Walter Becker (painter)

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Walter Becker (born August 1, 1893 in Essen , † October 24, 1984 in Tutzing am Starnberger See ) was a German painter and graphic artist .

life and work

Becker was born in Essen . His father Eduard Becker was a master blacksmith, his wife Johanna, geb. Eickmeyer, ran a grocery store. In Essen he attended the Humboldt Gymnasium and graduated with the 'one-year-old'. In 1908 his father died and his mother was concerned about a secure livelihood, so she chose the profession of elementary school teacher for her son Walter. Beckers' drawing teacher at the time tried unsuccessfully to persuade his mother to send the son to the arts and crafts school. From 1910 to 1913 Becker worked in department stores during the day and attended courses in commercial graphics and later in life drawing and wood carving at the Kunstgewerbeschule Essen in the evening. During this time he won two competitions and received a scholarship.

In 1914 he was diagnosed with signs of tuberculosis. He spent the winter of 1914-15 to recover in the Black Forest and was drafted into military service in the course of 1915. For a short time he was used in the security service as "Landsturmmann without a weapon" at the old Durlach train station. Due to his poor health, he was exempted from military service in 1915 and began to devote himself to art.

From 1915 to 1918 he studied at the Grand Ducal Badische Kunstschule Karlsruhe under Walter Conz . During this time he also got to know the sculptor Karl Albiker , as well as Vladimir von Zabotin and Rudolf Schlichter . Becker earned his living with ceramic work for the majolica factory in Karlsruhe , as well as with commercial graphic work for private individuals. During this time, Becker, Albiker and others, out of enthusiasm for the plays by Franz Graf von Pocci , designed complete sets, sets and figures with which they then performed Pocci’s plays.

From 1919 numerous books with illustrations by Walter Becker appeared.

In 1918 he came into contact with Wilhelm Fraenger through Wladimir von Zabotin and Rudolf Schlichter . In August 1918 Fraenger organized Becker's first graphic exhibition at the Kunstverein Heidelberg. From 1919 to 1920 Becker was a member of the Rih group in Karlsruhe. There was a lively exchange between Fraenger and the Rih group, so that Fraenger also gave lectures on exhibitions in the Karlsruhe Gallery Moos.

From 1922 to 1923 Becker studied at the Dresden Art Academy , where he was a master student in Karl Albiker's sculpture class. During this time mainly graphic and only a few paintings were created.

In 1923 Becker met Yvonne von König, born in a sanatorium in Oberstdorf. Tardif, know. Yvonne von König was the adopted daughter of Leo von König . His first wife, the painter Mathilde Tardif , brought her daughter Yvonne into the marriage. In November 1923, Walter Becker and Yvonne von König married. The couple lived in Berlin from late 1923 to early 1924. In the spring of 1924 they moved to the south of France and did not return to Germany until 1936. In Cassis , the couple bought a remote farm as accommodation. Becker came into contact with numerous personalities such as André Derain , Jules Pascin , and Georges Braque . A friendship developed primarily with the poet and journalist Marcel Sauvage . In 1929 Becker made a portrait of Sauvage and in 1931 won the 1st art prize of the city of Hanover with this portrait.

Becker continued to work as an illustration during this time. In 1927 he produced 50 pen drawings for Dostoyevsky's notes from the Kellerloch (Piper Verlag, Munich). In 1931 "Das Buch von der Riviera" (Piper Verlag, Munich) was published by Erika and Klaus Mann with illustrations by Henri Matisse , Rudolf Großmann , Martin Piper and Walter Becker.

Only a few are known of paintings from Becker's creative phase in southern France.

In 1936 Walter and Yvonne Becker returned to Germany, because “due to the German foreign exchange management, the previous possibility of transferring the income from their Berlin property to France no longer existed.” First they lived briefly in Munich, then, probably through the agency of Kurt Weil down, three months in Bertolt Brecht's house in Utting am Ammersee before they moved to Bühl in Baden . In 1938 the couple moved to Tutzing . A close connection was established with the cellist Ludwig Hoelscher and his wife Marion, who lived in the immediate vicinity .

In 1937, 19 works by Becker were confiscated as part of the Degenerate Art campaign . Perhaps during these years Becker, following the advice of his father-in-law Leo von König, devoted himself to rather harmless landscape motifs and portrait compositions. In 1941 Becker was offered a professorship at the Karlsruhe Art Academy. "But even before he took up his post, Becker wrote that his studio was sealed off by the SS from Berlin and he was 'forced to withdraw from the contract under a hidden threat'." In 1943 he started work on the Reichsleiter Baldur von Schirach organized the exhibition Young Art in the German Empire in Vienna.

In 1951 Becker was appointed to teach at the Karlsruhe Art Academy and worked there until 1958. In 1952 he was appointed professor. In the 1950s, more abstract works were created. In 1958, the year he left the Karlsruhe Academy, he moved to Tutzing after his wife Yvonne suddenly died in 1957. The acquaintance and friendship with the Hoelschers, and especially with Marion Hoelscher, became very important for Becker. "[It was] a constant, sensitive encouragement to work that Marion Hoelscher met with the realization that Walter Becker would sink into depression without painting." 1958-59 Becker participated in the house building of the Hoelscher couple on Elba. Becker decorates the walls with frescoes. Until 1964-65 Becker was on Elba every year.

Since the 1960s, progressive impairment of vision began, which almost led to blindness. Becker temporarily gave up painting.

In 1974 the company moved to a retirement home in Dießen .

From 1976 Becker began to paint again. In the last years of life and creativity, an abstract old work was created.

In terms of art history, Walter Becker belongs to the Lost Generation and Expressive Realism.

Becker died on October 24, 1984 in Tutzing.

Memberships

  • From 1919 to 1920 Becker was a member of the Rih group in Karlsruhe.
  • 1953 to 1961 Becker was a member of the German Association of Artists . During these years he participated in several exhibitions of the association.

Exhibitions

From 1918 Walter Becker had numerous solo exhibitions and participations in group exhibitions. Examples of the solo exhibitions include:

  • 1918 Heidelberger Kunstverein, Heidelberg
  • 1947 Kestnergesellschaft , Hanover
  • 1948 Gallery Rudolf H. Dehnen, Göttingen
  • 1953 State Art Gallery, Karlsruhe
  • 1957 Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe
  • 1963 Apple Tree Gallery, Karlsruhe
  • 1979 Augustinermuseum , Freiburg
  • 1979 Döbele Gallery, Ravensburg
  • 1983 Art Association Singen, Singen
  • 1984 Municipal Gallery, Göppingen
  • 1989 Schlichtenmaier Gallery, Grafenau
  • 1990 Kunstverein Speyer, Speyer
  • 1993 Museum of the City of Ettlingen, Ettlingen
  • 1993 Gallery at the Stadtmuseum, Düsseldorf
  • 1993 Galerie Hierling, Munich
  • 2008 Kunsthaus Désierée, Hochstadt
  • 2011 Tutzing Local Museum, Tutzing
  • 2011 Gallery Benzenberg, Tutzing
  • 2018 Art Museum Singen

For example, the group exhibitions include:

  • 1919 Rih group, Moos Gallery, Karlsruhe
  • 1919 Group Rih, Galerie M. Goldschmidt & Co., Frankfurt a. M.
  • 1931 Hanover State Museum
  • 1949 "German Painting and Sculpture of the Present", State House of the Fair, Cologne
  • 1952 International Graphic Guild, Paris
  • from 1957 regular participation in the “great art exhibitions. Neue Gruppe “, House of Art, Munich
  • 1958 "Munich 1869-1958. Departure to Modern Art", House of Art, Munich
  • 1976 Ettlingen Museum Society
  • 1993 State Art Collections, Dresden
  • 1993 Hohenkarpfen Art Foundation, Hausen o.V.
  • October 2013 - October 2014 "Kissed Awake. Positions of Modernism - Selected Major Works from the Collection of the Südwestdeutsche Kunststiftung", Singing
  • 2015 “Man and Myth - Walter Becker and the Art of the Lost Generation”, Berlin-Spandau and Schweinfurt
  • 2018/19 "Turn of the century 1918/19 - artists between depression and new beginnings", Städtische Galerie Ettlingen
  • March – June 2019 "Confiscated! Return of the master sheets", Kunsthalle Mannheim
  • July 2019 - January 2020 "Tradition and awakening. Post-war art in Karlsruhe", Städtische Galerie Karlsruhe
  • May - October 2020 “Truth Painting. Expressive Realism from the Joseph Hierling Collection ”, Buchheim Museum , Bernried

Prices

  • 1931 1st art prize of the city of Hanover
  • 1952 1st prize from the International Graphic Guild, Paris

Working in public space

Works by Walter Becker are among others. a. in possession of:

Literature (selection)

  • Becker, Walter . In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General Lexicon of Fine Artists of the XX. Century. tape 1 : A-D . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1953, p. 149 .
  • Reinhard Bentmann : Walter Becker on his 85th birthday. New pictures. Galerie Apfelbaum, Karlsruhe 1978.
  • Ingrid von der Dollen: Walter Becker 1893-1984 painting and graphics , Edition Joseph Hierling, Tutzing 2015 (the expanded, newly designed second edition was published in 2018)
  • Daniela Maier: Walter Becker 1893-1984 on the occasion of his 100th birthday (published by the Museum of the City of Ettlingen), Oberweier 1993
  • Hubert Portz: Walter Becker. Early works 1914-1933 , Edition Strasser, Albersweiler 2008
  • Rainer Zimmermann : Expressive realism. Painting of the Lost Generation, Hirmer, Munich 1994, p. 350
  • Hans-H. Hofstätter, The painter Walter Becker, in: Hans-H. Hofstätter / Gerd Presler, Walter Becker on his 100th birthday 1893-1993, ed. by Christine Kaiser; baden-Badne 1993, pp. 9-49

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ingrid von der Dollen (2015): Walter Becker 1893-1984 Painting and Graphics, Edition Joseph Hierling, Tutzing, p. 7f.
  2. ↑ Ingrid von der Dollen (2015): Walter Becker 1893-1984 Painting and Graphics, Edition Joseph Hierling, Tutzing, p. 9
  3. ↑ Ingrid von der Dollen (2015): Walter Becker 1893-1984 Painting and Graphics, Edition Joseph Hierling, Tutzing, p. 13
  4. ↑ A list of the illustrated books can be found in: Ingrid von der Dollen (2015): Walter Becker 1893-1984 Painting and Graphics, Edition Joseph Hierling, Tutzing, p. 133f.
  5. ↑ In the catalog for this exhibition, Fraenger writes: “Whatever Walter Becker draws: It is as if played with the naturalness of involuntary utterance. The instinctiveness of his artistic nature is completely unbroken. Between rigid cubisms and tense, monumental gestures that we are fed up with, in the art of the young Rhinelander we feel the inexhaustible flow of ever-awake sense of form ”, quoted from Hubert Portz (2008): Walter Becker. Early works 1914-1933, Edition Strasser, Albersweiler, p. 10
  6. ↑ An illustration of the work that is now in the possession of the Sprengel Museum Hannover can be found in: Ingrid von der Dollen (2015): Walter Becker 1893-1984 Painting and Graphics, Edition Joseph Hierling, Tutzing, p. 28
  7. ^ Hubert Portz (2008): Walter Becker. Early works 1914-1933, Edition Strasser, Albersweiler, p. 63
  8. ↑ Ingrid von der Dollen (2015): Walter Becker 1893-1984 Painting and Graphics, Edition Joseph Hierling, Tutzing, p. 39
  9. ↑ Christiane Ladleif, Gerhard Schneider (Ed.) (2012): Moderne am Pranger. The Nazi campaign “Degenerate Art” 75 years ago. Works from the Gerhard Schneider, Kettler, Bönen collection, p. 250
  10. ↑ cf. Ingrid von der Dollen (2015): Walter Becker 1893-1984 Painting and Graphics, Edition Joseph Hierling, Tutzing, p. 39f.
  11. ↑ Ingrid von der Dollen (2015): Walter Becker 1893-1984 Painting and Graphics, Edition Joseph Hierling, Tutzing, p. 40
  12. ↑ Ingrid von der Dollen (2015): Walter Becker 1893-1984 Painting and Graphics, Edition Joseph Hierling, Tutzing, p. 68
  13. ↑ kuenstlerbund.de: Exhibitions since 1951 ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 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. (accessed on November 21, 2015) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.kuenstlerbund.de
  14. ↑ See the article by Oliver Fiedler: "Dream and Reality" by Walter Becker in the Singener Wochenblatt (accessed on January 18, 2019)
personal data
SURNAME Becker, Walter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter and graphic artist
DATE OF BIRTH August 1, 1893
PLACE OF BIRTH eat
DATE OF DEATH October 24, 1984
Place of death Tutzing on Lake Starnberg