Walter Holdt

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Walter Holdt (born December 20, 1899 in Hamburg , † June 18, 1924 ibid) was a German artist , mask dancer and musician .

Early years

The mask figure "Springvieh" created by Holdt and Lavinia Schulz

Walter Holdt was the son of the Danish businessman Hinrich Holdt and his wife Marie from Hamburg. He spent childhood and youth in Hamburg. It is not documented whether he completed training. During the First World War he did military service without being on the front. Hinrich Holdt asked his son to continue running the business he owned, but he refused because he wanted to become an artist.

In 1919 Holdt joined the “Kampfbühne” that Lothar Schreyer had re-established at the Theater der Expressionisten. Other members were Hannah Grothendieck , Max Billert , Max Olderock and Lavinia Schulz , who shortly afterwards became Holdt's partner. The group did not play publicly in front of selected viewers. The premiere took place on October 21, 1919 at the Hamburg Art Academy. The actors showed “Die Haidebraut” and “Forces” by August Stramm . Walter Holdt most likely didn't join the group until after that premiere. At Christmas 1919 he could be seen as Josef in the medieval "Nativity Scene". The performance took place in the Katharinenkirche .

Because they had behaved too eccentrically during the following rehearsals, Holdt and Schulz had to leave the group in early 1920. They moved into a basement apartment at Besenbinderhof 5 and secretly married. They now created their own costumes and full body masks. They also created dances that were either grotesquely funny or dramatic. Lavinia Schulz took over most of the costume design and production. Holdt, on the other hand, could dance better and managed a balancing act even with a heavy knight costume. Both wrote the text “Man and Dead Woman”, which they published in May 1921 as a woodcut portfolio.

Cooperation with Hans Heinz Stuckenschmidt

At the beginning of 1921 Holdt and Schulz visited the artist regulars' table "The Round Table". There they made the acquaintance of Hans Heinz Stuckenschmidt , who moved in with them. From then on, Stuckenschmidt accompanied the couple as a composer and musician. They lived in a sparse apartment where they rehearsed and worked during the day. At night they put hammocks in the apartment. In December 1921 they appeared for the first time at an evening event alone in the Museum of Art and Commerce . Usually they took advantage of events where they performed individual dances. This included the cabaret bar “Die Jungfrau” on Gänsemarkt , the Hamburg artist festivals and the “Evenings of the Round Table”. Lovis H. Lorenz noted that at the end of 1922 the couple gave a solo evening with Elsbeth Baack at the Hamburger Kammerspiele not far from Besenbinderhof .

Holdt and Schulz initially processed "storm" poems and Nordic heroic sagas into dances. Later they worked avant-garde and designed expressionist masks that dealt with current problems such as industrialization, which they criticized. They danced to atonal music and made movements that were in complete contrast to classical stage dance. They created the masks out of garbage for ideological reasons. This included heavy sackcloth and boxes that determined their freedom of movement. Not wanting any money for their performances, they lived near starvation.

In the spring of 1922 Holdt played for a short time as a drummer in a jazz trio. Together with Hans Heinz Stuckenschmidt and Viktor Schlichter, he performed in the night bar "Alkazar" in St. Pauli . Since he continued to dance, he gave up appearances as a musician a little later due to the double burden. His father then offered him again to work in his company, which Walter Holdt absolutely did not want.

Death by murder

In 1923 Lavinia Schulz became pregnant, whereupon Stuckenschmidt left the shared apartment at Besenbinderhof. The year 1924 brought increasing problems in marriage and work for the couple. Because of exhaustion, he practiced Walter Holdt less and less. Lavinia Schulz therefore feared that working together as an artist would be threatened and shot her husband while he was sleeping. Then she aimed at herself. She died a day later in the St. Georg Hospital . Their son, Hans Heinz, who was one year old at the time, suffered no injuries. He moved in with Hinrich and Marie Holdt, who adopted him.

estate

Walter Holdt and Lavinia Schulz left behind 29 partially unfinished masks and costumes. There were also lots of dance scripts, sketches, fashion drafts and letters. Lavinia Schulz created the majority of the writings and drawings. The Museum of Arts and Crafts showed the estate in 1925 as part of a memorial exhibition organized by Max Sauerlandt in the Museum of Arts and Crafts. Then they were stored in the museum's attic. The Nazis confiscated the masks probably for this reason, not as " degenerate art ". The estate was found by chance 60 years later. The life and art of Lavinia Schulz and Walter Holdt are the focus of the 2019 novel Pixel Dancers by Berit Glanz .

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Schöffling & Co .: Pixel Dancer: Roman . 1st edition. Frankfurt am Main 2019, ISBN 978-3-89561-192-6 .
personal data
SURNAME Holdt, Walter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German artist, mask dancer and musician
DATE OF BIRTH December 20, 1899
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamburg
DATE OF DEATH June 18, 1924
Place of death Hamburg