Wilhelm Castelli

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Wilhelm Castelli (right)
Notke's Dance of Death, formerly St. Marien in Lübeck (excerpt)
Notkes Gregormesse, formerly St. Marien in Lübeck (excerpt)
Postage stamp (1951) for the 700th anniversary of the Marienkirche in Lübeck

Wilhelm Castelli (born December 17, 1901 in Lübeck ; † May 29, 1984 ibid) was a German architecture and art photographer.

Life

Castelli was the son of the drugstore of the same name Wilhelm Castelli (1874–1957) in Lübeck. He attended the Johanneum in Lübeck and left there in 1917 with the completion of the secondary school leaving certificate . From 1917 to 1920 he did an apprenticeship as a photographer in Hamburg and then attended the photo school in Munich. From 1923 to 1927 Castelli worked in Dresden and Düsseldorf. In 1927 he returned to his home in Lübeck and built a photo department in his father's drugstore at 95 Breiten Straße . The commercial artist Alfred Mahlau designed a separate department for this new logo as a graphically designed C . Wilhelm Castelli and his brother took over the drugstore from their father in 1954 and continued it until 1970.

photographer

As a photographer, he came into contact with the committed Lübeck museum director Carl Georg Heise , who also had a weakness for modern photography and brought Castelli in touch with Albert Renger-Patzsch as a representative of the New Objectivity . As a role model, Renger-Patzsch had a strong influence on Castelli's working method and technique. Heise already included Castelli in the large Lübeck photography exhibition in 1929 and exhibited his photos alongside those of Renger-Patzsch, Emil Otto Hoppé and Hugo Erfurth . The same applies to the following Lübeck photography exhibition in 1932. The Museum of Art and Cultural History of the Hanseatic City of Lübeck acquired Castelli's first photos for its collections at this time and the first book publications were published together with Heise. The subject of his pictures were primarily the history of architecture and art in Lübeck. His photographic documentation preserves the idea of ​​numerous works of art that were destroyed by flames during the air raid on Lübeck on March 29, 1942 , for posterity. In addition to the interior fittings of the affected churches and buildings, this includes in particular the Lübeck Dance of Death and the Gregorian Mass by Bernt Notke , formerly in Lübeck's Marienkirche . The photographic templates for the postage stamps for the 700th anniversary of St. Mary's Church with wall paintings in the top of the church came from Castelli.

During the Second World War, Castelli served in the military district administration and as a medical soldier in an X-ray department in the Baltic States. During the air raid on Lübeck in 1942, the family lost their livelihood. The office building on Breite Strasse was destroyed, and with it the negative archive of his photo publisher. The new beginning only took place after 1945 at Breiten Straße 81. After the business was closed, the archive of the photo publisher, which had been rebuilt after the war, was sold to the Hanseatic City of Lübeck.

film producer

Castelli also took advantage of the new medium of film. In 1933 he made a silent film about Lübeck and the newly established Lübeck State Conservatory , intended as a promotional film for Lübeck as a city of music. After its rediscovery in 2011, the film was restored by the State Film Archive and shown again for the first time on the 100th anniversary of the Lübeck University of Music. Castelli also documented the effects of the air raid on Lübeck not only in photographs but also in films.

Honors

Publications (selection)

  • together with Carl Georg Heise (text):
    • Mythical world of the Middle Ages. Fantasy and ornamental pieces by Lübeck workers from three centuries. 120 photos by W. Castelli, Rembrandt, Berlin, 1936
    • The Gregor Mass of Bernt Notke. Heinrich Ellermann Publishing House, Hamburg, 1941
    • The Lübeck Passion Altar by Hans Memling. Heinrich Ellermann publishing house, Hamburg 1950
  • together with Hans Schröder (text):
  • together with Max Hasse (text):
    • Lübeck (Deutsche Lande - German Art), Munich / Berlin 1963
  • together with Wilhelm Stier (text):
    • Lübeck: 41 plates. Bayreuth: Black [approx. 1965] (= Schwarz picture books)

literature

  • Thorsten Albrecht: Lübeck - black and white: Photo specialist Wilhelm Castelli 1901 - 1984. Accompanying publication to the exhibition from January 20, 2002 to May 5, 2002 in the Museum for Art and Cultural History of the Hanseatic City of Lübeck, ( Behnhaus ). Lübeck 2002
  • Thorsten Albrecht: Wilhelm Castelli in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck , Volume 12 Neumünster 2006, pp. 68–71. ISBN 3529025607
  • Alexander Bastek,  Jan Zimmermann  (Ed.):  Photography in Lübeck 1840-1945 . Imhof, Petersberg 2016. ISBN 978-3-7319-0366-6

Web links

Commons : Wilhelm Castelli  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ NDR: How photographer Castelli made his Lübeck known. Retrieved December 6, 2018 .
  2. ↑ Music in context - a film document from 1933  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed November 30, 2011@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.mh-luebeck.de  
personal data
SURNAME Castelli, Wilhelm
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Castelli jun., Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German photographer
DATE OF BIRTH December 17, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH Lübeck
DATE OF DEATH May 29, 1984
Place of death Lübeck