Walter Clemens Schmidt

Walter Clemens Schmidt (born July 25, 1890 in Frankfurt am Main ; † October 15, 1979 ibid) was a German painter , glass painter , wood cutter and graphic artist .

Life

Walter Clemens Schmidt was born on July 25, 1890 in Frankfurt am Main as the eldest of five children of the secret medical council Dr. Julius Schmidt and his wife Agathe were born.

Walter Clemens Schmidt in his studio

After attending the model school , he began an apprenticeship in glass painting Professor Alexander Linnemann , Frankfurt in 1907 , which he completed in 1911. At the Royal School of Applied Arts in Munich he became a master student of Professor Julius Diez , with whom he was a close friend until his death. From 1913 until the outbreak of war in 1914, he attended the Royal Art Academy in Düsseldorf . From October 1914 until the end of the First World War he did military service.

After returning from the war, he still attended the winter semester of 1918 at the Munich School of Applied Arts and in 1919 initially settled in his home town as a freelance artist. After his marriage to Louise Schnell from Frankfurt, he joined the Graphic Art Institute F. Guhl & Co, Frankfurt, in 1922, where he worked as a commercial artist. From 1940 to 1945 he took part as a captain in the Second World War in France and Czechoslovakia. In 1945, his house on Vogtstrasse at Holzhausenpark was confiscated by the American occupation. As a result, all the wooden blocks and his most important work were lost. Walter Clemens Schmidt resumed his professional activity in the Guhl company in 1945 and worked there until he retired. He died on October 15, 1979 at the age of 89 in Frankfurt.

plant

In the twenties and thirties of the 20th century he was at the height of his graphic work. He particularly preferred allegorical and religious subjects. Sheets ( wood carvings ) such as Savonarola, The Temptation of St. Anthony, the sequence of images St. Johannes Baptista, Pentecost, the Madonna picture "A rose has sprung" became known. Themes that Walter Clemens Schmidt also painted in oil after 1945. In his artistic style he felt related to the tradition of the best graphic art of the German Renaissance. With his explosive expressiveness, he aroused attention and admiration. Occasionally the artist adorned his best sheets with delicate strokes of paint. He preferred dark red, yellow and gold. Schmidt also designed many bookplates , often commissioned by well-known Frankfurt citizens. They were already recognized in the relevant literature by Rudolf Krauss in the early twenties.

While at first he mainly created woodcuts, after 1945 he devoted himself more to oil painting. He left well over a hundred paintings, including some glass windows. Its stained glass windows in some churches and chapels were destroyed in the war, individual pieces are preserved in private ownership. Some of his designs are still available. A broader public is likely to be familiar with his set of books for the songbook Der Spielmann, created in 1930, with the distinctive title vignette and illustrations for the individual categories, which were used unchanged across all editions until the 1970s.

Walter Clemens Schmidt avoided public exhibitions. His wife (d. 1991) also refused to exhibit his pictures. His woodcuts only had very small editions. So it happened that Walter Clemens Schmidt remained largely unknown and that his works can mainly be found in family ownership or in a circle of friends. In order not to let his graphic work get lost, the heirs handed over most of the existing sheets to the Letter Foundation in Cologne in 2006, which has set itself the task of saving 20th century artists from being forgotten.

literature

• Dreßler, Exlibris, 30 (1920) Fig. Given p. 100 u. 102; 43 (1933) 26/33, with 5 ills.
• Vollmer, General Lexicon of Fine Artists, Twentyth Century, Volume 4, p. 199.

Magazines:

• "A visit to the wood cutter Walter Clemens Schmidt", in: Die Schönheit - magazine for art and life adorned with pictures, annual volume 1923.

Web links

Commons : Walter Clemens Schmidt  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Letter Foundation