Walter Gutbrod

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Walter Gutbrod (born July 5, 1908 in Zuffenhausen ; † June 6, 1998 in Ludwigsburg ) was a German painter in the style of expressive realism .

Life

Gutbrod worked as an artist (painter) for over 70 years and as an art teacher for almost 50 years - mainly in the Stuttgart / Ludwigsburg area .

He was born on July 5th, 1908 in Zuffenhausen (he had no siblings) and began at the age of 12 with an intense and constant artistic examination of his environment (see under "Diaries"). After studying at the Stuttgart Academy from 1927 to 1932 under Professors Spiegel, Breyer, Habich, Graf and Eckener, he passed the teaching examination in 1932 and then moved to Duisburg , where he worked as a teacher in a private institute from 1932.

He later moved back home: on December 28, 1933 (civil) and January 6, 1934 (church), he married Lydia (* born Siegel on February 26, 1909, † June 13, 2004), a cattle dealer daughter from Zuffenhausen. This marriage, which was never divorced, although the couple later separated, had two daughters, Linde and Regine. From April 1, 1935, Gutbrod was employed as administrative administrator in the Katharinenstift Stuttgart and from 1937 to 1979 he again gave art lessons at the Schiller and Mörike high school in Ludwigsburg (according to the diary entry, probably also in Leonberg until December 1939 ).

On March 5, 1940, he came to Korntal as a teacher at the local grammar school (where he stayed a lot) and lived in Ludwigsburg from 1943 onwards . In 1979, long after reaching retirement age, he retired and intensified his artistic activity. His last dated picture was taken on March 14, 1998 and he died on June 6, 1998 in Ludwigsburg.

The music

As a passionate music lover, he was a pianist and played as such in front of an audience. In keeping with this tendency, not only were his diaries and sketchbooks full of notes and annotations on pieces of music, musicians and composers - he also signed a great many of his pictures with a "three note" signature that is typical for him.

to travel

Gutbrod's travel activities could be understood very well on the basis of the diaries. Since many of his pictures were taken on these trips, these trips were recorded here.

Encounters and contacts

Gutbrod maintained many contacts with cultural workers from the art and music scene, including, for example, from 1938 with Oskar Schlemmer and his family - a contact that lasted at least until 1955. There was an intense friendship with the well-known pianist Wilhelm Kempff even before the war.

In the post-war period around 1948 he actively built up the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra together with the conductor Karl Münchinger (conductor of the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra) . This led to a long friendship with the Münchinger family.

Walter Gutbrod also contributed to the founding of the Ludwigsburg Palace Festival by Wilhelm Krämer .

Contacts with Gustav Schleicher are known from 1952 and later (from 1955) Gutbrod had contacts with Willi Baumeister, among others .

Memberships

plant

photos

Andrea Fix (Head of the Municipal Museum in Ludwigsburg) said on the occasion of the exhibition in Ludwigsburg in 1999: "His view of people and things was special: sharp and quick, direct, never glossing over, incorruptible. His sense of color was infallible. They are of great intensity, luminosity and emotional impact. His painting is extreme in its contrasts: aggressive grimacing heads, strongly overlapping, expressive, of wild colors. " "In addition, there are pastel-colored landscape impressions, soft lines, soft tones. There are pictures of flowers as if in a rush of colors and there are depictions of nature that show the heat of summer and the cold of winter."

style

She goes on to say about his style: "There are many stylistic comparisons. We find perspectives like those of Cézanne, Kandinsky's color intensity, Nolde's grimaceous faces. Capturing the fleetingness of the moment is what connects him with the Expressionists." Others called his style "expressive realism (art) " .

Motifs

Gutbrod found his motifs both at home and when traveling. Above all, however, he was regularly drawn to the vicinity of Lonsingen - the hometown of his family in the Swabian Alb . And from these Alb landscapes with their meadows, flowers, fields and forests, but also their villages, houses and last but not least people, he drew the majority of his motifs. Other motifs that were important to him were North Sea landscapes, French cathedrals, nudes and, again and again, trees.

Diaries and sketchbooks

Gutbrod had a kind of constant artistic vigilance from an early age. In particular, this consisted of the fact that, in addition to a "normal" diary, he also kept a visual diary in which he constantly sketched "blindly", wherever he was. The boundaries between these two ways of accompanying life were fluid - he often sketched in his "normal" diary and his countless sketchbooks, as well as the innumerable oil paintings that resulted from them were full of notes - for example, who he painted this picture for, Descriptions of his mood (which was often a disgruntlement) at that moment and very often also precise information and descriptions of which pieces of music he heard while the image was being formed. He later reworked the sketches at home from his memory by "sketching" them again in oil using a technique that was also very unique to him.

Gutbrod painted, sketched and captured impressions in this way until shortly before his death. These "protocolary books" represent a kind of "life film" for him and have accompanied him almost everywhere.

He made this quote from Auguste Rodin the motto of his diary: “Art can only be original out of inner truthfulness. The point is in being excited, in love, in hope, in being shaken in life. First be a person, then an artist. ” . Contemporary witnesses confirm that Gutbrod lived accordingly in every respect.

Painting medium

He worked in oil on formats up to 120 × 150 cm - often on parchment paper, but also on canvas or on cardboard or in watercolor, pencil, ink and ballpoint pen on paper or on whatever was at hand.

Gutbrod often used an unusual technique: oil painting on parchment paper. During his time at the academy, he worked on the transparent, brittle material with thick or very diluted oil. On the one hand, this technique forced him to proceed quickly, on the other hand, motifs could hardly be corrected here. One can conclude from his overall work that this suited his creative urge as well as his ability, so that his temperament full of contrasts is clearly evident in this work in particular.

Exhibitions

Solo exhibitions

  • 1971: Bietigheim-Bissingen town hall
  • 1978: District Office Ludwigsburg
  • 1983: District Office Ludwigsburg
  • 1988: District Office Ludwigsburg
  • 1997: Aigner Ludwigsburg bookstore
  • 1999: City Museum Ludwigsburg
  • 2000: Kunsthaus Watzel Ludwigsburg
  • 2002: Zehntscheuer Münsingen
  • 2005: Kreissparkasse Münsingen
  • 2008: District Office Ludwigsburg
  • 2013: Kunsthalle Heck Dußlingen
  • 2013: Aigner Ludwigsburg bookstore

Group exhibitions

Collections

literature

  • Dankmar Trier: Gutbrod, Walter . In: General Artist Lexicon . The visual artists of all times and peoples (AKL). Volume 66, de Gruyter, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-598-23033-2 , p. 174.
  • 27. Antiquaria Ludwigsburg 2013. (exhibition catalog). Messe Ludwigsburg, Stuttgart 2012, p. 38f.
  • Gert K. Nagel: Swabian painters, sculptors, craftsmen and architects. Auction house Dr. Fritz Nagel, Stuttgart 1975, p. 59.
  • Gert K. Nagel: Swabian artist lexicon from the baroque to the present. Kunst und Antiquitäten Verlag, Stuttgart 1986, ISBN 3-921811-36-8 , p. 51. (There with partly incorrect life dates belonging to the Böblingen painter and graphic artist Walter Gutbrod, 1923–1985, of the same name)
  • Württ. Kunstverein Stuttgart (Hrsg.): Artist directory Baden-Württemberg 1982. Stuttgart 1982.
  • Württ. Kunstverein Stuttgart (Ed.): Stuttgart Secession Painting - Graphics - Sculpture. Stuttgart 1967, p. 32f. (with full-page illustration)
  • Thomas Leon Heck : Walter Gutbrod 1908 to 1998, painting - drawing. Dusslingen 2013, ISBN 978-3-924249-55-7 . (With a contribution by Barbara Lipps-Kant )
  • The minster . Volume 19, 1966, p. 63.

Web links

Other sources

  • Evaluation of the travel sketchbooks of son-in-law Joachim Wilhelmy
  • Evaluation of the diaries of the estate administrator Thomas Leon Heck

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Schwäbisches Tagblatt dated May 31, 2012: Thomas Heck closes his second-hand bookshop. Retrieved May 28, 2013 .
  2. ↑ a b c Introductory text by Dr. Fix at coacoa.de
  3. ↑ Untitled picture on coacoa.de
  4. ↑ Various landscapes on coacoa.de
  5. ↑ Swabian Alb landscapes on coacoa.de
  6. ↑ Flower pictures on coacoa.de
  7. ↑ Pictures of people on coacoa.de
  8. ↑ North Sea landscapes on coacoa.de
  9. ↑ Pictures of French cathedrals on coacoa.de
  10. ↑ Files and "Lolitas" on coacoa.de
  11. ↑ Pictures of trees on coacoa.de
  12. ^ Wilhelmy, Joachim: On the opening of the exhibition
personal data
SURNAME Gutbrod, Walter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter
DATE OF BIRTH July 5, 1908
PLACE OF BIRTH Zuffenhausen
DATE OF DEATH June 6, 1998
Place of death Ludwigsburg