Walter Helbig (painter)

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Walter Helbig (born April 9, 1878 in Falkenstein / Vogtl. , Saxony ; died March 26, 1968 in Ascona ) was a German and Swiss painter , graphic artist and wood cutter .

Life

Walter Helbig moved with his father, who was a lawyer and mayor in Falkenstein, to Dresden in 1885 and attended secondary school. In 1895 he began studying at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts , a. a. at Carl Bantzer and Otto Gussmann , and befriended fellow student Otto Mueller . With a trip to Italy from 1897 to 1899 he interrupted his studies and met Arnold Böcklin , Adolf von Hildebrand and the Marées student group there . After his return he worked for Gussmann in Dresden on church paintings, presumably also in the Lukaskirche . Between 1903 and 1905 he lived with Mueller in Dresden-Rockau , their joint art school was not a success. In 1909 he married the pianist and singer Elisabeth Goetze, whom he had met in Hamburg, where he worked as a freelance painter from 1905 to 1910. In 1909, through the mediation of Otto Mueller, he made the acquaintance of painters from the artist group " Brücke ". In 1910 Helbig took part in the founding and the first exhibition of the Berlin “ New Secession ”. In 1909, after an initial stay in Switzerland in Munich, he met the painters of the Neue Künstlervereinigung München and exhibited in Hans Goltz's art dealer in 1911, the year the artist group “ Der Blaue Reiter ” was founded .

In 1910 he moved to Switzerland, where he was co-founder and managing director of the “Modern Bund” in Weggis with Hans Arp and Oscar Lüthy . a. Cuno Amiet , Giovanni Giacometti and Hermann Huber belonged. Helbig took part in the first exhibition of the “Modern Bund” in Lucerne in 1911 and the second, larger one at the Kunsthaus Zürich , in which artists from the “Blue Rider” and French such as Henri Matisse , Robert Delaunay and Henri Le Fauconnier also took part. In 1912 he was invited to the second exhibition of the “Redaktion der Blaue Reiter” at Goltz, in whose gallery the “Moderne Bund” then made a guest appearance in 1913. Goltz had a Helbig Reclining Girl among the five pictures he sent to the 1913 Armory Show in New York City . Herwarth Walden showed the artists of the “Modern Bund” in Berlin in April 1913 and later that year in the First German Autumn Salon three oil paintings by Helbig: Bathing girls ; Landscape and the girl's head also shown in the catalog . In the Post-Impressionist and Futurist Exhibition curated by Frank Rutter in the Doré Galleries, London , Helbig was represented among the woodcut Adam and Eve . Helbig traveled to Paris with Arp and Lüthy in 1913.

In 1914, some painters of the now dissolved “Modern League”, including Helbig, took part in the first Dada exhibition in the Coray Gallery in Zurich . Helbig was also represented in the third Dada exhibition and contributed to the magazine Der Zeltweg , but did not take part in the actual activities of the Dadaists. In 1919 he was one of the signatories of the political “Manifesto of Radical Artists” in Zurich and joined the Berlin “ November Group ”, whose meetings he attended sporadically in the following years.

Helbig lived in Zurich from 1916 to 1924 and in 1916 became a member of the GSMBA (Society of Swiss Painters, Sculptors and Architects), in whose exhibitions he regularly participated. Since the First World War, his artistic work took a turn towards religious and mythical subjects. In 1924 Helbig, like many other artists, moved to Ascona because of the low cost of living and founded the artists' association Der Große Bär . Like the heavenly star of the same name, it was composed of seven artists: Helbig, Ernst Frick , Albert Kohler , Gordon Mallet McCouch , Otto Niemeyer-Holstein , Otto van Rees and, as the driving force, Marianne von Werefkin , later Richard Seewald . Like the “Moderne Bund”, this group also remained without statutes and was pragmatically oriented towards holding an annual exhibition (1924 to 1940). During this time, Helbig painted landscapes, still lifes and portraits. Until the handover of power to the National Socialists he had a rental studio in Berlin and in 1933 he portrayed the actress Tilla Durieux . He also stayed in Paris, where he was involved in 1931/1932 exhibitions of the "Group 1940", which was carried by Max Ernst , Hans Stocker , the Arps and the Delaunays , whereby he was in favor of a phase with geometric and amorphous Occupied with forms, but then continued his harmonious, transfigured style of painting.

In 1933, among other things , Helbig's works were removed from the Folkwang Museum in Essen , the Kunsthalle Mannheim and the Erfurt Museum as “ degenerate art ”, and 35 pictures and a portfolio with watercolors and drawings were lost in Berlin in 1943 in a fire in the gallery's storage rooms Heyde lost. Helbig was naturalized in Ascona in 1938 .

Helbig had his first major solo exhibition in Zurich in 1948 and became a member of the German Association of Artists in 1952 . Even after the Second World War he took up the current art movements, painted in abstract expressionism and finally experimented with art informel in the 1960s . His strength lay in his “never-waning ability to change”, according to Rolf Wedewer in 1959. In old age he expected contemporary art to “move from detachment from the concrete to a new objectivity”.

Literature / exhibitions

  • Anette Brunner : Helbig, Walter . In: General Artist Lexicon . The visual artists of all times and peoples (AKL). Volume 71, de Gruyter, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-11-023176-2 , pp. 299-302.
  • Tapan Bhattacharya: Helbig, Walter. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
  • Helbig, Walter . In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General Lexicon of Fine Artists of the XX. Century. tape 2 : E-J . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1955, p. 411-411 .
  • Rolf Wedewer: The painter Walter Helbig. In: Die Kunst , Bruckmann, Munich 1958. Issue 4.
  • Walter Helbig, Ascona. Paintings, watercolors and prints. Museum Folkwang Essen; Art Association Darmstadt 1959.
    • Rolf Wedewer: Walter Helbig. Pp. 3-4
    • Walter Helbig: Space Movement - Abstract Object. Pp. 5-6.
  • Walter Helbig. 90th birthday exhibition. Galleria Castelnuovo, Ascona.

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Anette Brunner: Helbig, Walter. In: AKL. The Lukaskirche burned down in World War II.
  2. ^ Christoph Wilhelmi: Artist groups in Germany, Austria and Switzerland since 1900: a manual. Hauswedell, Stuttgart 1996, ISBN 3-7762-0400-1 , p. 246f.
  3. ↑ Viviane Ehrli: The Modern Bund. In: Exhibition catalog of artist groups in Switzerland 1910–1936. Aargauer Kunsthaus, Aarau 1981, p. 26 ff.
  4. ↑ Hans Goltz , after Katrin Lochmaier: Die Galerie - Hans Goltz, Munich 1912–1914.
  5. ↑ Barbara Alms (ed.): The storm: Chagall, Feininger, Jawlensky, Kandinsky, Klee, Kokoschka, Macke, Marc, Schwitters and many others in Berlin in the decade. Delmenhorst 2000, ISBN 3-89757-052-1 , p. 260.
  6. ^ First German Autumn Salon. Berlin 1913. Verl. Der Sturm, Berlin 1913, p. 19-
  7. ↑ For the exhibition concept and Frank Rutter, see English Wikipedia en: Frank Rutter . Reprint of the catalog by Piero Pacini: 26 Esposizioni Futuriste 1912-1918. Edizioni Scelte, Florence 1975.
  8. ↑ Woodcut in: Der Zeltweg , Heft 1, 1919, p. 16.
  9. ^ Christoph Wilhelmi: Artist groups in Germany, Austria and Switzerland since 1900: a manual. Hauswedell, Stuttgart 1996, ISBN 3-7762-0400-1 , p. 68.
  10. ↑ In the literature also more often named as co-founder, for example: Christoph Wilhelmi: Artist groups in Germany, Austria and Switzerland since 1900: a manual . Hauswedell, Stuttgart 1996, ISBN 3-7762-0400-1 , p. 279.
  11. ↑ The creators . A selection of the years I to III and catalog of the portfolio, Leipzig / Weimar 1984.
  12. ^ Christoph Wilhelmi: Artist groups in Germany, Austria and Switzerland since 1900: a manual. Hauswedell, Stuttgart 1996, ISBN 3-7762-0400-1 , p. 152f.
  13. ↑ Durieux's portrait is in the Von der Heydt Museum in Wuppertal. Hans F. Schweers: Paintings in German museums. 3rd, updated and extended Ed. Vol. 2: Part 1, artists and their works. Saur, Munich 2002, p. 310.
  14. ^ Christoph Wilhelmi: Artist groups in Western and Northern Europe including Spain and Portugal since 1900: a manual . Hauswedell, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 978-3-7762-1006-4 , p. 10f.
  15. ↑ Essen and Mannheim see AKL , Erfurt see Walter Helbig under “Beschlagnahmeinventar Entartete Kunst”, FU Berlin
  16. ^ Rolf Wedewer: Walter Helbig . P. 3
  17. ↑ Walter Helbig: Space Movement - Abstract Object , p. 6.
personal data
SURNAME Helbig, Walter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss painter
DATE OF BIRTH April 9, 1878
PLACE OF BIRTH Falkenstein / Vogtl.
DATE OF DEATH March 26, 1968
Place of death Ascona