Willy Thomsen

Friedrich Wilhelm Thomsen (born December 25, 1898 in Altona , † 1969 in Kampen on Sylt ), also Willy or Willi Thomsen , was a German painter , draftsman , caricaturist , graphic artist and illustrator .

Education and family

Thomsen studied at the Hamburg School of Applied Arts with Wilhelm Niemeyer (1874–1960) and Julius Wohler (1867–1953). In 1921 he graduated from there with an exam as an art teacher . Thomsen married in 1936. His wife was born Pilhofsky.

Professional development

At the age of 23, Thomsen decided to work as a freelance artist. As a result he participated with his works in exhibitions in Altona and Hamburg.

Thomsen's conception of art essentially referred to naturalism , which reached its peak during the Weimar Republic . Around 1930 he received, for example, portrait commissions for the poet Hermann Boßdorf , the writer Gorch Fock or the writer Fritz Stavenhagen . He has received several awards for portraits and poster designs.

From 1932 Thomsen focused on the illustration of books and commercial graphics . His illustrations, safe in the linework, can be found in a large number of books, where they take up the essential motif, the mood or the acting people and implement them graphically.

He found the main motifs of his work in the north German geest and marshland on the Elbe and in the port of Hamburg . There he drew and painted dock workers, tugs , canals , shipyards and cranes .

During the exhibition Paintings from the Gängeviertel in the Hamburger Kunstverein , then still on Alte Rabenstrasse, held in 1933 against the background of the demolition of Hamburg's old town , Thomsen's works were among the best.

He was essentially related to Emil Nolde , whom he knew personally and with whom he shared a preference for the North Sea coast of Holstein . In 1935, one critic wrote: “The proximity to Nolde, which Thomsen has moved more closely than before, should be a passage for him. This is guaranteed by his color imagination, the richness of his palette, which is evident in the watercolors ... ”A Hamburg newspaper said on the occasion of a special exhibition at the Altona Museum in the same year:“ You have to memorize the name Willy Thomsen ”.

Another aspect of his work were religious paintings, which, against the background of the global economic crisis and its effects, illustrate a gloomy mood and the inner turmoil of the time. In 1935, for example, the Hamburger Anzeiger applauded its exaggerated biblical figures in surreal landscapes as scenically “incredibly strong life” and summed it up: “This is how you learn to look from him…” Acknowledged by these works, the Moorburg community commissioned him to create one To paint resurrection scenes over the entrance portal of the church there.

In 1942 Thomsen spent a longer study visit in Buchholz near Burg (Dithmarschen) , where a large number of landscape paintings were created, which were shown at an exhibition in the premises of the German Book Association at the Great Burstah in Hamburg. The criticism attested him "rich talent" and "high quality". Thomsen regularly took part in the "Young Altona Art" exhibitions at the Altona Museum .

In his essay “Painter in the Landscape” Thomsen formulated his love for the north German landscape and his reverence for creation. For the painter's “seeking soul”, “divine rule” is revealed only in nature: “... A human life is not enough to exhaust it.”

After the end of the Second World War , Thomsen exhibited a series of 31 graphics on the subject of "gestures of life" for the first time again in 1946 in the Hamburg gallery Brach in Eppendorfer Landstrasse. Presentations of his drawings and watercolors followed in the same year as a painting show in the Galerie Benedix in Colonaden 47 and in the Galerie Louis Bock, Große Bleichen . On the occasion of his 50th birthday, a retrospective was presented in the Rauhen Haus . His "excellent sense of color" and a "realistic representation" were highlighted by the critics.

He worked as a graphic artist for the Hamburger Anzeiger , and from 1949 for the Hamburger Abendblatt . In the 1950s, Thomsen provided numerous portrait sketches almost every day for his “Humanly Seen” section and for cultural contributions about musicians, poets and celebrities, for example by Clemens Brentano , Gorch Fock, Vivien Leigh , Karl Muck and Maurice Ravel .

In the 1950s Thomsen broke with his previously expressive painting. More than four hundred abstract representations were created with which Thomsen connected to the modern age . Through his compositions of abstracting color surfaces, he approached Hans Hartung , Wassily Kandinsky , Paul Klee , Ernst Wilhelm Nay , Pablo Picasso and Fritz Winter , which were shown in Hamburg at the time. Thomsen characterized his change of style as follows: “This painting is so completely different. It wants the composition that results from the freer design that is detached from naturalism. [...] Then a world builds up, initially a bit confused, but of exciting power, gradually takes shape until the hour of birth of a creation. "

Exhibitions took Thomsen to New York City in 1952 . Nevertheless, he was always drawn back to the port of Hamburg, the island of Sylt and the Baltic Sea . On Thomsen's 60th birthday in 1958, the “Hamburger Abendblatt” characterizes him as a “emphatically northern German artist” who works “thematically and formally versatile”.

It was not until September 1986 that around 900 works by the now almost forgotten Hamburg artist were found in the Dutch series No. 105 in Hamburg-Ottensen , on canvas, cardboard, wood and paper. An art dealer collected these and other works by Thomsen and came up with around 1,500 copies. Thomsen was a member of the Hamburg Art Association .

Oeuvre

Book illustrations (excerpt)

• Werner Altendorf : "The zodiac - a happy philosophy with our distant relatives" (1944)
• Adolf Beiss : " A gift of love for parents and children" (1943)
• Barthold Blunck : "The Captain" (1942)
• Hans Friedrich Blunck : "Happy Island" (1942)
• Ernst Günter Dickmann (Ed.): "In the home - in the home" (1941)
• Bernhard Faust : "The fearless choice" (1943)
• Hans Franck : "Overturned!" (1942)
• Erich Grisar : "Fitter Klinkhammer" (1943)
• Fritz Jöde (coll.): "Nutcracker - Nice old folk puzzles" (1943)
• Hannes Kraft / Christian Jenssen (eds.): “The ship's bell. A reading and storybook for happy hours on land and at sea ”. (1943)
• Reading Book Committee of the Society of Friends of the Patriotic Schooling and Education System in Hamburg (Ed.): Reading book for German lessons in the 5th school year "Low German Sages" (1950)
• Martin Luserke : " Hasko " (1936)
• Ders .: "Octopus crosses in the North Sea" (1937) about the octopus
• Ders .: "The Journey to the Last Sand" (1939)
• Ders .: "The Strange Prediction" (1942)
• Ders .: "Mabh Pab" (1942)
• Ders .: "The exit against death or the last venture of the Geusen Admiral" (1943)
• Ders .: "A man!" (1943)
• Bernhard Meyer-Marwitz : “The street of youth. Pictures and figures from the big city "(1943)
• Georg W. Pijet : "Ehrliche Finder GmbH An exciting but funny boy adventure" (1949)
• Hans Reyhing / Christian Jenssen (eds.): "The German Bell - People's Book of the German Homeland" (1943)
• Alfred Richter: "Eulenspiegel in Schilda" (1943)
• Wilhelm Scharrelmann : "Katen im Teufelsmoor - Face and Parable" (1937)
• Fritz Schneider: "The Eerie Guest" (1942)
• Willy Thomsen: "Low German Weekly Calendar" (1947, 1949)
• Willy Thomsen: "The Low German Till Eulenspiegel - Sixty of his fool's pranks" (1948)

Drawings (extract)

• "Finkenwerder Fischer", Indian ink portrait
• “Adolf Hitler in Uniform with Binoculars” (1939), pencil sketch
• “Spanish Bullfighter” (1960), pencil drawing

Painting (excerpt)

• "Forest Scene" (1918)
• "Marsh landscape" (1935) - in the Altonaer Museum, Hamburg
• “Greek temple ruins with a philosopher's head” (1944), watercolor
• "Smoking man with a cap", watercolor
• “Fishing Boats in the Priel”, watercolor
• "Composition with Figure" (1957)
• “Still life”, watercolor
• "Sculpture in Landscape" (1957)

Memberships

• Hamburg artists

literature

• Richard Hermes: joke against Nazi . Morawe & Scheffelt, Hamburg 1946
• Catalog of the masters of the 20th century in the Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg 1969
• Willy Thomsen 1898–1969. Exhibition catalog, May 27 to June 20, 1990. Auktionshaus Kuhlmann + Struck (Ed.) Self-published, Hamburg 1990.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Thomsen, Willy (painter, graphic artist, born December 25th, 1898 Altona, died 1969) . In: State Archives of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg. From: deutsche-digitale-bibliothek.de, accessed on July 8, 2017
2. ↑ Willy Thomsen (1898–1969) . On: kruse-homepage.de, accessed on July 8, 2017
3. ^ Hans Vollmer : General Lexicon of Fine Artists of the 20th Century , Volume VI (Supplements HZ). Reprint of the original edition from 1953. Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich 1992, page 447.
4. ↑ Willy Thomsen (1898–1969) . From: lot-tissmímo.com, accessed July 8, 2017
5. ↑ Willy Thomsen: Abstract and naturalistic paintings . From: artnet.de, accessed July 8, 2017