Walter Maisak
Walter Maisak (born January 10, 1912 in Böckingen ; † January 10, 2002 ) was a German artist.
childhood
Maisak was born on January 10, 1912, the only child of the piano maker Karl Maisak (1886–1916) and his wife Emma, née. Schaal (1887–1914) was born in what is now the Heilbronn district of Böckingen. After the start of the First World War , the mother died in November 1914 as a result of an operation. The father was killed on the front in Galicia in 1916. Walter Maisak grew up in his grandfather's house in Böckingen, who was also appointed guardian. He was raised by his aunt Karoline Maisak (1882–1962), who ran a small shoe shop in the house. She supported and promoted the artistic talent of the young Walter Maisak.
School, apprenticeship and study time
After attending the Dammrealschule in Heilbronn, where he received his secondary school leaving certificate, Maisak began an apprenticeship as a script and decorative painter at the Georg Lang painting company in 1927. There he made friends with Fritz Dähn , who had already studied at the arts and crafts school. From 1948 Dähn worked as a professor at the art colleges in Weimar, Dresden and East Berlin. During his apprenticeship, Maisak took part in evening drawing courses from Walther Eberbach at the adult education center. After the journeyman's examination, he enrolled at the Württemberg State School of Applied Arts in Stuttgart in 1929, where he worked with Rudolf Rochga and Wilhelm van Eiff, among others . In 1931 Maisak switched to the Stuttgart Academy of Fine Arts and initially studied in the nude class with Arnold Waldschmidt. In 1932 he received first prize in the academy competition for the composition "Straßenarbeiter" (Walter Maisak archive), and in 1934 for the painting "Festzug" (Heilbronn city archive). From 1933 Maisak took lessons from Anton Kolig , as his master student he graduated in 1937. Then he worked as a freelance artist in Heilbronn and dealt with painting, graphics, commercial graphics and design. He received commissions for art in architecture, a field of activity that occupied him throughout his life. Maisak developed an individual style that always remained representational and took up influences from late impressionism, expressionism and the new objectivity.
Military service and imprisonment in Kazakhstan
In 1940 Maisak was drafted into the Wehrmacht and sent to France, Hungary and the Crimea, among others, where he was mainly employed as a draftsman in the map office. After the end of the war he was taken prisoner by the Soviets and was interned in Kazakh camps (Leninogorsk, Ust-Kamenogorsk, Almaty). His artistic activity saved him from the lead mines: A Russian interpreter approached him and said: “You go with this girl and do what you are told”. The girl was a kindergarten teacher and commissioned him to paint the whitewashed walls of the kindergarten with fairy tale pictures from a children's illustrated book. Maisak painted all the kindergartens in the area and was then allowed to return to the first kindergarten, where the walls had been whitewashed again.
Next life
In the autumn of 1949, Maisak returned to Heilbronn from captivity and lived in his house in Böckingen on Klingenberger Strasse until the end of his life. His favorite subjects remained figure and landscape. In the 1950s he processed the traumatic experiences of war and imprisonment in expressive paintings and in a cycle of charcoal drawings that he called "Homo" or "Experienced Visions" (Städtische Museen Heilbronn). In the 1960s, several trips took him to the south of France, which inspired him to create brightly colored landscape watercolors. Maisak received numerous commissions for art in architecture in the Heilbronn / Franconia region and has carried out over 100 projects in public space using various techniques since the 1950s.
Walter Maisak died on the day of his 90th birthday in 2002 and was buried in the Böckinger Friedhof .
Walter Maisak's artistic estate has been looked after in the Walter Maisak archive in Heilbronn am Neckar since 2016.
Works
Mural: Robert Mayer
In 1958 he designed the iron sculpture "Robert Mayer - Conservation of Energy" in Heilbronn to commemorate the home of Robert Mayer in Kirchhöfle 13 .
1958 by Walter Maisak: Memorial picture to Robert Mayer
Mural: Teutonic Knights
In 1961 a mural he designed was completed in the staircase of the Deutschhof , which shows a frieze in yellow tones with stylized Teutonic Knights.
In 1966 he created glass concrete windows with sacred motifs for the funeral halls in Wüstenrot , Bonfeld and Auenstein as well as for the meeting room of the town hall in Lauffen am Neckar. For the festival hall in Wüstenrot, he designed the concrete relief "Swabian Forest" with abstract tree shapes in 1970. In 1975 he designed "Petri Fischzug", an iron sculpture with glass mosaic, for the Petrus parish hall in Böckingen. In 1989 he created a wooden relief for the festival hall in Neuenstein , which takes up motifs from the old town.
Window wall: blooming tree of life
1969 designed Maisak for the cemetery hall in Biberach , the 13 meter long and five meter high wall of windows Flowering Tree of Life .
Heilbronn in spring (1960)
A 74 × 105 cm oil painting, which is supposed to depict Heilbronn in spring, hangs in the municipal museum in Heilbronn.
The Last (1955)
A 70 × 91 cm painting showing survivors after the air raid in the destroyed Heilbronn hangs in the Heilbronn municipal museums.
The Prisoner (1950)
A 108 × 116 cm painting showing a prisoner hangs in the municipal museum in Heilbronn.
Misery loneliness (1953)
A 43 × 59 cm painting hangs in the municipal museum in Heilbronn.
The Bound (1950)
A 65 × 85 cm painting hangs in the municipal museum in Heilbronn.
Solo exhibitions
Walter Maisak took part in numerous exhibitions, especially in Heilbronn.
Solo exhibitions:
- 1962 retrospective, Kunstverein Heilbronn
- 1977 landscape sketches (ibid.)
- 1985 Walter Maisak: Tree landscapes, Orangery Kassel
- 1986 Bietigheim-Bissingen town hall
- 1987 Heilbronn City Library
- 1989 Art in Architecture, Heilbronn Town Hall
- 1992 Walter Maisak. The silent chronicler, Städtische Museen Heilbronn
- 1997 My drawings, Heilbronn City Library
- 1998 figure and landscape. Spatula paintings, art in the refugee gate, Brackenheim
- 1999 Landscapes, Kreissparkasse Heilbronn
- 2004 Memory of Walter Maisak, Petrus parish hall in Böckingen
- 2012 "What is man?" Walter Maisak on his 100th birthday, Künstlerbund Heilbronn
- 2013 Walter Maisak: "My Landscapes", City Hall Öhringen
Individual evidence
- ↑ Heilbronn and the art of the 50s, Städtische Museen Heilbronn 1993, illustration no.63, page 59
- ↑ Heilbronn and the art of the 50s, Städtische Museen Heilbronn 1993, illustration no.46, page 45
- ↑ Heilbronn and the art of the 50s, Städtische Museen Heilbronn 1993, illustration No. 40, page 42
- ↑ Heilbronn and the art of the 50s, Städtische Museen Heilbronn 1993, illustration no.41a, page 42
- ↑ Heilbronn and the art of the 50s, Städtische Museen Heilbronn 1993, illustration no.41b, page 42
literature
- Tree landscapes. walter maisak , ed. by Walter Maisak, Heilbronn 1985.
- Walter Maisak - the silent chronicler. For the 80th birthday of the painter Maisak. Heilbronn Museum Catalog No. 40, Städtische Museen Heilbronn 1992.
- Petra Maisak: An artist is looking for his way. Walter Maisak (1912-2002) , in: Heilbronner Köpfe VI. Small series of publications of the archive of the city of Heilbronn, ed. by Christhard Schrenk, Heilbronn 2011, pp. 105–128.
- Andreas Sommer: "What people feel, suffer and hope", Heilbronn Voice, July 10, 2012
www.stimme.de/heilbronn/kultur/Was-der-Mensch-fuehlt-leidet-und-hofft;art11930.
Web links
- Literature by and about Walter Maisak in the catalog of the German National Library
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Maisak, Walter |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German painter |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 10, 1912 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Boeckingen |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 10, 2002 |