Walter Eberhard Loch

Walter Eberhard Loch (born March 18, 1885 in Breslau , † December 30, 1979 in Neufrach , Salem municipality ) was a German painter, graphic artist, writer and craftsman. Walter Eberhard Loch used his initials WEL as an artist name.

life and work

Walter Eberhard Loch's childhood and adolescence were unhappy. The father separated from his family at an early age, which meant financial and emotional hardship. In addition, the 11-year-old had a serious accident while skating, which left him with lifelong walking difficulties. In 1901 he was accepted at the Academy of Arts and Crafts in Wroclaw. Loch studied with only a few interruptions until 1912. In 1913/14 WEL then worked in Berlin as an advertising consultant for an industrial company, as a metallizer for the sculptor August Gaul and as a sports reporter and draftsman for the Berliner Tageblatt .

A painting scholarship granted in Italy in 1914 could no longer be used because the world war had broken out. He returned to Breslau and deepened himself once more in nude studies with Professor Hanusch, until in 1915 he got a temporary position as an art teacher at the Liegnitzer grammar school. Here he met the writer Erich Worbs , who led him to Carl Hauptmann and Will-Erich Peuckert . It was at these gatherings that the idea of ​​a magazine for literature and art, called "Der Berg", arose. It should be a counterbalance to the "hateful songs of the times". He provided each magazine with two hand-colored linocuts. During this time he also created wood and linocut cycles such as “The Power of the Planets” and “Peer Gynt” as well as for illustrations for Rilke's “Cornet”.

With the end of the war the employment at the Liegnitzer Gymnasium ended. In 1919, Loch got a job at the graphic arts college in Dresden. He married Dora Roth, the daughter of the pianist and music professor Bertrand Roth, who ran a famous music salon in Dresden. Loch moved to Dresden, where it was recognized by the local art associations and the art cooperative. So he was able to take part in many collective exhibitions and also sell well. His large, cyclical works received special recognition.

In 1926, Loch had a serious accident with his motorcycle and was not able to walk again until a year later. He was lucky in the dance school of Mary Wigman the free dance meet. A large number of dance studies in bright colors and in various graphic techniques arose. The art historian Anne Langenkamp wrote: “In the interim period between the two world wars, Loch probably did his best: Ecstatic foaming prints, powerfully colored woodcuts of tigers, gazelles and other animals, the expressive - romantic painting 'View over Dresden' with its mysterious colors, 'The galley', symbol of inhumanity, and the many sports images. "

When the National Socialists began to censor the cultural scene, Loch left the city of Dresden with his wife in 1932 and retired to the remote Höri peninsula on Lake Constance in the town of Gaienhofen . Here he found a job in 1936 as an art teacher at the boarding school in Gaienhofen Castle . Another creative period began with exhibitions in Basel, Heidelberg and Constance.

Here, too, he drew the attention of the Nazis: the mayor of the municipality had him checked and monitored. The Loch couple then moved to the hamlet of Leutkirch near Neufrach in the Salem Valley, about ten kilometers from the northern shore of Lake Constance, and purchased a small house on the edge of the forest. In cooperation with the then mayor, the pastor, the school principal and the district council, he wrote the first Baden village book. He also illustrated this detailed chronicle of his adopted home with pen drawings.

In the calm and serenity of the Lake Constance landscape, WEL again developed extensive artistic activity. A wealth of watercolors, drawings, cuts, oil paintings, wood, plaster and bronze sculptures were created; several trips to Ticino inspired him to depict landscapes. In the fifties, Loch devoted himself more to his writing activities, which were partly based on Silesian mysticism . He wrote dramas, short stories, poems, short stories and radio plays. "The burned village" was broadcast in 1961 by Südwestfunk. As a pseudonym he used E. Hudden and Walter von der Schüttelweide . He wrote for various cultural magazines, Silesian newspapers and home and home calendars. In 1963, for example, he published some chapters of his “Academy Memoirs”. WEL completed its “Silesian Castle Legends” and provided them with colored illustrations, but only two have been published so far: “The legend of the end of the Hummelsburg” and “The devil's feast at Neurode Castle”. In 1967/68 he produced his last cycle of colorful illustrations for Gerhart Hauptmann's glassworks fairy tale “ And Pippa dances! ".

In his last years he mainly dealt with metal driving and the production of enamel jewelry. He died in 1979 at the age of 94 and was buried in the cemetery in Leutkirch , Salem community association. Six years later his house burned down, valuable documents, autobiographical writings, the catalog raisonné and pictures were destroyed. The 90-year-old widow was also killed.

literature

• Anne Wachter: Walter Eberhard Loch - an artist from Breslau . In: Silesia Nova, bi-monthly publication for culture and history, 3rd year 04/2006, pp. 33–42.
• Walter Eberhard Loch - Stations in the life of an artist in text and images . Text: Anne Wachter, private print, Salem 2009.

Web links

• Literature by and about Walther E. Loch in the catalog of the German National Library
• Walther E. Loch in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely accessible)

swell

1. ↑ Quotes from Erich Worps