Wilhelm Groß (artist)

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Wilhelm Gross (1906)
Falling Church. The cross remains intact (1930s)
Cain - unsteady and fleeting (1956/57)
The bulk of created and the shipping company Hemptenmacher donated Hansa fountain on the town hall square in front of Rügenwalde.
Stele designed by Wilhelm Groß for Paul Schneider's grave, replaced by a new one after Margarete Schneider's funeral.

Wilhelm Ernst Julius Groß (born January 12, 1883 in Schlawe in Western Pomerania ; † February 9, 1974 in Oranienburg - Eden near Berlin ) was a German sculptor , printmaker and Protestant preacher.

Life

Wilhelm Groß was born on January 12, 1883 as the son of the town treasurer of Schlawe Friedrich Groß and his wife Hulda (née Haack). He had two older brothers, Max (1873–1937) and Friedrich. One became a teacher of Latin and ancient Greek , the other a popular preacher.

From 1895 to 1899 Wilhelm Groß attended a Progymnasium. It was at this time that his passion for music and language developed. In 1895 the first work was also done on the cabinet maker Wöhler's workbench . After graduating from secondary school in 1899, he began an apprenticeship in a Stolper furniture factory, then began a civil service career, which he broke off in 1900. He returned to Wöhler and made some small animal sculptures there. In 1902 Wilhelm Groß went to Berlin to do an architecture apprenticeship with Otto Lessing . During this time he also took part in a drawing competition and learned from the artist August Gaul . He later attended the Karlsruhe Art Academy . After his father's death in 1903, he had to quit his studies for financial reasons. However, a scholarship enabled him to return to Berlin, where he then worked as a freelance artist and was supported by the art patron Privy Councilor Eduard Arnhold .

In 1904 Wilhelm Groß had first contacts with Max Beckmann , with whom he had an intensive friendship until the Second World War. Wilhelm Groß was a member of the German Association of Artists , which enabled him to travel to Florence with the Villa Romana Prize (1908) , where he came into contact with Ernst Barlach and Max Klinger . In 1909 Wilhelm Groß moved from Florence to Rome and returned to Schlawe in 1911. In 1912 Groß took part in the DKB exhibition in the Kunsthalle Bremen , and the following year he moved to Berlin-Grunewald. Here he soon met Frieda Pumplun, who came from a wealthy family and who would later become his wife. His brother Friedrich (Fritz), a theologian, introduced him to the YMCA . However, an attempt at conversion there did not lead to a turn to faith.

In 1915 Wilhelm Groß and Frieda Pumplun married. The marriage had six children: Barbara (1917–2006), Christine (1918–2019), Peter (1920–2009), Christoph (1922–1943), Andreas (1926–2019) and Uwe (1930–2015). The family lived in Berlin-Dahlem from 1916 and in Oranienburg-Eden from 1919 . Wilhelm Groß was released from military service in 1914 in the First World War for health reasons, but found a fervent Christian faith as a result of the war impression. The writer Arthur Koetz wrote a poem for three of his pictorial works, Job, Crucifix and The Prophet , which each consist of two four-line stanzas and which expressly names Wilhelm Gross with his place of residence Oranienburg in the heading.

His self-built studio in Eden became a meeting point for discussion groups and lectures from 1921, later also for the Confessing Church . This is where its contemporary name “Strohkirche” comes from.

From 1933 onwards, Wilhelm Groß, who was considered a “ half-Jew ” according to the Nuremberg race laws , brought various difficulties, such as an exhibition ban, exclusion from the “ Reich Chamber of Culture ” and defamation of his works as “ degenerate art ” in the Nazi organization Das Schwarze Korps . Thereupon Wilhelm Groß joined the Pastors' Emergency League . In the "Strohkirche" he held services a. a. with pastors Kurt Scharf and Martin Niemöller . In addition, Wilhelm Groß exchanged letters with Shalom Ben-Chorin in the 1930s . His sons Christoph, Peter and Andreas were drafted into the Second World War in 1942, 1943 and 1944. Christoph has been missing in the Caucasus since 1943.

After the war ended in 1945, Wilhelm Groß took liberated concentration camp prisoners into his house; in August 1945 the Brother Council of the Confessing Church of the Province of Brandenburg ordained him a preacher; Groß then worked as a pastor in the Sachsenhausen congregation . In 1947 he took part in the Christian Academic Day in Heidelberg . In 1950 he was also the only invited representative from the GDR to a conference of Christian artists in the Château de Bossey of the World Council of Churches .

In 1953, on the occasion of his seventieth birthday, Groß received an honorary doctorate from the theological faculty of Heidelberg University in recognition of his life's work .

After Walter Ulbricht proclaimed the “ Ten Commandments of Socialist Morals and Ethics ” in 1961, Wilhelm Groß's last monumental sculpture, Moses with the tablets of the law , was created as a reaction . The construction of the Berlin Wall in August 1961 prevented the move to West Berlin, which Kurt Scharf had advised him to do.

In the 1960s, Wilhelm Groß created not only woodcuts but also drawings, mostly with pastel colors. His red-green blindness turned out to be. He remained creative until the end of his life. In 1967 he also instructed his grandson Friedemann, son Peters, in the printing technique of woodcut. He was buried in the Oranienburg city cemetery in 1974 . The sculpture Emmaus encounter on the grave, made by him in 1909 , was originally made for a Roman patron, but rejected by him because of an ore vein running through the marble.

plant

Wilhelm Groß was active in numerous genres of art and handicrafts. In addition to sculptures and woodcuts, which predominate in his artistic activity, he created drawings, paper cuttings, seals, grave reliefs and pastel drawings in old age. He practiced art more as a preaching than to use it to achieve glory in the world. His early work (up to around 1916) hardly showed any inclination to the spiritual themes that dominated his later work. Exceptions are commissioned works such as the Hansabrunnen zu Rügenwalde , the statue of the Landwehrmann zu Stolp , various busts; also private works, such as early sculptures (for example a terracotta bust of Minna Beckmann-Tube , Max Beckmann's wife), drawings by his children, silhouettes and pastel drawings.

His early sculptural works are made in all common materials: terracotta, bronze, plaster. His art was strongly influenced by Expressionism , and even then he put the expression of his characters entirely in the posture. Later he also worked with the facial expressions of his characters, especially in the woodcut portraits (such as his Rufer ).

Apart from the late pastels, his depictions are primarily figurative in nature. In the expression of suffering, now biblical figures, now nameless types, for him the connection of the Lord with people lay. He seldom expresses this relationship through non-figurative scenes (such as the cross in the mountains , 1938, or the falling church. The cross remains unharmed , 1960); however, the cross symbol is predominant in such motifs.

The medium of wood was of particular importance for the artist's spiritual work. Wilhelm Groß created almost all of his sacred works in wood; one of the few exceptions is a bust of Johann Sebastian Bach . Groß searched specifically for suitable materials and also created some works inspired by the form of his medium, around 1940 Die Prayer Irre .

reception

The fact that Wilhelm Groß was unable to distinguish himself in public in his artistic charisma is due, among other things, to the circumstances in which he lived. His greatest creative period was in the 1930s, during which he only accepted secret commissions, for example from the Confessing Church, which could not bring him public recognition. After the collapse of the Nazi regime, he lived in the GDR, a state that did not appreciate the high artistic and spiritual demands of his works. In the Protestant church he was a valued artist and preacher until his death. So he designed the tomb of the first martyr of the Confessing Church, Paul Schneider , the pastor of Dickenschied . Most of his work was recognized elsewhere in his home town of Oranienburg, which has had a permanent exhibition in the district museum since the 1990s. Many of the artist's works can be seen on permanent loan in the permanent exhibition of the District Museum in Oranienburg Castle .

The city administration of Oranienburg and the Eden cooperative have been working since the 1980s to get Wilhelm Groß more recognition. In 2004 a square in the Eden district was renamed Wilhelm-Groß-Platz and in 2005 the main street was renamed Wilhelm-Groß-Straße.

For the 120th birthday of the artist, an exhibition was opened in Rügenwalde ( Darłowo in Polish ) in October 2003 , which until January 2004 presented important works by the artist. Wilhelm Groß was also active here: He is the creator of the Hansa fountain in front of the Rügenwalder town hall.

On December 12, 2004 a book was published by the journalist, journalist and Germanist Natalie Gommert and the photographer and graphic artist Dieter Wendland (“Wilhelm Groß, Sculptor and Preacher”), which depicts his life and work with numerous illustrations. The book presentation took place in the Gethsemane Church in Berlin, where Groß's monumental sculpture Christ in Gethsemane is exhibited.

literature

Web links

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

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ordinary members from 1903: Ordinary members of the German Association of Artists. In: kuenstlerbund.de. Retrieved January 9, 2019 .
  2. ↑ Arthur Kroetz: The high forest. Poems. Berlin [1931], p. 17 ff.
  3. ↑ Illustration of the straw church in: Hans Biereigel: Oranienburg in old views . European Library, Zaltbommel / Netherlands, 1991; ISBN 9028851518 ; P. 69.
  4. ↑ Ulrike Gawande: Personal memories of artist Wilhelm Groß: Father's deep look. In: maz-online.de . July 1, 2014, accessed January 9, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Great, Wilhelm
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Groß, Wilhelm Ernst Julius (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German sculptor, printmaker and Protestant preacher
DATE OF BIRTH January 12, 1883
PLACE OF BIRTH Slack
DATE OF DEATH February 9, 1974
Place of death Oranienburg -Eden near Berlin