Landshut ; He was also involved in the painting of Hohenschwangau Castle , initially as an assistant, later working independently . In Neuschwanstein Castle , he adorned the corridor to the singers' hall with allegories of salvation, constancy, loyalty and temperance; he also made the depiction of St. George in the throne room there (1884). The Stielerschule in Munich has a painting by Kolmsperger on its facade.
In addition, Kolmsperger dealt with the restoration and painting of churches from the 18th century. In Lauda , in 1887, he provided the Marienkapelle with a ceiling painting showing the Assumption of Mary. He painted a wall of the cemetery in Lauda with a St. Michael. In 1890 he furnished the parish church of Sonthofen with an altarpiece and other paintings.
In 1895 the dome painting with the Last Judgment followed in the parish church of St. Nikolaus in Murnau , which covered more than 500 square meters and earned the artist the title of royal professor. He was also commissioned to paint the east corridor of the Munich justice building and the Kurhaus in Reichenhall . While he was creating moving compositions in the Baroque style for these works , he painted the death of St. Nicholas in the Church of St. Nikolaus in Landshut in the Gothic style as well as the secrets of the painful rosary in the Mahlberg Church in Baden.
He designed a cycle of rosary pictures in collaboration with HO Walker for a church in Philadelphia . Furthermore, in 1883 he created the templates for the royal windows of the parish church in Munich- Giesing with scenes from the life of Jesus and, presumably a few years later, the designs for the windows of the cathedral in St. Gallen . The Church of St. Benno in Munich bought a Kolmsperger's head of Christ in 1897, which was made using the mosaic technique.
For the parish church in Landsberg am Lech Kolmsperger painted an extensive medallion picture with the Assumption of Mary as well as depictions of the church teachers Hieronymus and Augustine in 1902 and 1903. In 1904 he created the ceiling paintings for the Roggenburg monastery and church. Three of his oil sketches for the prophecy of Simeon, the Annunciation and the birth of Christ are in the monastery museum there.
In 1906 the new parish church of St. Andreas in Nesselwang was inaugurated, which he, with the help of his son, also furnished with large-scale paintings. During this time he also restored the frescoes by Johann Baptist Enderle in the parish church of St. Ulrich in Seeg and Enderle's paintings in St. Ignaz in Mainz . In the Jesuit Church in Mannheim he restored the frescoes , again with the assistance of his son. In 1907 the ceiling paintings for the asylum church of the Hospital of the Holy Spirit in Munich as well as altar paintings for the Großaitingen parish church followed. In 1909 he created a painting of Sebastian in Gebsattel , and from 1910 to 1911 he painted the former abbey church of St. Nabor in St. Avold in Lorraine . In 1911 Kolmsperger created a high altar painting in Au near Berchtesgaden . In 1920 he created several paintings for the Church of St. Wolfgang in Munich, and in 1921 the high altar picture for the Kollegienkirche in Ehingen an der Donau . For the old pharmacy in the Deutsches Museum he painted the fresco "The Art of Healing: Aesculapia and Hygieia with a unicorn". In the following years he designed a mosaic painting for the Herzogspitalkirche in Munich as well as paintings for the parish church in Übersee and the ceiling paintings in the parish church of Kiefersfelden (1926); He created other works for buildings in Obernzell near Passau , Münster near Donauwörth , Au near Bregenz and Lindau . In Kassel the hall of the town hall was decorated with a work by Kolmsperger. In the Bavarian National Museum in Munich he designed the ceiling painting for the small dome of room 32, the theme was the Holy Spirit.
Kolmsperger was a member of the Munich Artists' Cooperative from 1890 to 1908 and became an honorary member of the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich in 1903. In 1893 he was one of the founding members of the German Society for Christian Art . Until 1931 he was active as a painter, mostly with public commissions, after that, for reasons of age, he was only an adviser. He was buried in the forest cemetery in Munich .
His son Waldemar, who was initially trained by him, also liked to create monumental ceiling paintings, often in collaboration with his father. Among other things, Waldemar Kolmsperger the Elder and the Younger also decorated several steamers on the Hamburg-America Line with ceiling paintings. These included the ships Vaterland alias Leviathan , Bismarck and New York . Waldemar Kolmsperger's son-in-law Franz Xaver Dietrich also worked with him at times.
According to Ulrike Steiner, Kolmsperger ran a workshop “like a painter from the Baroque era”.
The model of the Murnau dome
In 2009, over a hundred years after its creation, a cardboard model of the dome of the Murnau Church was rediscovered on the church granary, which Kolmsperger had created before painting this building. The model has a diameter of almost two meters, the original dome, one of the largest dome vaults in Bavaria when it was built, is more than nine times as large. In 2014/15 the model was exhibited in the Murnau Castle Museum.
literature
- Wilhelm Zils: Kolmsperger, Waldemar, d. Elder In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General lexicon of fine artists from antiquity to the present . Founded by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker . tape 21 : Knip – Kruger . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1927, p. 250-251 .
- Johannes van Mengen: Waldemar Kolmsperger - Notes on the biography . In: The ceiling paintings of the Lindau collegiate church. Reconstruction and restoration . Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation, Munich 1993, ISBN 3-87490-558-6 , pp. 39–44.
- Johannes van Mengen: Waldemar Kolmsperger the Elder Ä. In: Stefan Boes (ed.): Landkultur um München (= Edition KulturLand Edition 1/2015). Munich 2015, pp. 22–23 ( limited preview in Google book search).
- Michael Andreas Schmidt: Kolmsperger, Waldemar . In: General Artist Lexicon . The visual artists of all times and peoples (AKL). Volume 81, de Gruyter, Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-11-023186-1 , p. 226.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e Johannes van Mengen: Waldemar Kolmsperger d. Ä. In: Stefan Boes (ed.): Landkultur um München (= Edition KulturLand Edition 1/2015). Munich 2015, p. 22.
- ↑ There are different details about the year of birth. The DNB starts in 1851, Thieme-Becker mentions 1858, the General Artists Lexicon correctly names 1852 according to recent research.
- ↑ a b Marcus Golling: In the right place. In ' augsburger-allgemeine.de , December 4, 2013
- ↑ Stielerschule on muenchen.im-bild.org
- ↑ Endangered Holy Life: The ceiling paintings of St. Ignaz on landesmuseum-mainz.de
- ^ André Pichler et Pascal Flaus: Histoire des Saint-Avold par ses monuments religieux (Societé d´Histoire du Pays Naborien), Merzig 2015, pp. 110–114.
- ↑ Eva A. Mayring: The art of healing. The ceiling painting in the old pharmacy of the Deutsches Museum. Retrieved February 10, 2020 .
- ↑ Ulrike Steiner: Cheeky can never do that! . In: Andreas Tacke (Ed.): Herbst des Barock , Munich / Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-422-06229-7 , pp. 261–290, here p. 264.
- ^ Bavarian State Office for the Preservation of Monuments: Extraordinary loft find: The "Last Judgment" on paper mache. Dome model from 1893 restored in the Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Kolmsperger, Waldemar the Elder |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Kolmsperger, Waldemar; Kolmsperger, Waldemar Sebastian Rudolf |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German painter |
| DATE OF BIRTH | September 5, 1852 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Berchtesgaden |
| DATE OF DEATH | April 19, 1943 |
| Place of death | Munich |