Max Böhlen

Max Bohlen ( born April 14, 1902 in Bern, † August 23 1971 in Basel) was a Swiss painter.

Life

After primary and secondary school in Bern Max Bohlen attended from 1918 to 1919 the postal and traffic school in Bern, presumably due to the activity of his father ( a native of Riggisberg, but Verdingkind ). Due to the general unemployment, he worked as a laborer, then worked in an electrical company.

From 1920 he attended the design school, where he took first lessons in life drawing at Ernst Linck, learned modeling in Wülffli and became friendly with Ernst Braker in Bern. He decided for the painting, and Braker gave him a place in the painting school of Victor Surbek and Marguerite Frey- Surbek.

From 1926 to 1929, he was awarded three times the Federal federal grant. During this time he undertook study tours in Tuscany (1926 ), Paris (1926 and 1927 ) and Corsica (1929 and 1930-32 ), where he lived and worked in Ajaccio. During this period he discovered the oil painting (1927 ) and Watercolour ( 1928) as a new form of expression for him, which he had previously worked mostly graphically. In 1932, he was succeeded by his teacher Victor Surbek in the image Round Table harmony - a group of artists and art lovers, the thundering daily in the Bernese Café met Harmony - portrayed that, beside him, among others, the painters Herold Howald, Paul Zehnder, the art historian Wilhelm Stein the sculptor Max Fueter and Victor Surbek shows itself.

From 1932 to 1939 he lived and worked in the East Frisian Aurich. For study purposes, he traveled to Berlin (1930, 1932, 1935), in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam (1933 ), visited his uncle Gustav Schiefler in Hamburg ( 1930) and painted dunes on Langeoog. In 1936, he visited one of the last Erich Heckel in Easter wood on the Flensburg Fjord and painted several watercolors with motifs from Schleswig and of the Fjord.

In 1939 he moved with his family from East Frisia in the acquired Hunter House in Kandern - Egerten in the Black Forest. There he left his family behind during and after the Second World War for about ten years and lived and worked in Switzerland: The Engadine offered numerous motives. He developed new approaches to use colors, and began to draw with the reed pen.

In 1950 he returned permanently to the hunter home to his family and took the landscapes of the Black Forest and Markgraeflerland to the subject, but also figures became more important. From 1966 to travel to Mallorca (1966, 1969, 1970), Southern France (1970, 1971) and again after Ostfriesland (1969 ) led him.

Max Bohlen died unexpectedly of a cerebral hemorrhage and was buried in the cemetery of Wollbach. He was with the German Elsa Rose ( b. 1908 ) married (2 September 1930) and had seven children ( born 1931-1939 ).

Opened in 1995, his youngest son in the hunting lodge in Egerten the Max Bohlen Museum, where his landscapes, portraits, still lifes, drawings and watercolors can be seen.

On the basis of what he performed from 1951 list of his works, his work can be more than 1373 oil paintings, 9 sculptures, watercolors 1149, 1488 landscape drawings and 457 portrait drawings appreciate. Around half of this is in his estate.

Exhibitions and works in the public domain

Exhibitions

Max Bohlen had exhibitions in

• Basel, June 15, 1930 Group exhibition with Victor Surbek, Herold Howald and Thornton Castle
• Kunsthalle Bern, 3 November to 1 December 1935: Pictures Abyssinian Art: Max Bohlen, Fred Hopf, catalog (10 pages) by Cuno Amiet
• Kunstverein in Bremen, 1933
• Stadthalle Freiburg im Breisgau, 21 July to 12 August 1962, painting, graphics, sculpture: Max Bohlen, Hans Reif, Alfred Sachs, Theodore Zeller, catalog published by Friends of Artists 'palette' with illustrations by Max Bohlen
• London
• Oldenburg
• Paris
• South Africa
• Zurich

Works in the public domain

• Fall of Icarus ( Bruegel copy, 1926), Canton of Bern
• Suburb in Bern ( 1927), oil on wood, 79 x 63 cm, Bernese Art Society at the Kunstmuseum Bern
• Corsican Landscape ( 1931), oil on wood, 65 x 98 cm, owned by the Swiss Confederation
• Rhine threshold (1962 ), oil on canvas, 80 x 105 cm, and the Vosges Mountains Landscape ( 1963) oil on canvas, 70 x 90 cm, Regional Council of South Baden, Freiburg im Breisgau
• 83 lithographs, etchings, drypoint etchings and woodcuts, which originated 1930-1969, are located in the Graphic Collection of the Kunstmuseum Bern
• Four paintings are in the collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Freiburg im Breisgau.