Wilhelm Rudolph (painter)

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Wilhelm Rudolph (born February 22, 1889 in Hilbersdorf near Chemnitz , † September 30, 1982 in Dresden ) was a German painter , wood cutter , graphic artist and draftsman .

In over seven decades, Wilhelm Rudolph created a diverse and largely haunting work. The high point of his oeuvre is the expressive graphic work complex The Destroyed Dresden , which includes several hundred drawings, watercolors , lithographs and woodcuts . There is no equivalent in German art of the time for the intensity and scope of this artistic examination of the city of Dresden, which was destroyed in 1945 .

Life

Grave of Wilhelm Rudolph in the Johannisfriedhof in Dresden.
Oil painting "Prof. Heinz Bongartz", 1961

Wilhelm Rudolph was born into a weaver family. In 1906 he began an apprenticeship as a lithographer , and in 1908 he switched to the Dresden Art Academy . His teachers were Robert Sterl and Carl Bantzer , whose master class he was. He survived the First World War as an infantryman on the Western Front (Verdun and Somme). From 1919 to 1932 he worked as a freelance artist in Dresden. As a late impressionist painter, he initially oriented himself towards expressionism . Later he was influenced by the New Objectivity in order to then turn to social issues in a painterly realistic representation. He was also known for his depictions of animals.

Participation in art exhibitions in 1924/25 (in the Emil Richter Gallery , Dresden and in the Goldschmidt & Wallerstein Gallery, Berlin) and in 1931 (in the Neue Kunst Fides Gallery , Dresden) brought him not only his breakthrough, but also his appointment in 1932 Professor at the Dresden Art Academy. After the “ seizure of power ” by the National Socialists , works by Wilhelm Rudolph were defamed in the exhibition “ Degenerate Art ” in the atrium of Dresden City Hall from August 17 to October 15, 1933 . Since 1937 there has been a de facto exhibition and sale ban, and 43 of his works have been confiscated. In 1939 he was repeatedly denounced politically and was finally released.

For Wilhelm Rudolph, the air raids on Dresden in the night of February 13-14, 1945, were an event that was as existential as it was formative . His work, especially his early work, was largely destroyed. In the following years, Rudolph dealt with the destruction of Dresden in hundreds of reed pen drawings and woodcuts.

From 1946 to 1949 Wilhelm Rudolph held a professorship for painting and graphics at the Academy of Fine Arts Dresden, but was dismissed from the teaching post again by the then rector Hans Grundig and against the protests of his students. His best-known students are the painters Karl-Heinz Adler and Gotthard Graubner , who was de-registered at the time because he had stuck to his teacher. In 1975/1976 Graubner curatorially suggested Wilhelm Rudolph's most important retrospective in the Federal Republic of Germany in the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf and selected the works.

After his release, Wilhelm Rudolph lived as a freelance artist in Dresden and was artistically productive even in old age until his death. He remained an unadapted loner and uncomfortable outsider in the cultural scene of the GDR until the end, but he was also instrumentalized in terms of cultural policy: the "backward-looking artist" later became a "Nestor of painting in the GDR". He tried to evade attempts by ideological appropriation.

Between 1961 and 1982 Rudolph received four high and highest art awards from the GDR as well as two honorary citizenships. In 1976 he became a pioneer in the band . 25 artists of the German Democratic Republic included.

Quote

“The dawning light of February 14, 1945 only illuminated a glowing, smoking fire on the Elbe, where Dresden had been the day before. Elongated flame necks licked the last of the oxygen from holes and abysses on the rubble facades. The asphalt, which had melted in the blaze, held the shoes of those who had fled from death mercilessly. Months later, I kept finding women's and children's shoes […] In the restless imagination between sleeping and waking, I used a steel pen to dig the images of the destruction into metal and stone slabs, line by line like wounds. In sober daylight, I was given a small package of Zander's handmade paper, some ink and a reed pen that I was able to save. So I went about my project as if in a forced state. "

- Wilhelm Rudolph

plant

Wilhelm Rudolph's painterly work comprises around 700 oil paintings. His graphic work includes numerous reed pen drawings, watercolors and around 700 woodcuts , which the artist only dated in exceptional cases, as well as a few etchings (around 1920) and lithographs (1947). Wilhelm Rudolph almost exclusively printed his woodcuts himself into old age and then noted this (mostly without specifying the edition) on the printed sheet, often in handwriting as a "hand print". There are only a few editions before and after 1945. Rudolph's woodcuts created after 1945 were cataloged by Bernhard Koban (a total of 329 woodcuts, mostly cut on both sides; only a few were cut before 1945 and rescued by Rudolph from his destroyed studio). The number of the mostly very rare woodcuts before 1945 can only be estimated and amounts to more than 300 woodcuts in any case.

The destroyed Dresden

The extensive graphic work complex about Dresden, which was destroyed in 1945, is considered Wilhelm Rudolph's main work. The graphic works on the rubble landscape of Dresden are regarded as singular in their aesthetic and documentary expression. They went down in German art history as artistic evidence of the violence and apocalyptic horrors of the 20th century. This work consists of various graphic series. The cycle The Destroyed Dresden , comprising 150 reed pen drawings, has been owned by the Dresden Kupferstich-Kabinett since 1959 . The work complex of the destroyed Dresden also includes 200 watercolors and watercolored drawings Dresden as a landscape as well as the print-graphic cycles Dresden 1945 - after the catastrophe (35 woodcuts), Aus (47 woodcuts) and Dresden 1945 (20 woodcuts and lithographs in small editions). In 1972 all of the material was reviewed, the best sheets were compiled into the final series Dresden 1945 (55 woodcuts from the period 1945–1947) and printed by hand by the artist.

Exhibitions (selection)

  • 1915: Participation in the Third War Special Exhibition of the Ernst Arnold Gallery , Dresden
  • 1915–1925: Participation in the summer exhibition of the Dresden Artists' Association
  • 1919: Six young Dresden artists work in the Emil Richter Gallery , Dresden
  • 1920: Participation in an exhibition: workers in the Association of Younger Dresden Artists, in the Saxon Art Association , Dresden
  • 1921: Exhibition of the painting collection of Prof. Wilhelm Steinhausen in the Kunsthütte Chemnitz
  • 1924: Solo exhibition at the Emil Richter Gallery in Dresden (review by Will Grohmann in: Cicerone. Vol. 16, 1924, p. 239)
    • Solo exhibition at the art dealer Goldschmidt & Wallerstein in Berlin (review by Willi Wolfradt in: Cicerone . Vol. 16, 1924, p. 467)
    • Participation in the exhibition of young Dresden artists in the gallery Neue Kunst Fides in Dresden
  • 1924/25: Participation in the First General Art Exhibition in Moscow, Saratov and Leningrad (as a member of the "Red Group")
  • 1926: Participation in a large watercolor exhibition in Dresden
  • 1927: Graphic exhibition of the German Association of Artists , Dresden
  • 1931: Solo exhibition in the Galerie Neue Kunst Fides, Dresden
  • 1933: " Degenerate Art " in the atrium of Dresden City Hall
  • 1945/46: Exhibition participation by free artists. Exhibition No. 1 at the Dresden Art Academy
  • 1947: Exhibition in the house of the Kulturbund Dresden
  • 1955, 1958 and 1960: Solo exhibitions in the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden (each with catalog)
  • 1965: Solo exhibition at the Stuttgart Trade Union House (catalog)
  • 1974: Gallery at Sachsenplatz Leipzig and in the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts
  • 1975/1976: Städtische Kunsthalle Düsseldorf with catalog
  • 1977: National Gallery Berlin (East) with catalog
  • 1978: (August) sales exhibition Galerie Berlin, Staatl. Art trade in the GDR
  • 1979: several exhibitions, Dresden, Neubrandenburg and Munich
  • 1980: Solo exhibition woodcuts , Central Institute for Nuclear Research, Rossendorf near Dresden
  • 1981: Solo exhibition, Berlin (West) with accompanying publication (text by Erhard Frommhold)
  • 1982 and 1988: Solo exhibitions, Ravensburg ( Döbele Gallery , each with a catalog)
  • 1992: Solo exhibition, Städtische Galerie Albstadt (catalog)
  • 1993: Participation in the exhibition The Vertical Danger. Air War in Art. in the documenta -Halle, Kassel
  • 1997/98: Participation in the exhibition Deutschlandbilder in Martin-Gropius-Bau , Berlin
    • Participation in the exhibition Die Große Alten 2 , Neue Sächsische Galerie, Chemnitz
  • 2001: Solo exhibition Wilhelm Rudolph - 100 woodcuts , Deutsche Werkstätten Hellerau, Dresden
  • 2005: Solo exhibition at the art dealer Dr. Irene Lehr (catalog)
  • 2007: Solo exhibition, woodcuts from 1920 to 1960 in the Remmert and Barth Gallery, Düsseldorf
  • 2009/10: Participation in the Art and Cold War exhibition . German positions 1945–1989. German Historical Museum , Berlin (catalog)
  • 2011/12: New Objectivity in Dresden. Painting of the twenties from Dix ​​to Querner , October 1, 2011 - January 8, 2012, Kunsthalle im Lipsius-Bau in Dresden (catalog)
  • 2014: The most fantastic is reality . Painting and woodcuts. Municipal Gallery Dresden (catalog)

as well as numerous other exhibitions and participation in exhibitions.

Wilhelm Rudolph, Dresden February 13, 1945 - The death of Dresden, exhibition City Hall Dresden, Gemäldegalerie Neue Meister Dresden, folder with 13 reproductions and catalog index, Waltraut Schumann, 1967

Public collections

Paintings, drawings and graphic prints by Wilhelm Rudolph are part of numerous public collections.

Honors

Literature (selection)

  • Wilhelm Rudolph. The most fantastic is reality. Painting and woodcuts. Exhibition catalog Städtische Galerie Dresden u. Kunstmuseum Spendhaus Reutlingen, Kerber Verlag Bielefeld 2014, ISBN 978-3-86678-987-6
  • Wilhelm Rudolph. Woodcuts from two decades. Buchheim, Feldafing u. Zwinger, Dresden 1958
  • Wilhelm Rudolph. In: Trailblazer. 25 GDR artists . VEB Verlag der Kunst, Dresden 1976, pp. 62–77.
  • Jule Hammer , Siegfried Kiok u. Ludwig Thürmer (Hrsg.): Dresden as experience and moral landscape. Wilhelm Rudolph, woodcuts, watercolors, drawings. House on Lützowplatz , Berlin 1981
  • Martin Schmidt: Wilhelm Rudolph. In the light and darkness of life and nature. Life and work. Monograph and dissertation. In: Rainer Beck and Constanze Peres (eds.): Phantasos IV. Series of publications for art and philosophy of the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts. University of Fine Arts Dresden and Verlag der Kunst Dresden (Philo Fine Arts), Dresden 2003, ISBN 3-364-00436-6
  • Anke Scharnhorst:  Rudolph, Wilhelm . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 2. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
  • Waltraut Schumann (Ed.): Wilhelm Rudolph, Dresden February 13, 1945 , Dresden 1967
  • Joachim Uhlitzsch, Wilhelm Rudolph, Colored Painting Reproductions, Leipzig 1968
  • Art on the move , exhibition book, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Gemäldegalerie Neue Meister, 1980, Fig. 448/49, p. 314 ff., P. 368

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Martin Schmidt: Wilhelm Rudolph. In the light and darkness of life and nature. Life and work. Dresden 2003, p. 9f.
  2. ^ Martin Schmidt: Wilhelm Rudolph. In the light and darkness of life and nature. Life and work. Dresden 2003, p. 95.
  3. ^ Heinz Klunker: deutschlandfunk.de: Line by line like wounds in: Deutschlandfunk , Das Feature , February 3, 2015.
  4. ^ Martin Schmidt: Wilhelm Rudolph. In the light and darkness of life and nature. Life and work. Dresden 2003, p. 243.
  5. ^ Ernst Klee : The culture lexicon for the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-10-039326-5 , p. 501.
  6. ^ Martin Schmidt: Wilhelm Rudolph. In the light and darkness of life and nature. Life and work. Dresden 2003, p. 80f.
  7. ^ Martin Schmidt: Wilhelm Rudolph. In the light and darkness of life and nature. Life and work. Dresden 2003, p. 10.
  8. ^ Martin Schmidt: Wilhelm Rudolph. In the light and darkness of life and nature. Life and work. Dresden 2003, pp. 152, 95-106.
  9. ↑ Gotthard Graubner in the Munzinger archive , accessed on January 5, 2012 ( beginning of article freely accessible)
  10. ^ Martin Schmidt: Wilhelm Rudolph. In the light and darkness of life and nature. Life and work. Dresden 2003, pp. 115–121.
  11. ↑ Jürgen Harten: Foreword in: Wilhelm Rudolph. Paintings, watercolors, drawings, woodcuts. Exhibition catalog, Städtische Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf 1975, pp. 5–16
  12. ↑ a b Martin Schmidt: Wilhelm Rudolph. In the light and darkness of life and nature. Life and work. Dresden 2003, p. 123.
  13. ↑ Till Ehrlich : Half-heartedly checked off. Taken into the depot in Dresden and completely forgotten: the uncomfortable Dresden realist Wilhelm Rudolph. In: taz , May 4, 1994, p. 13.
  14. ↑ Pioneer. 25 GDR artists. VEB Verlag der Kunst, Dresden 1976, pp. 62–77.
  15. ^ Wilhelm Rudolph: The destroyed Dresden. 65 drawings. With an essay by Horst Drescher. Verlag Phillip Reclam jun., Leipzig 1988, p. 5.
  16. ^ Martin Schmidt: Wilhelm Rudolph. In the light and darkness of life and nature. Life and Work , Dresden, 2003, p. 9.
  17. ^ Martin Schmidt: Wilhelm Rudolph. In the light and darkness of life and nature. Life and work. Dresden 2003, pp. 9-12, 152-158.
  18. ^ Rainer Zimmermann: The Art of the Lost Generation. German expressive realism painting from 1925 to 1975. Econ Verlag, Düsseldorf and Vienna 1980, ISBN 3-430-19961-1 , p. 181.
  19. ^ A b c Wilhelm Rudolph: The destroyed Dresden. 65 drawings. With an essay by Horst Drescher. Verlag Phillip Reclam jun., Leipzig 1988. p. 117.
  20. ^ Martin Schmidt: Wilhelm Rudolph. In the light and darkness of life and nature. Life and work. Dresden 2003. pp. 243–245.
  21. ↑ a b c d e f Wilhelm Rudolph: The destroyed Dresden. 65 drawings. With an essay by Horst Drescher. Verlag Phillip Reclam jun., Leipzig, 1988. p. 112.
personal data
SURNAME Rudolph, Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter, wood cutter, graphic artist and draftsman
DATE OF BIRTH February 22, 1889
PLACE OF BIRTH Chemnitz
DATE OF DEATH September 30, 1982
Place of death Dresden