Clara Westhoff

Clara Henriette Sophie Rilke, born Westhoff ( born November 21, 1878 in Bremen, † March 9, 1954 in Fischerhude ) was a German sculptor and painter.

Life and work

As a daughter of the businessman Heinrich Westhoff she grew up in Bremen Oberneuland. At the age of seventeen drew Westhoff to Munich, where he attended a private art school. 1898 she took drawing and Modellierunterricht with Fritz Mackensen in Worpswede. In Worpswede she befriended, among others, Otto Modersohn and Paula Modersohn -Becker and was a frequent guest on the bark Hoff of the artist Heinrich Vogeler and his wife Martha. There she met her future husband in 1900 also, the poet Rainer Maria Rilke know.

Began in 1899 and Westhoff at Carl Seffner and Max Klinger in Leipzig and in 1900 at the Académie Julian in Paris continued her training as a sculptor; there she met Auguste Rodin know. A year later she married on April 28, Rainer Maria Rilke, and they went to a neighboring village Worpswede, after Westerwede. There Rilke had bought a house for its interiors his friend Heinrich Vogeler had provided. In December 1901, the daughter Ruth was born.

Already in the summer of 1902, Rilke gave up their apartment and moved to Paris, there to write a monograph on Auguste Rodin. Clara Westhoff followed him a short time later and took the daughter to the grandparents. The marriage, however, was broken, as Rilke was obviously not cut out for a middle-class family life. The friendly relationship between Rilke and Clara Westhoff remained.

Clara Westhoff created among others a portrait bust of her husband Rainer Maria Rilke (1901, Plaster on gypsum base), 1902 a bust of Heinrich Vogeler and eleven years later, a portrait of the writer Ricarda Huch (1912, bronze), but at that time demanded by Clara Westhoff, issue the bust without naming them, because they saw themselves represented too old.

In 1919, Westhoff moved on with her daughter to Fischerhude, where she lived until her death. From her house with studio later became the "Café Rilke ," which still exists today. It got by Rainer Maria Rilke the house saying: " As much fell, confidence began to me, the future grant that I may, I can! "

To 1925, Westhoff turned to painting, so in addition to their plastic work was an equally comprehensive pictorial work. Soon after her death she was forgotten. Her works were in private hands or were in various depots of the public hardly accessible. With its comprehensive biography published in 1986 Marina Sauer initiated a rehabilitation of the artist by freed Clara Rilke - Westhoff from the shadows to be seen only as a wife and as Rilke's friend Paula Modersohn -Becker. Clara Rilke - Westhoff can be seen as a pioneer of the sculpture of women in Germany today.

Exhibitions (selection)

Honors

In the district of Bremen Oberneuland the Rilke - Westhoff pathway was named after her.