Willem Grimm

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Mural in the Adlerstrasse school in Hamburg-Barmbek-Nord , destroyed during the National Socialist era, black and white photography by Adolf and Carl Dransfeld , 1930

Willem Grimm (born May 2, 1904 in Eberstadt near Darmstadt , † September 19, 1986 in Hamburg ) was a German painter and graphic artist .

Youth and education

Grimm's family was characterized by craftsmanship and art. His father and grandfather were already lithographers . It was therefore natural that he, too, dedicated himself to graphic techniques. He studied at the Werkkunstschule Offenbach with professors Rudolf Koch and Ludwig Enders . Koch soon recognized his talent for painting. He was not only influenced religiously by his parents' house, but also by his teachers Rudolf Koch and Karl Caspar in the sense of a religious art.

In Worpswede , where he was staying in the Worpswede artists' colony in 1922 , he came into contact with the work of Paula Modersohn-Becker . In 1924 he settled in Hamburg and studied with Willi Titze at the Hamburg State Art School. At first he devoted himself almost exclusively to graphic techniques, but through his contacts with the Hamburg Secession , of which he became a member, and his acquaintance with Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, he turned more and more to the medium of painting. He received support from the art historian Rosa Schapire , who also campaigned for painters from the artists' association Brücke , and from the art patrons Cläre Grimm and Emmi Ruben . In 1929 he joined the Altona artists' association . He was also a member of the Hamburg Art Association .

plant

He made a name for himself during his studies, especially with his experimental graphics. After a few guest exhibitions at the Hamburg Secession , he became an official member in 1929/30. In the early 1930s, at the age of 27, he was already one of the most important Hamburg artists. In 1930 he got a studio in the Ohlendorff House, an old palace that the city had given the artists to use. From 1930 to 1931 he had accepted a teaching position for nature drawing at the state art school and the art critics were well disposed to him.

Together with artist friends Karl Ballmer , Karl Kluth and Kurt Löwengard as well as other colleagues, he developed the Hamburg secession style. Typical for his expression of this style were the colored, curved lines that interacted with a flat composition. His palette was dominated by tones that are close to one another in the color wheel.

In addition to classic genres such as portrait, landscape and still life, from 1931 Grimm dealt with the motif of the "Rummelpott scenes", which would ultimately become characteristic of his oeuvre. Rummelpottlauf is an old north German custom. On New Year's Eve, the children go from door to door and collect goodies. They are disguised in a grotesque, ghostly manner, some with masks. The South German Grimm, who was also familiar with the Carnival in Basel , was fascinated by both sides of this tradition - the fun and cheerfulness of children's games and the eerily grotesque atmosphere created by the disguise and the darkness.

He often added a lonely girl to these pictures. It stemmed from the grief over the untimely death of a friend's daughter. The girl's figure gives the coarse and funny scenes something melancholy. In addition, the individual figure stands opposite the children's group as a counterpoint.

He was enthusiastic about the popular secession cinnabar festivals , most recently also on stage.

From 1926 to 1929 he undertook his first study trips to Paris , New York and India , whereby his impressions in Paris are directly reflected in his work. During this time he also had his first exhibitions at the Hamburger Kunstverein and the Hamburger Sezession .

Willem Grimm began his first teaching activity at the state art school, initially as an evening teacher for nature drawing. He also painted two murals for Hamburg schools. In addition, he took part in the exhibition 'Ung Hamborger Kunst' in Gothenburg, which was curated by Gustav Pauli . In addition to his close painter friend Kurt Löwengard, he was particularly close to Fritz Flinte , Karl Kluth and Karl Ballmer , who had a strong influence on him.

In 1932, together with Karl Kluth and Hans Ruwoldt , he received a scholarship from the Hamburg Amsinck Foundation for a trip to Italy, which is reflected in the exhibition of the Hamburg art association 'Three Hamburgers in Italy'.

time of the nationalsocialism

After the National Socialists had taken control of Germany and brought culture under their dominance, Grimm withdrew from cultural life. He reacted cautiously and wait-and-see to the new circumstances and hardly commented on politics. He tried to avoid the attacks of the National Socialists and the attention of the Hamburg Reich Chamber of Fine Arts by frequent trips. For example, the former members of the Hamburg Secession Kurt Löwengard, Erich Hartmann , Ivo Hauptmann , Gretchen Wohlwill and Eduard Bargheer met Maria Wolff to draw and watercolors in small groups or in pairs on the island of Sylt and on the Baltic Sea . Grimm painted in 1934 at Gut Boldebuck in Mecklenburg and traveled with Karl Kluth to Norway , in 1935 to Denmark , Sylt and again and again to Basel for Carnival. In 1936 he travels to the Alps and Sweden .

The repressions of the National Socialists reached Willem Grimm less than many of his painter colleagues; Nevertheless, planned exhibitions were not opened or closed prematurely, such as the Olympic exhibition of the Hamburger Kunstverein in 1936 and five works removed from the Hamburger Kunsthalle as 'degenerate'. The Hamburg Secession had already dissolved itself because it did not want to be forced by the National Socialists to expel its Jewish members. Grimm eventually attended an agricultural school in Worpswede and for a while became a farmer on his father-in-law's farm near Malente .

At the beginning of the Second World War he was drafted into the Wehrmacht . However, he did not have to go to the front, but stayed in northern Germany, where he had to guard ammunition depots.

New beginning after 1945

When Hamburg was bombed in 1943 , his studio in Isestrasse and his work were destroyed. He then fell into a depression. But shortly after the end of the war he began to work artistically again. Initially he concentrated on the graphic reconstruction of his destroyed pictures.

In his later newly created works, he continued his earlier work and retained his treasure trove of motifs. Stylistically, he developed away from the secession style: the line was emphasized less, while he attached more importance to the surface composition.

His former colleague Friedrich Ahlers-Hestermann appointed him in 1946 as a professor at the Hamburg State Art School, now the Hamburg University of Fine Arts , where he worked until 1969. His students in the 'Free Painting' section included Vicco von Bülow ( Loriot ), Kai Sudeck and Reinhard Drenkhahn , Gisela Bührmann , Agnes Voigt, Hans Breder and Gerda Maria Raschke and Hanne Darboven .

In 1962 he joined the Darmstadt Secession .

Willem Grimm pillow stone on the family grave, Ohlsdorf cemetery

Willem Grimm was one of the most important personalities in Hamburg's art scene. He is regarded as an important - if not groundbreaking - artist and teacher. The art historian Rainer Zimmermann counts him among the group of the missing generation . Until recently, Grimm had followed the artistic development of his students. Willem Grimm painted until his death on September 19, 1986.

The Grimm family grave with a pillow stone for Willem Grimm is located in grid square Y 21 (northeast of Chapel 2) at Hamburg's Ohlsdorf cemetery .

The Hamburger Kunsthalle , which dedicated a retrospective of his graphic work to him on his 80th birthday, showed a cross-section of his work on his 100th birthday in 2004. The private art collection of Wilhelm Werner contains seven paintings, 22 watercolors and drawings as well as almost 130 prints from his work between 1926 and 1946.

Exhibitions (selection)

  • 1925 Jury-free exhibition to promote Hamburg artists, Kunstverein Hamburg
  • 1936 Willem Grimm / Martin Irwahn , Kunstverein Hamburg
  • 1936 painting and sculpture in Germany ("Olympic Exhibition"), Kunstverein Hamburg
  • 1952 Exhibition of Hamburg artists, Hamburger Kunsthalle
  • 1955 Willem Grimm, Overbeck Society , Lübeck
  • 1962 Willem Grimm, paintings and graphics, Kunstverein Darmstadt eV
  • 1969 17th annual exhibition of the German Association of Artists , Hanover
  • 1972 Pictures, sculptures, graphics (nine artists from the gallery in Flottbek), Weißenstein Castle, Pommersfelden
  • 1975 Willem Grimm, Elmshorn Art Association
  • 1977 The thirties. Location Germany, House of Art, Munich
  • 1983 Persecuted and seduced. Art under the swastika in Hamburg, Hamburger Kunsthalle
  • 1986 Deutscher Künstlerbund eV, 34th annual exhibition (1936 banned images - 1986 variety of images) Rheinisches Landesmuseum and Bonn Science Center
  • 1989 Willem Grimm 1904–1986 Life and Work, Ernst-Barlach-Haus, Hamburg
  • 1989 Art in the ostracism. The Emmi Ruben donation 1948, Hamburger Kunsthalle
  • 1996 The Hermann-Josef Bunte Collection , Schleswig-Holstein State Museum, Cismar Monastery
  • 2007 Artistic tendencies after 1945 in Hamburg, Haspa-Galerie, Hamburg 2007
  • 2010 Willem Grimm. Ways to printmaking, Municipal Art Museum, Spendhaus Reutlingen

Public collections

Works by Willem Grimm can be found in:

Awards and honors

literature

  • Willem Grimm . In: The child in our world - a competition of the Werner Otto Foundation for the visual artists of Hamburg. Werner Otto Foundation (Ed.), Hamburg 1979, pp. 11, 14, 18-22
  • Margret Grimm, Harald Rüggeberg (ed.): The painter Willem Grimm. Christians, Hamburg 1989 ISBN 3-7672-1100-9
  • Hermann-Josef Bunte Ed .: Willem Grimm 1904–1986. Transformation and masking. Catalog of the exhibition Hamburger Sparkasse , Haspa. Hamburg 1999. In collaboration with Margret Grimm, Harald Rüggeberg
  • Friederike Weimar: The Hamburg Secession 1919–1933. Fischerhude 2003 ISBN 3-88132-258-2
  • Rainer Zimmermann: The inexhaustible motive. Paintings and graphics by Willem Grimm, in: The art of the lost generation. German expressive realism painting from 1925–1975. Düsseldorf 1980, pp. 315-320, 358
  • Margret Grimm: Willem Grimm. Catalog raisonné of Christian’s prints , Hamburg 2008
  • Rainer Zimmermann: Expressive realism. Painting of the Lost Generation. Munich 1994

Web links

Commons : Willem Grimm  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ulrich Luckhardt: The collection of the caretaker Wilhelm Werner (= catalog for the exhibition from September 18, 2011 to January 15, 2012 in the Hamburger Kunsthalle). Mare Verlag, Hamburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-936543-72-8 , pp. 73-97
  2. ↑ kuenstlerbund.de: 17th exhibition Hanover / Participants: Grimm, Willem ( Memento from January 22, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
personal data
SURNAME Grimm, Willem
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter and graphic artist
DATE OF BIRTH May 2, 1904
PLACE OF BIRTH Darmstadt-Eberstadt
DATE OF DEATH September 19, 1986
Place of death Hamburg