Willi Langbein

Willi Oskar Carl Langbein (born October 2, 1895 in Berlin , † February 8, 1967 in Kiel ) was a German painter.

Live and act

Willi Langbein was a son of Carl Friedrich Ernst Langbein from Tannroda († 1905) and his wife Anna Mathilde Friederike, née Geske, who came from Pomerania . His father was allowed to open his own business as a master tailor in 1886 and has been a Prussian citizen ever since. Due to the early death of his father, Langbein experienced a childhood and youth in economically difficult circumstances. Due to physical weaknesses, he could not attend a Berlin community school on a regular basis, but still had good reports.

Langbein began drawing at the age of ten and often took a sketch pad with him when he went hiking. As a 16-year-old, he successfully applied to the Royal School of Applied Arts in Berlin without the necessary Abitur or completed vocational training . Here he learned from Max Kutschmann , Emil Rudolf Weiß , Emil Orlik and Max Geri .

Langbein studied for three years and then worked as a freelance artist. During the First World War he had to do military service from 1916. He fought initially in Warsaw , then in Flanders . Here he created several landscape drawings in the smallest of formats. After the end of the war he spent half a year with friends in Bad Gastein . Then he traveled through Germany with his friend Erich Kliefert . Both saw the Rhineland, Schlüchtern and Colmar .

In 1925 Langbein moved with his wife into their own house in Elmschenhagen . In 1935 he built his own studio there. During the Second World War he did military service with the naval flak and was mainly stationed in Kiel-Pries . Due to his artistic work, he often did not have to do any service. After the end of the war, Langbein traveled to England, Holland, Paris, Sweden, Carinthia and northern Italy.

Works

Langbein's pictures show that he had a profound relationship with nature. Historically, his style was somewhere between Romanticism and Impressionism. His landscape paintings have naturalistic, but not realistic, echoes. He painted with powerful, diverse colors that reflected his feelings about nature.

In particular, the painter placed the relationship between arable soils and cloudy skies and the relationships between living house facades and large trees at the center of his works. He created many still lifes and pictures of flowers in which he used intimate small forms that were created due to his orderly studio. In his portraits he was able to work out the individual facial features that came about on the basis of mental reflection.

Langbein not only worked as a painter, but also as a restorer. His technical skills and knowledge of art history helped him. The churches he restored included the buildings in Allermöhe , Hamburg-Moorburg , Süderbrarup and Satrup .

photos

Well-known pictures of Langbein are:

• 18 large pictures in the church in Allermöhe showing scenes from the Gospel.
• The then federal government, the state government of Schleswig-Holstein and the city of Kiel acquired paintings by the artist, including two portraits of mayors for the Kiel town hall .
• The Kieler Kunsthalle and the SHLB took over further pictures.
• Other purchases were made by banks, insurance companies, parishes, schools and institutes.

family

Langbein married Hulda Voigt (born September 13, 1879) from Marienhof an der Schlei in 1925 , whose sister Helene Voigt-Diederichs was a writer. Voigt was a daughter of the landowner Theodor Voigt and his wife Marie, née Brinkmann from Hamburg.

After Voigt's death in 1954, Langbein married Hildegard Peper, who was a trained nurse, two years later. Her father Gustav Peper was a mechanical engineer and married to Lina Katherina, née Vöge from Laboe . Peper had a daughter from his first marriage who adopted Langbein.

literature

• Karl Rickers: Langbein, Willi . in: Schleswig-Holstein Biographical Lexicon . Volume 4. Karl Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 1976, pp. 133-135.
• Ulrich Schulte-Wülwer: Willi Langbein . In: the same: K ieler artist. Volume 3: In the Weimar Republic and National Socialism 1918--1945 , Heide: Boyens 2019 (special publications by the Society for Kiel City History; 88), ISBN 978-3-8042-1493-4 , pp. 462-474.

Web links

• Volker Schübel: Willi Langbein's pictures in the Dreieinigkeitskirche . Images in the Dreieinigkeitskirche Allermöhe, biography and a photograph of the artist.