Werner from Pigage

Werner from Pigage. Self-portrait, 1919

Werner von Pigage (born January 30, 1888 in Breslau , † April 18, 1959 in Mannheim ), with full name: Werner Herbert Robert von Pigage , was a German painter .

family

Werner von Pigage was the son of the grocer Albrecht Johannes Robert von Pigage (* 1861) and Anna Emilie Pauline, née Pelz. As a schoolboy he began to draw and paint.

A great-great-grandfather of Werner von Pigage, Anselm de Pigage, was the brother of Nicolas de Pigage , the chief building director of the Elector Carl Theodor von der Pfalz , who built the palaces and gardens of Schwetzingen and Benrath for the Elector, among other things .

On August 10, 1926 Werner von Pigage married the singer Lona O. (* October 31, 1900, † September 23, 1986). They had two children:

• Pigage novel (December 12, 1926 - February 2, 1946)
• Leonore von Pigage, also: "Lore" († 1992)

Lona O. was the daughter of Ewald Hermann August O. (born November 10, 1875) and his wife Klara. You lived in Berlin . Ewald O. was an officer in the First World War . The bicycle courier Adolf Hitler , whose life he saved in a poison gas attack , belonged to one of the units he commanded . The two men maintained contact after the war and Adolf Hitler visited the family who lived in Berlin, even after he had become Chancellor .

plant

Until 1933

Werner von Pigage began his training at the Academy of Fine Arts in Breslau , one of the leading in Germany around 1900 . There then taught Arnold Busch (1876-1951), considered to be the teacher of Werner von Pigage, Eduard Kaempffer (1859-1926), Adolf Kühn , Hans Poelzig - he was 1902-1916 Director of the Academy - and Hugo Scheinert (1873 -1943). Werner von Pigage had no problems getting accepted there. From 1906 he was enrolled there as a student, in 1910 he left the academy with a certificate as a “decorative painter and draftsman”. A first major order was the decoration of the auditorium building of the Technical University of Wroclaw . Werner von Pigage lived and then worked in Berlin as a draftsman and commercial artist .

During the First World War he served in the military until 1917 and then registers his place of residence with the civil authorities in Mannheim - presumably after being wounded. He hoped that he would be able to gain a foothold here as an artist thanks to the sonorous name of his relative from the 18th century, which he succeeded. Scenes from the Schwetzingen palace gardens and from buildings and facilities in Mannheim were now part of his permanent repertoire . But he also continued to work as a commercial artist, including for Maggi . In the 1920s he traveled to Italy at least five times , where he also wrote numerous works.

In the "Third Reich"

Since his wife did not feel at home in Mannheim and did not find a career as a singer, the family moved to Berlin in 1934 and in 1936 to the same house where the in-laws lived. Werner von Pigage met Adolf Hitler personally at his in-laws - presumably before he moved to Berlin. Thanks to this contact, Werner von Pigage quickly succeeded in obtaining attractive government and private commissions in Berlin, a studio in the Reichstag building and an order to paint a pavilion in the Olympic village sponsored by the city of Mannheim , which was being built for the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games has been. He was accepted into the Reich Chamber of Culture under membership number M. 4318 . During this time the family could live well on what he earned as a painter. A second major order came from the Charlottenburg city ​​administration , which set up a new street cleaning office and had Werner von Pigage paint the common rooms for the staff. On the other hand, he was now too far away from the north Baden area in Berlin to get hold of the jobs he was interested in - for example in Schwetzingen.

At the beginning of the Second World War he was obliged to do civilian service, from which he was released in 1942 when he was commissioned to work on the design of the facilities on the Obersalzberg in Berchtesgaden , for which he received 20,000 marks . Which works he made there is not clear in detail. It was probably a wall painting in the Platterhof , a hotel that belonged to the facility on the Obersalzberg, and in a "tea house". In addition, pictures of Pigage are said to have hung in the Berghof itself. He was busy with this work until June 1943. Then he lived again in Berlin.

After the Second World War

The Pigage family's apartment was in the Soviet- occupied part of Berlin, later: East Berlin . He survived the denazification process unscathed. The economic situation and the possibility of traveling to the western occupation zones to sell his art there became increasingly difficult . Especially since it became increasingly attractive to him after the currency reform and the relatively stronger purchasing power of the Deutsche Mark compared to the Eastern Mark . Friends from the "West" sent him food parcels. A move to there initially failed. The situation became more and more difficult. He became depressed and started drinking. He was only able to leave the country in 1958, leaving behind a large part of his tools and pictures. The family went back to Mannheim. Artistically, however, he was no longer able to gain a foothold here either: he found no connection with the contemporary art scene, and his traditional style of painting hardly found any buyers.

literature

• Thr: painter Werner von Pigage died in Mannheim . In: Mannheimer Morgen of April 21, 1959 (quoted from Reisinger: Werner von Pigage , p. 371).
• ott: Werner von Pigage in memory . In: Allgemeine Zeitung (Mainz) of April 21, 1959 (quoted from Reisinger: Werner von Pigage , p. 371).
• Claus Reisinger: Werner von Pigage. A painter's life in Germany 1888–1959. Catalog of the Hubert Vogler - Claus Reisinger collection . Wernersche Verlagsgesellschaft, Worms 2014, ISBN 978-3-88462-355-8 .

Remarks

1. ↑ On the grounds that several members of the family live, Claus Reisinger deliberately withholds Lona O.'s maiden name (see: Reisinger: Werner von Pigage , p. 8).
2. ↑ On October 15, 1918, Adolf Hitler struck a mustard gas attack near Wervik in Flanders . He went blind temporarily and was a patient in the psychiatric department of the reserve hospital in Pasewalk from October 21 to November 19, 1918 (Thomas Weber: Hitler's First War. The Private Hitler in World War II - Myth and Truth . Berlin 2011, p. 294 f. )
3. ↑ It is unclear whether it was the Kehlsteinhaus or the pavilion on the Mooslanerkopf (Reisinger: Werner von Pigage , p. 33 and note 50).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Reisinger: Werner von Pigage , p. 12.
2. ^ Reisinger: Werner von Pigage , pp. 13, 57ff.
3. ↑ ^{a b c} Reisinger: Werner von Pigage , p. 22.
4. ↑ ^{a b} Reisinger: Werner von Pigage , p. 23.
5. ^ Reisinger: Werner von Pigage , p. 43.
6. ^ Reisinger: Werner von Pigage , p. 41.
7. ↑ ^{a b} Reisinger: Werner von Pigage , p. 15.
8. ^ Reisinger: Werner von Pigage , p. 42.
9. ^ Thr: painter Werner von Pigage ; ott: Werner von Pigage .
10. ^ Reisinger: Werner von Pigage , p. 16.
11. ^ Reisinger: Werner von Pigage , p. 17f.
12. ^ Reisinger: Werner von Pigage , p. 18.
13. ^ Reisinger: Werner von Pigage , p. 20.
14. ^ Reisinger: Werner von Pigage , p. 24.
15. ^ Reisinger: Werner von Pigage , p. 26.
16. ^ Reisinger: Werner von Pigage , p. 27.
17. ^ Reisinger: Werner von Pigage , p. 28f.
18. ^ Reisinger: Werner von Pigage , pp. 32, 34.
19. ^ Reisinger: Werner von Pigage , p. 33.
20. ^ Reisinger: Werner von Pigage , p. 34.
21. ^ Reisinger: Werner von Pigage , p. 36.
22. ^ Reisinger: Werner von Pigage , p. 38.
23. ^ Reisinger: Werner von Pigage , p. 39.
24. ^ Reisinger: Werner von Pigage , p. 40.