Walter Otto Grimm
Walter Otto Grimm (born June 2, 1894 in Philadelphia or Mulden (Massachusetts) , † May 15, 1919 in Dresden ) was a German artist with American roots.
Life
Walter Otto Grimm was born to a US father and a German immigrant in the USA and moved to Dresden with his mother and siblings after the death of his father in 1908 . In 1915 he took up law studies in Leipzig ; at the same time he began to work literarily and artistically. After the USA entered the war in 1917, Grimm was viewed in Germany as an undesirable foreigner and had to report to a police station every day. Apparently mentally burdened by this requirement, he gave up his studies, returned to Dresden and joined the expressionist circle around Conrad Felixmüller , Felix Stiemer and Georg Tappert . He belonged to the group in 1917 as well as to the Kiel artists' association The Black Tower . He now regularly provided illustrations for the magazine Die Menschen ; In addition, from 1918 he worked as a set designer for numerous opera, theater and ballet productions in Dresden. Among other things, he created sets for Peer Gynt and Macbeth . 15 woodcuts by Grimm were exhibited in the Dresden Art Cabinet.
Despite his artistic success and a partnership with Lotte Haunstein, Walter Otto Grimm suffered from his discrimination as a foreigner and from his self-imposed loneliness. Many of his pictures had the lonely people in the big city as their theme. Numerous woodcuts by Grimm were on view in the first issue of the Black Tower and were honored by Gerhard Ausleger , a member of the Dresden Expressionist Working Group .
Walter Otto Grimm committed suicide in the spring of 1919. It is thanks to his partner Lotte Haunstein that some of his works have been preserved. In 1986 around 70 works by Grimm were exhibited in the Bodo Niemann gallery in Berlin . Among other things, there are pictures by Grimm in the Gore Rifkind Collection in Los Angeles and in the Kiel City Museum.
literature
- Gerd Gruber: Grimm, Walter Otto . In: General Artist Lexicon . The visual artists of all times and peoples (AKL). Volume 62, Saur, Munich a. a. 2009, ISBN 978-3-598-23029-5 , p. 285.
- Peter Ludewig (Ed.): Scream in the world: Expressionism in Dresden . Zurich: Arche, 1990 ISBN 3-7160-2106-7 , p. 251, also several illustrations
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from September 22, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Grimm, Walter Otto |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German expressionist painter and wood cutter |
| DATE OF BIRTH | June 2, 1894 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Philadelphia |
| DATE OF DEATH | May 15, 1919 |
| Place of death | Dresden |