Johannes Molzahn
Johannes Ernst Ludwig Molzahn ( born May 21, 1892 in Duisburg, † December 31, 1965 in Munich) was a German - American painter and printmaker.
Life
Born in Duisburg Molzahn moved in the year of his birth to Weimar and completed an apprenticeship as a photographer and was followed from 1908 to 1914 in Switzerland.
He started early with the painting so that he has a 1914 exhibition in Weimar was already dedicated, which was organized by Karl Peter Röhl. After the First World War, he was one of the supporters of the existing 1918-1921 Workers' Art Council, an association of architects, painters, sculptors and art writers, and exhibited his works for exhibitions of this merger are available. Addition followed exhibitions in the gallery Der Sturm, a named after the namesake magazine and founded by Herwarth Walden Art Gallery in Berlin, among others by Kurt Schwitters exhibited.
In addition Molzahn founded in 1918 with Rudolf Jahns and Thilo Maatsch the " Society of Friends of Young Art " in Braunschweig. Whose members also included Lyonel Feininger and Paul Klee. In addition, Wassily Kandinsky, the signet of Gruppe.Ebenfalls 1918 he became a member of the group founded in Berlin in November.
He was then near the founded in 1919 in Weimar by Walter Gropius Bauhaus, before he approached the beginning of the 1920s, the abstract painting, where his paintings often show figural elements and motifs. 1921 took place in the Düsseldorf gallery of Alfred Flechtheim a small "Collection utopian fantastic Machinery & Appliances " entitled Time button instead.
On the recommendation of Bruno Taut Molzahn 1923, was appointed against the will of the school board and the Ministry, by the magistrate of the city to the head of the class for use graphics of Arts and Crafts and Trades School Magdeburg. Molzahn was with his very modern conception of art have a formative influence. He looked at the engineer the artists of his time. He also took a programmatic impact with the least effort and called a substantive maximum impact in production to achieve.
1925 " The modern watercolor" along with works by artists of the group in 1922 as Otto Mueller, Conrad of Kardorff and Oskar Moll was an exhibition with the title instead. In the same year the " Society of Friends of Young Art " together with Thilo Maatsch and Rudolf Jahns.
Later, he was from 1928 to 1933 taught at the State Academy of Fine and Applied Arts Wroclaw, where the metal sculptor Hermann Diesener was one of his students. During this time he led the 1929 exhibition of Werkbundsiedlung Wroclaw.
Went with the beginning of the period of National Socialism and the defamation of his works as " degenerate art " Molzahn abroad and lived in the U.S. exile, from which he returned to the Federal Republic of Germany in 1959, since 1938.
Exhibitions and works
Some of his Expressionist works are now exhibited in the Museum Lehmbruck his birth city of Duisburg. In 1964 was held his first exhibition of paintings, watercolors, drawings and graphics in the newly built building of Lehmbruck Museum. Between 1976 and 1977 was followed by an exhibition of paintings that have arisen 1943-1957 in the U.S., at the Kunsthalle Nürnberg entitled Johannes Molzahn: Melody of a landscape, and in 1977 another exhibition of the printed graphic work in Lehmbruck Museum. On his 120th birthday, an exhibition entitled Unloved avant-garde is to be opened on May 12, 2012 at the Silesian Museum in Görlitz.
Among his better-known paintings include creation I ( 1916), Creation II ( 1916), Pulse Falling Star (1919), Masculine Curves (1927 ) and memory Otto Mueller ( 1930). On the art market works John Molzahns are rare to find. However, if a plant comes on the market, high prices are paid for it. On June 6, 2012, Molzahns painting " Music ", which was 1917 's "The Tempest " issued in the first solo exhibition in Herwald Walden's gallery, auction art auctions for around 146,000 euros at Van Ham.
In his honor, was named in Duisburg Johannes Molzahn Street.
Publications
- Wroclaw after the war, 1928