Willy Menz
Willy Menz (born January 16, 1890 in Quetzaltenango in Guatemala , † February 10, 1969 in Bremen ) was a German painter, graphic artist and art school teacher.
biography
Menz was the son of a Bremen merchant who worked in Guatemala and returned to Bremen after damage to his shops in an earthquake in 1892. He attended a pre-school and the Dechanatstrasse secondary school in Neustadt . The talented draftsman made cityscapes and ship drawings early on. From 1905 to 1906 he graduated from the Bremen School of Applied Arts and in 1908 he was an apprentice for lithography at the company Casten & Suling . From 1908 to 1912 he studied at the Royal Academy for Graphic Arts and Book Industry in Leipzig . Most recently he was a master student of Franz Hein .
Willy Menz was a member of the German Association of Artists . From 1911 he worked in Bremen. Menz drew and etched landscapes and cityscapes. He traveled to Norway several times and got married there too. In 1912 he founded the graphic workshop and painting school Menz & Praeger at the Domshof . Artistically he was close to the Worpswede artists' colony . In 1915 he became a volunteer and in 1917 a full-time teacher at the arts and crafts school . In 1923 he was appointed senior teacher and in 1931 professor at the Staatliche Kunstgewerbeschule . Publications took place in various expressionist tent fonts.
After the establishment of the Nordic Art School in the era of National Socialism , he was placed in 1934 for political reasons to retire. Several large paintings were now created in his studio on Langenstrasse . In the 1920s and 1930s he made extensive trips to Spain, Austria, Switzerland, the USA and India. The destroyed Bremen and Emden in the Second World War were frequent motifs for him. From 1943 to 1946 he lived in nearby Neddenaverbergen near Kirchlinteln .
From 1946 he was head of the graphic design class and from 1947 director of the Bremen State Art School, established in 1946 . Menz strived for as free development as possible for the students of the art school and therefore had several conflicts with the Senator for Education . In 1952 he resigned as director. He continued to work in his studio until 1966, creating large-format works that also found space in public buildings in Bremen. From 1953 to 1967 he made numerous trips.
In 1990, on the occasion of his 100th birthday, a large exhibition of his works took place in Bremen.
Paintings by Menz in museums
- Numerous drawings, oil paintings and gouaches , especially pictures of ruins and other topographical views of Bremen in the Focke Museum Bremen.
- In 2009 the collector Alfred Moeke donated ten works by Menz to the East Frisian State Museum in Emden .
- Bremen - Osterstr. September 14, 1942. (Extinguishing work and ruins in Bremen). In: Joseph Hierling Collection. Expressive realism . Kunsthalle Schweinfurt .
literature
- Herbert Black Forest : The Great Bremen Lexicon . 2nd, updated, revised and expanded edition. Edition Temmen, Bremen 2003, ISBN 3-86108-693-X .
- Bernd Küster : Willy Menz 1890–1969 - A painter from Bremen . Worpsweder Verlag, Worpswede 1990.
Individual evidence
- ↑ kuenstlerbund.de: Ordinary members of the German Association of Artists since it was founded in 1903 / Menz, Willy ( Memento from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) (accessed on November 15, 2015)
- ^ Ingrid von der Dollen, Rainer Zimmermann, Gerhard Finckh: The Joseph Hierling Collection. Expressive realism. P. 229, picture and picture description number 213. In: Schweinfurter Museumsschriften 166/2009. Ed .: Erich Schneider . ISBN 978-3-936042-49-8 .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Menz, Willy |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German painter, graphic artist and art school teacher |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 16, 1890 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Quetzaltenango , Guatemala |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 10, 1969 |
| Place of death | Bremen |