Werner Heuser

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Werner Heuser, self-portrait (1937)

Werner Heuser (born November 11, 1880 in Gummersbach , † June 11, 1964 in Düsseldorf ) was a German painter and draftsman. He had been a professor at the Art Academy in Düsseldorf since 1926 and was removed from his position in 1937 as a “degenerate artist” . After the Second World War he rebuilt the academy as its director.

Life

Werner Heuser in the corridor of the Düsseldorf Art Academy, January 1946
Exhibition Werner Heuser with daughter Ursula Benser in Madrid, 1960
North cemetery tombstone

The father Franz Eugen Heuser (1847–1900), son of Johann Peter Heuser the Elder. J. (1803–1849) and Emma Pollmann (1814–1905), grandsons of Johann Peter Heuser the Elder. Ä. (1726–1809), was a manufacturer of a synthetic wool spinning mill. The mother Eugenie (1849-1920) was born Hoestermann.

When Werner Heuser was one year old, the father left his family, ran away with Barbara Christina Scheid (1856-1910), the neighbor's wife, and emigrated to New Braunfels , Comal County in Texas ( USA ), where he was named Eugen Kailer became editor of the Neu-Braunfelser Zeitung at the end of the 19th century . The mother, deeply shaken, temporarily handed the education of Werner and his brothers Johann Peter Eugen (1873-1921) and Kuno (1876-1918) to an aunt called Thekla in Bonn.

Werner Heuser attended high schools in Bonn and Siegburg until 1896 . An apprenticeship at Villeroy & Boch followed in 1897 , where he lived with a cousin in Merzig. After graduation, Werner Heuser went to Düsseldorf in 1900 and studied at the Kunstgewerbeschule and Kunstakademie Düsseldorf with Peter Janssen , Adolf Maennchen and Eduard Gebhardt, among others .

In Düsseldorf, through Karli Sohn-Rethel, he met his future wife Mira Sohn-Rethel, a granddaughter of the artist Alfred Rethel , daughter of Else and Karl Rudolf Sohn , at a carnival festival in the Malkasten artists' association , and they became engaged.

With Karli Sohn-Rethel, Werner Heuser went to the Royal Art Academy in Dresden in 1904 to study with Carl Bantzer , and he chose country stays in the Willingshausen painters' colony in order to mature. A study trip to Rome followed with Otto Sohn-Rethel in 1905 , with a stay in the Villa Strohl-Fern , near the gardens of the Villa Borghese . Here he met Mira again , who stayed with her parents in Rome for a few weeks. Her father, Karl Rudolf Sohn, agreed to the wedding. Werner Heuser married Mira Sohn-Rethel on October 11, 1907 in Düsseldorf.

The honeymoon went via Venice to Rome and lasted from 1908 to 1914. Werner and Mira Heuser lived in an artist studio in the park of the Villa Strohl-Fern . Here he lived in close collaboration with Karl Hofer , Hermann Haller , the American Maurice Sterne and his brothers-in-law Otto Sohn-Rethel and Karli Sohn-Rethel . On April 12, 1909, their son Klaus Heinrich (Claudio Enrico) was born in Rome. Klaus Heuser is one of the main characters in the novel Königsallee by Hans Pleschinski .

In the summer of 1909, after a short stay in Düsseldorf, Werner Heuser traveled to France with his wife and child, they visited Hermann Haller in his house by the sea, which was near Arcachon . In the winter of 1909, Heuser rented a studio in Montparnasse in Paris and joined the circle of painters who had their headquarters in the Café du Dôme . He was familiar with Henri Matisse , Pablo Picasso , Ernesto de Fiori , Rudolf Levy and other other “Montparnassians”.

In the winter of 1913/14 Heuser founded with Ernst Isselmann , Hans Dornbach u. a. the Rheinische Künstlervereinigung, based in Cologne , which organized a first exhibition in January 1914 in the premises of the Kölnischer Kunstverein . This was followed by a short stay in Berlin and, in the spring of 1914, participation in the first exhibition of the Free Secession in Berlin.

In 1915 their daughter Ursula was born, who studied from 1930 to 1935 at the Düsseldorf Art Academy with Paul Bindel , among others .

During the First World War Werner Heuser was a medic from 1914 , then a delegate of the Red Cross in Kiev and Sevastopol . In those four years he learned a harrowing degree of suffering and misery and witnessed the collapse and withdrawal from Russia. On his return he settled permanently in Düsseldorf .

In 1919 Werner Heuser was one of the first members of the “ Young Rhineland ” artists' association with the painters Heinrich Nauen , Adolf Uzarski , Arthur Kaufmann , Carlo Mense and Walter Ophey, as well as the architect Wilhelm Kreis . In 1919 Werner Heuser produced lithographs for the volume of poems Der Vorläufer by Wolfgang Petzet, which was published by Dachstube-Verlag . In 1920 he took part in the large expressionism exhibition in Darmstadt.

Werner Heuser often spent the summer months with his wife and children in Hiddensee and Kampen on Sylt . Here he made friends with Thomas Mann's family, among others . Werner's son, the seventeen-year-old Klaus Heuser († 1994), noted about the man that he was his “last passion, according to human judgment”, must have flowed into the figure of Joseph .

For the planetarium built by the architect Wilhelm Kreis on the occasion of the GeSoLei in 1926, Heuser made one of the gusset pictures , which hangs in the same place in today's Tonhalle .

From 1922 Heuser lived at Kaiserstraße 53 am Hofgarten , with a studio from 1925 Am Wehrhahn 10d. In 1926 he was appointed professor of drawing and composition at the Düsseldorf Art Academy . His professor colleagues, with whom he maintained professional and friendly relations, were Heinrich Campendonk , Max Clarenbach , Paul Klee , Ewald Mataré , Heinrich Nauen , Wilhelm Schmurr and Alexander Zschokke .

Around 1932, at the same time as his former student Gottfried Brockmann , Heuser received a studio in the studio building of the Academy Eiskellerberg 1/3 , which he was able to keep until 1938. In the meantime, the Heuser family had moved into the Sohn-Rethel house at 23 Goltsteinstrasse. In July 1936, his son Klaus , a trained export merchant, left Germany and went to the Far East .

Heuser's works were classified as “degenerate art” by the National Socialists and denounced at the “Degenerate Art” exhibition in Munich . In 1937 Werner Heuser's contract at the art academy was not extended. Friends of the family, especially Paul Clemen , stood up for him. And so he, "the former extraordinary artistic teacher at the State Art Academy (...) subject to revocation at any time (...)" (Letter from the Reich Minister for Science, Education and Public Education V c 442, Berlin W 8, dated March 6, 1943 the regional president as curator of the Staatliche Kunstakademie, in Düsseldorf) until March 1943, and from then on again until March 1946, granted ongoing support of two hundred Reichsmarks .

As an artist he continued to work and withdrew to Sanary on his own before the war began . Later he followed his wife and daughter to the Allgäu , then to the Breisgau . In 1943 the family house at Goltsteinstrasse 23 in Düsseldorf was destroyed by a fire bomb along with all of the works of art that had been collected. Heuser followed his wife Mira and daughter Ursula, who were staying with Baron von Holzing at Bollschweil Castle . There he received a letter in August 1945: “I would very much appreciate it if you wanted to return here very soon. Dr. Peter Esser will tell you about everything in detail. In any case, it is very important to me that you would like to contribute with your personality and the large amount of your experience in the reconstruction of the art academy and your artistic life. ”(Dr. Busley, advisor for culture and preservation of monuments to the President of the North Rhine Province.)

Werner Heuser to the City Commandant Freiburg im Breisgau (with the request to forward it to the Chairman of the Allied Commission), September 1945: “As a professor at the Staatl. At the Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf I was viewed as undesirable by the nationalist party, I lost my position, had to deliver pictures to the Secret State Police and recognized personalities who stood up for me exposed themselves to dangers. [...] Our longtime friend Thomas Mann will be happy to vouch for the attitude represented by me and my family . "

After the end of National Socialist rule, he returned to Düsseldorf. The actor Peter Esser took him and his wife in his house in Alt-Meererbusch near Düsseldorf. On October 13, 1945 he was reinstated as a professor at the art academy, on October 15, 1945 he was appointed member of the Personnel Committee and on November 1, 1945 he resumed teaching. On January 7, 1946, he was appointed acting director of the academy. Werner Heuser reopened the State Art Academy on January 31, 1946. He rebuilt the facility and was able to hire well-known artists such as Heinrich Kamps , Otto Pankok , Ewald Mataré and Theo Champion as teachers. In 1949 he handed over his office to Heinrich Kamps, who then completed the construction, and left the academy as director and professor in order to devote himself entirely to his art.

As one of the few people who did not belong to any party, he was appointed a member of the Appointed Landtag of North Rhine-Westphalia in 1946 . However, he soon lost his status as a full member of parliament and since then has been an expert on the culture committee of the state parliament.

"Much worse than the ignoramus is the dilettante in art,

because what is completely lacking in the former affects and torments the latter

and where one is only negated, the other is maltreated,

so that decidedly without art one does better than mess it up. "

On June 5, 1948, the foundation of the State Association of Visual Artists North Rhine-Westphalia eV , which goes back to the former art union , was officially completed. Werner Heuser, as the founding president, opened the first general assembly of the state professional association in the meeting room of the Association of German Ironworkers in Düsseldorf. Due to the currency reform and the resulting decline in premiums, the association's first crisis followed shortly afterwards, which led to the restructuring under the new name of the North Rhine-Westphalia Association of Visual Artists in 1953.

Werner Heuser was a member of the German Association of Artists , also a member of the association for the organization of art exhibitions and of the "Malkasten Artists' Association" until his death.

Werner Heuser died of heart failure in Düsseldorf on June 11, 1964. His grave is in the north cemetery in Düsseldorf .

plant

Die Kunst für Alle , August 1941, pages 252–256: from Alfred Rethel to Werner Heuser - about a dance of death

Heuser was one of the first members of the Young Rhineland and participated in several exhibitions. He mostly painted with colored pencils. He combined drawing technique with expressive expression. He was considered a master of figural composition. He often chose social outsiders such as gypsies or clowns as motifs. But he also devoted himself to topics such as death and madness. In addition, he is also known for landscapes. He also repeatedly took up Christian topics. The National Socialists showed his oil painting "The Baptism" in the exhibition Degenerate Art . The portrait was purchased in 1919 for 10,000.00 paper marks from the municipal art collection and was sent to Munich in 1937 as "degenerate". Works by him are now in museums in various countries and in private collections.

Exhibitions

Works (selection)

  • In the facilities in 1928

  • Jesus falls for the first time in 1929

  • Self-portrait 1929

  • Returning home in 1952

  • Carneval 1953

  • "Trio" Knight Death and the Devil 1955

  • Landstreicher 1954, Galerie Wolfgang Gurlitt, Munich 1956

  • The Blind 1954, Galerie Wolfgang Gurlitt, Munich 1956

  • Masks 1956

Honor

literature

  • Heinrich Schmidt:  Heuser, Werner. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 9, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1972, ISBN 3-428-00190-7 , p. 47 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Art Association for the Rhineland and Westphalia, Werner Heuser, exhibition catalog, Düsseldorf 1965
  • Art for everyone: painting, sculpture, graphics, architecture - From Alfred Rethel to Werner Heuser, Paul Clemen, 1941 [1]
  • The forerunner, Wolfgang Petzet, poems with lithographs by Werner Heuser, Dachstube-Verlag, Darmstadt, 1924

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Eugen Heuser lived in Gummersbach on Kaiserstraße. During the immigration registration, the newly chosen name Kaiser, due to the confusion of the long S, became L.
  2. ^ The New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung history ( Memento from March 11, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ↑ Lars Wallerang: Klaus Heuser enchanted his niece - and Thomas Mann. in: wz newsline, October 27, 2013.
  4. ↑ http://www.rheinische-art.de/cms/topics/johanna-ey-mutter-der-rheinischen-avantgarde.-eine-regionale-kunstgeschichte.php
  5. ↑ Heuser, Werner, Kunstmal., Atel. Am Wehrhahn 10d III, Wohn. Kaiserstr. 53 , in Düsseldorfer Adressbuch, 1925, p. 223
  6. ^ Heuser, Werner, painter, professor at the state art academy, Am Wehrhahn 10d, apartment: Kaiserstraße 53U , in the address book of the city of Düsseldorf, 1929, p. 217
  7. ↑ Heuser, Werner, Kunstmaler, Prof., Eiskellerberg 1/3, apartment: Goltsteinstraße 23 , in the address book of the city of Düsseldorf, 1934, p. 240
  8. ↑ http://www.exilarchiv.de/DE/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2084%3Aheuser-werner&catid=42&lang=pl
  9. ↑ http://kulturkenner.de/events/1946-–-wiedereroffnung-kunstakademie-dusseldorf
  10. ^ People and the state in North Rhine-Westphalia: 25 years of the state parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia. Cologne 1971.
  11. ^ Werner Heuser, letter in verse to Hetty, September 29, 1948
  12. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original dated February 4, 2015 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. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.bbk-niederrhein.de
  13. ↑ kuenstlerbund.de: Full members of the German Association of Artists since it was founded in 1903 / Heuser, Werner ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (accessed on August 25, 2015) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.kuenstlerbund.de
  14. ^ International art exhibition of the Sonderbund Westdeutscher Kunstfreunde und Künstler zu Cöln, 1912, Werner Heuser, Paris, Room 23: Female Nude , Ballet , p. 58
  15. ↑ International art exhibition of the Sonderbund Westdeutscher Kunstfreunde und Künstler zu Cöln, 1912, figure ballet , Werner Heuser
  16. ^ Galerie Herbert Cramer, communications from the Werner J. Schweiger Art Archive, No. 1/2000 ( Memento from May 1, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
  17. ↑ GDK1941-Saal-07, Werner Heuser, picture Schäfer
  18. ↑ Werner Heuser, Frau am Meer, 1920
personal data
SURNAME Heuser, Werner
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter and university professor and politician (independent), MdL
DATE OF BIRTH November 11, 1880
PLACE OF BIRTH Gummersbach
DATE OF DEATH June 11, 1964
Place of death Dusseldorf