Werner Labbé
Werner Labbé (born July 3, 1909 in Rheydt ; † April 3, 1989 ) was a German painter , illustrator and graphic artist .
Life and education
Werner Labbé was born on July 3, 1909 in Rheydt, the eleventh of thirteen children. His father was a blacksmith . From 1923 to 1927 he completed an apprenticeship as a lithographer in Mönchengladbach . Afterwards he studied at the arts and crafts school in Krefeld until 1933 ; During this period (1928–1930) he was employed in a poster printing company in Wuppertal , where his first poster designs were created.
Artistic creation
From 1933–1936 he stayed in Paris, where his first illustrations and commercial graphics were created. He traveled to Italy and North Africa and looked for artist friendships all over the world. In Paris he met the circle of students of the theorist of French modernism, André Lhote, as well as Cocteau , Léger and other important painters and writers. In 1936 he returned to the Lower Rhine, where he worked closely with the artists of the Young Rhineland. From 1939 to 1945 he was a soldier in Russia and Normandy. On January 1, 1945, he was wounded. He lost four fingers on his left hand and was taken prisoner by the Americans near Compiègne , where he met Heinrich Böll , for whom he later designed many book titles.
From 1945 to 1959 he worked as an illustrator, poster designer and painter in Cologne. He got to know artists like Haubrich, Hoff, Gies, Jatho, Berke, Meistermann and others. Numerous book publishers such as Fischer, Büchergilde Frankfurt, Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Droste and Bastion-Verlag hired him. He illustrated books by Heinrich Böll, Annette Kolb, Tetzner, Remarque and Balzac . 1952–1954 he received a teaching position from Georg Meistermann at the municipal art institute ( Städel ) in Frankfurt . In 1953 he lived with his family in Neuss . He traveled repeatedly to Italy, participated in the Biennale in Venice , where he with the Marzotto Prize was awarded.
In 1964 and 1965 he stayed in France. It was here in Provence that he created a series of picture compositions that were exhibited in Paris in 1965 and in Mönchengladbach in 1966. 1965–1975 he withdrew to a lonely Ardennes village in Belgium in order to be able to devote himself to what was essential for him, namely painting and graphics. In 1973 he met the gallery owner Willi Kocken in Kevelaer, with whom he had been friends since that time. Numerous letters and exhibitions in the Kocken Gallery are an expression of this bond. From 1975 to 1977 he lived in Spain in the fishing village of Sabinella. Watercolors, oil paintings and drypoint etchings were created from the Spanish landscape and folklore. 1979–1989 he lived again in the Belgian Ardennes as a painter and graphic artist, where he died on April 3, 1989 at the age of almost 80 years.
literature
- Monika and Carsten Starnberg (eds.): Werner Labbé: monograph, catalog raisonné, exhibition catalog. Municipal Museum Schloss Rheydt, Mönchengladbach 1996, ISBN 3-925256-47-4 .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Labbé, Werner |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German painter, illustrator and graphic artist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 3rd July 1909 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Rheydt |
| DATE OF DEATH | April 3, 1989 |