Wilhelm Beckmann (painter)

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Grave of the painter Wilhelm Beckmann (1852–1942) in the Wilmersdorf cemetery in Berlin

Wilhelm Beckmann (born October 3, 1852 in Düsseldorf , † March 17, 1942 in Berlin ) was a German painter from the Düsseldorf School .

Beckmann was a well-known artist during his lifetime, who also designed pageants and living pictures and was requested by many high-ranking personalities as portrait painters. In 1905 he was awarded the Austrian Knight's Cross of the Franz Joseph Order and the Order of the Red Eagle .

Life

Childhood and youth

Wilhelm Beckmann was born on October 3, 1852 in Düsseldorf. His parents ran a thriving restaurant on Carlsplatz . Beckmann writes in his autobiography that his godfather, the still life painter Johann Wilhelm Preyer , made the toast at the baptism: "This boy will one day become a painter."

Education

After attending secondary school, from autumn 1868 he studied at the Düsseldorf Art Academy under Eduard Bendemann , the former managing director. Because of his short-sightedness, he was retired from military service in 1870. After the fire at the academy in the Düsseldorf Residenzschloss , where the art academy was housed until March 1872, he switched to Bendemann as a private student on April 1, 1872. A year later he moved into his first own studio. In autumn 1873 he traveled to Munich, where he introduced himself to the director of the art academy, Wilhelm von Kaulbach . Apparently Kaulbach took a liking to Beckmann. Because after the cholera spread more and more in Munich, Kaulbach offered the young painter his garden shed as quarters. Beckmann returned to Düsseldorf via Nuremberg, Frankfurt, Mainz and Bonn. His work “The Hussites” was inspired by the trip. The next assignment took him to Berlin, where he, together with Ernst and Fritz Roeber and Bendemann's son Rudolf, painted the Corneliussaal of the National Gallery with Bendemann's murals for his teacher Bendemann .

First successes as a history painter

The mermaid pond at the Malkasten Festival in Düsseldorf , illustration in the magazine Die Gartenlaube , 1877

In 1877 he went on a study trip to Holland. The "Handover of the Rosenberg festivities in the Hussite War" exhibited at the art exhibition in 1880 in Düsseldorf was purchased by a Stockholm gallery, and the picture was widely distributed through reproductions by the art publisher "Franz Hanfstaengl". As a member of the Artists Association paintbox , he participated in the festival in honor of I. William's part. The illustration "The Nixenteich from the Malkastenfest zu Düsseldorf", also known as Venusteich , was published in the journal Die Gartenlaube . Beckmann was appointed as one of the artistic directors of the move to complete Cologne Cathedral on October 16, 1880. The representations met with broad approval - Emperor Wilhelm I ordered the participants to march a second time after completion - and laid the foundation for further commissions from the Cologne Society, such as the painting of the hall in Gürzenich. In May 1881 he went on a study trip to Paris to the Salon de Paris , the annual Paris art exhibition, where he also met Édouard Manet . After the Rhine flood in 1882/1883 he made a draft for the living pictures, with which money should be collected for the flood damage.

While he was still working on a picture of Luther, he received an order from the city of Eisleben to arrange the procession for the 400th anniversary of Luther on November 10, 1883. He combined the order with a trip to Merseburg, Torgau and Berlin. In February 1885 he traveled again to Munich, which was still the focus of German painting. Beckmann felt very connected to Fritz von Uhde , the “ultra-radical daredevil striker”. From Munich he made a detour to Venice. The plan to paint a portrait of the late Richard Wagner led him to Bayreuth for the first time in 1886. In July he went to the Bayreuth Festival and attended performances of “ Parsifal ” and “ Tristan ”. On July 31, the death of Franz Liszt overshadowed the festival. Back at home, Beckmann founded the Richard Wagner Society in Düsseldorf - still under the impression of Bayreuth - which after a short time already had 500 members.

The Berlin time

When Emperor Friedrich III. died on June 15, 1888, Beckmann went to Berlin, where he also received permission to draw. His picture of the emperor laid out was a great success. It traveled through different cities and was shown especially in schools. This picture marked Beckmann's turn to realism.

The success encouraged him to change his place of residence and move to Berlin. There he received a request from the Foreign Office to take part in a legation trip to Morocco, which lasted from April 1 to June 1890. In autumn of that year he became a teacher of the portrait and painting class of the Berlin Artists' Association. The Berlin period is also marked by an increase in private commissions, one of which took him to Antwerp several times. It was there that Beckmann met his future wife, the daughter of the German merchant Köhler. The wedding took place in Antwerp in February 1893 and the bride followed him to Berlin. They lived at Achenbachstrasse 6. Beckmann had his studio at Lützowstrasse 82 .

On May 12, 1896, he traveled to Moscow for the German embassy to attend the coronation celebrations of Tsar Nicholas II . The couple spent the following time in Italy: Via Venice and Padua, Ravenna, Bologna and Florence, their journey led to Rome, where they arrived in December 1896, then on to Naples and Palermo. From Marsala they crossed to Tunis , from there to Rome again, where they spent the winter. A meeting with Arnold Böcklin in Florence on his 70th birthday made a special impression on Beckmann . At the end of July 1898, after traveling for more than two years, the couple returned to Berlin.

Not least because of the trip to Italy, Beckmann's attitude changed. He now followed the more modern views of art and threw himself into a more intensive study of the landscape. Therefore, he spent one summer in Mecklenburg and the following one in the Lüneburg Heath . As secretary of the commission for the Great Berlin Art Exhibition , he traveled to Munich, Dresden, Vienna and Budapest in 1904 to establish contacts with the artists and to invite them to participate in the exhibition. The highlights of the exhibition were the Hungarian department and the collective exhibition of Franz von Lenbach , who died during the exhibition in May 1904. Beckmann traveled with Paul Meyerheim as the Berlin artist's envoy to the funeral, which left a deep impression on him. At an audience, the Berlin artists were received by Prince Regent Luitpold , whose appearance reminded Beckmann of a “forest god”. In May 1905 he went on a study trip to Paris, Reims, Luxembourg, Trier and the Rhine and Moselle. Two years later he became a member of the commission for the Great Berlin Art Exhibition and hanging commissioner for the German National Art Exhibition in Düsseldorf . The pre-war years were characterized by several study visits to Tyrol, Bavaria and Lübeck. In 1913, as head of the festival committee for the reign of the emperor, he planned a medieval tournament with 2,000 participants. The preparations for a world war and the defense bill passed by the Reichstag prompted Wilhelm II to cancel the large-scale celebrations. During this time Beckmann devoted himself increasingly to interior painting. His motifs were rooms in the Paretz , Tegel and Belvedere palaces in Weimar and in the town hall of Lüneburg .

The last phase of life

In December 1918 his wife died. Beckmann threw himself into work, drove to Tegernsee and then visited the writer Elisabeth von Heyking at Crossen Castle on the Elster. In 1920 he was commissioned by Count Finckenstein in Pomerania. The friendship with the widowed Princess Hermine von Schoeneich-Carolath also led to several visits to her Saabor Palace in Silesia (now Zabór ). In 1922 she married the former Kaiser Wilhelm II, who lived in Haus Doorn in exile in the Netherlands. Beckmann also worked on his interior paintings in Saabor and in the nearby Trebschen ( Trzebiechów ). For this he also traveled to Bavaria, where he worked in Weikersheim Castle and several times in Sigmaringen Castle .

On these trips in 1925 he met the widow of the factory owner Schmidt, who came from Elbing , and whom he married on January 30, 1926 in Berlin. The honeymoon took the newly wed couple to Italy and Bavaria. Beckmann left Berlin and moved to Danzig with his wife . At the invitation of Lina von Hindenburg, they visited the Neudeck estate , which was given to Reich President Paul von Hindenburg "by the German people" in 1928. Beckmann received an invitation to the palace of the Reich President for the celebrations of Hindenburg's 80th birthday.

Wilhelm Beckmann's autobiography ends here. After Ernst Klee , Adolf Hitler personally invited him as a guest of honor to the NSDAP party rallies in 1936 and 1937, bought him his painting March by the Leibstandarte in Nuremberg on the occasion of the party congress and awarded him the Goethe Medal for Art and Science in 1937 . He died in Berlin in 1942.

Works (selection)

  • Handover of Veste Rosenberg in the Hussite War , 1880
  • Heron pickle , 1882
  • Luther after his speech at the Reichstag in Worms , 1884
  • Painting of the castle chapel in Abenberg near Roth , 1886
  • Richard Wagner in his home Wahnfried , 1886
  • Street scene from Morocco , 1890
  • Coronation of Tsar Nicholas II in Moscow in 1896
  • The artist's wife , 1926
  • Views of the Neudeck manor house , 1927
  • Self-portrait , 1927
  • Oder landscape near Carolath , 1929

literature

Web links

Commons : Wilhelm Beckmann  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The article is mainly based on the artist's autobiography, cf. Beckmann 1930.
  2. ^ Berlin address book 1893
  3. ^ Friedrich Noack : The Germanness in Rome since the end of the Middle Ages . Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, Stuttgart 1927, Volume 2, p. 79
  4. ↑ s. Beckmann, Wilhelm. In: Ernst Klee : The cultural lexicon for the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945 (= The time of National Socialism. Vol. 17153). Completely revised edition. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2009, ISBN 978-3-596-17153-8 , p. 36.
  5. ↑ Awarded the Goethe Medal for Art and Science, individual cases; usually with reports on artistic achievements and political reliability: Vol. 1 - German Digital Library. Retrieved November 3, 2017 .
personal data
SURNAME Beckmann, Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter
DATE OF BIRTH October 3, 1852
PLACE OF BIRTH Dusseldorf
DATE OF DEATH March 17, 1942
Place of death Berlin