Georg Schrimpf

Georg Gerhard Schrimpf ( born February 13, 1889 in Munich, † April 19, 1938 in Berlin) was a German painter and printmaker. He is one of the most important representatives of the New Objectivity art movement.

Biography

Georg Schrimpf began as a child to draw enthusiastic, his favorite subjects were the Indians. The artistic inclination was at home not understand, let alone a promotion. The stepfather urged the Child in 1902 to a sugar baker's apprentice in Passau. George, she graduated from in 1905 and immediately went on tour. She led him through many German cities, including through Belgium and France. He earned his money as a waiter, carbon Schaufler and bakers.

In 1913, he became friends with the writer Oskar Maria Graf, also a trained baker. With him he moved through Switzerland and northern Italy. A few months spent in a two anarchist colony in Ascona / Ticino, at times with Karl and " Gusto " grasses at Monte Verità. There was a deep lifelong friendship. From OM Count the first appreciations of artistic activity Schrimpf come.

1915 moved to Berlin Schrimpf. He eked out his life first as a worker in a chocolate factory. But now he began to paint intensively. Soon he found the attention of art experts, gallery owners and publicists Herwarth Walden, who Schrimpf first oil paintings exhibited (Sturm 1916). They found great attention. With woodcuts Schrimpf staff of the magazines " The action" and "The Tempest" was.

In 1917 he married the painter and graphic designers Maria Uhden, with whom he shared artistic lot. That same year, the couple moved to Munich. Maria Uhden died in August 1918 from the effects of the birth of their son Mark. Since 1918 Schrimpf exhibited regularly at the Munich Gallery New Art Hans Goltz from. He participated as a member of the Action Committee of Revolutionary Artists active in the Munich Soviet Republic. He joined as the November group, on their exhibition in 1919, 1920, 1924 and 1929 participated. Schrimpf published work, inter alia, in the Munich Expressionist Magazines The way the book box and Sickle. 1920 turned out Schrimpf for the first time at the New Secession in Munich Glass Palace. A year later he became a member of this group. She told him particularly, because here he was not forced into a certain direction. From 1926 to 1933 he pursued a teaching position at the School of Applied Arts in Munich.

1932 saw the foundation and the beginning of a traveling exhibition of the group The Seven, the member along with Georg Schrimpf the artist Theo Champion, Adolf Dietrich, Hasso von Hugo, Alexander Kanoldt, Franz Franz Radziwill and steering.

In 1933 he was appointed as associate professor at the State Academy of Art Education in Berlin- Schöneberg. His teaching career ended in September 1937 on the orders of Bernhard Rust, the Prussian Minister of Science, Art and Education. Were cited as reasons that Schrimpf from January to April 1919 was the Communist Party and 1925/26, a year belonging to the Communist Party -affiliated Red Aid. The attitude of the Nazi regime against the person and work of Georg Schrimpf casts a revealing light on the contradictory nature of the so-called " arts policy ". He was known as Red and thus automatically "degenerate" as. As on the basis of a decree of the Reich Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, around 16,000 images were removed as worthless and degenerate from German museums, including 33 works Schrimpf among them. At the same time included some Nazi leaders to the collectors of Schrimpf paintings, such as the Reich Minister Hess and Darré. In the year before his death he was defamed again in the Nazi Degenerate Art exhibition in July 1937.

In 1995, the German Federal Post Office in honor Schrimpf a two - D-mark special stamp out using his painting " Still Life with Cat" from 1923 ( pictured at right).

Work

Schrimpf was self-taught. He drew from childhood obsessively, from the head and after templates and copied images that particularly appealed to him. 1913, after his return from Ascona, he attended art school in Munich - a full eight days. His self-doubt were so strong that he hid his work from unauthorized eyes. Except in front of his friend, the writer Oskar Maria Graf ( as Schrimpf former journeyman baker ). The sent some leaves to Berlin for the " action ". They were immediately accepted. Schrimpf was surprised that others could find in his work any interest. Now began his artistic career. Among his early supporters include not only the publicist and art patron Herwarth Walden ( The Storm / action ), the art historian and critic Franz Roh and Werner Haftman.

Schrimpf works primarily with coal, chalk, oil and woodcut. His work is characterized by clear outlines and delicate coloring. From each image comes from an immense peace - especially in contrast to Schrimpf restless wandering life. His motives are mainly women and landscapes. He paints women in front of the mirror, women at the window, women who fully expected to look into the distance. His landscapes are deserted, pure nature ( famous: Oster Lakes ).

The artistic trends of his time seem to have not touched Schrimpf. There is in him no social criticism, no politics of the day, not an exciting city life, no social problems. Also, it reveals a curious ambivalence of his personality. Because Schrimpf had early not only concerned with left ideology, but befriended. He spent a year as a member of the SPD. When he heard speeches by Erich Painfully, he was so impressed that he whose group " fact " joined. He always sympathized with " revolutionaries ". But in his work, he created an alternative world, a world that he probably dreamed of as the target of a successful revolution.

Work in museums

• Museum of Modern Art, New York
• New National Gallery in Berlin
• Ostfriesisches Landesmuseum, Emden
• Kunstmuseum Basel, Basel
• Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich
• Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich
• North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh
• Shear Inga Museum voor Realisme, Spanbroek, Netherlands
• Von der Heydt - Museum, Wuppertal
• Museum Ludwig, Cologne
• Palatinate Museum of the City of Heidelberg
• Los Angeles County Museum of Art
• Museum Gunzenhauser, Chemnitz
• Moritzburg Foundation / Museum of Fine Arts of the State of Saxony- Anhalt