Cläre Neuhaus-Nissen, printmaker

Neuhaus-Nießen (Nissen), Cläre 

(Hannover 1878 – 1950 Olten)

I still know so little about this painter and printmaker and what follows is what I've puzzled together so far. I traced Cläre to the small town of Fürstenfeldbruck some 20 Km. east of Munich. Seeing the few prints I know by her I think I have a pretty good idea whom she turned to learning the art of woodblock print making: Dachau is not more them 15 km. from where she lived.  

Walter Klemm (1883-1957) and Carl Thiemann (1881-1966) in Dachau passed on their pioneering printmaking skills to numerous contemporary artist. 

She is mentioned as “die Malerin Cläre Nießen-Neuhaus” present at the founding meeting of the “Kunstverein Fürstenfeldbruck” in 1924. In Fürstenfeldbruck..

Fürstenfeldbruck in 1929

The picturesque village had become a refuge for artists fleeing overcrowded Munich. Also present at that meeting was Selma des Coudres (1883-1956) a painter also known to have tried at  woodblock printmaking and in a style betraying lessons by Carl Thiemann in Dachau too. We shall follow and trace Selma in next post bringing us to Riga in Latvia and meeting some more interesting artists. 

Proof of a trip to........ Italy, Dalmatia ?

Cläre (for Klara, Clara ?) exhibited, with others*, in 1915 in the “Wanderausstellung der Vereinigung nordwestdeutscher Künstler” in the Obernier Museum in Bonn: Cläre Neuhaus (München) showed “Alte Gasse”. I do not know which print that was but I do not think it is the ("mediterranean") one above. 

* One of them was Elisabeth (Else) Ruest (1861-1945) an painter-printmaker from Hannover known by several etchings showing the artist village of Schwalenberg near Detmold. She will also be shown in next posting.     

These two examples (Dachau moor landscapes ?) are clearly signed Cläre Neuhaus. The monogram she uses seems to be designed after Thiemans example. 

It can be difficult in Germany how to read a married girls name. Her families (maiden) name can be either placed before or after her husbands name. I have not yet found a rule explaining. Considering she was mentioned Neuhaus in 1915, Nissen-Neuhaus in 1924 and Neuhaus-Nissen in 1942 I guess she met and married a Mr. Nissen somewhere between 1915-1924. 

She is represented in the 1942 “Ausstellungskatalog der Großen Deutschen Kunstausstellung im Haus der Deutschen Kunst” in Munich with a painting: Cläre Neuhaus-Nissen, München:  Nr. 354 in room 4: “Sonneblumen, Öl”. 

"Haus der Deutsche Kunst" was the first of Adolph Hitlers prestigious and megalomane Nazi megastructures to open in 1937 showing to the Nation Nazi approved art. 

And although the surviving 1942 exhibition catalogue photograph wants us to believe it is painting 354a, showing a mixed bouquet, I really think it's the big one to the far left, 93a, showing some serious SUNFLOWERS ! Hitlers helpers bought works of art here for the proposed Nazi Museums. Cläre's Sunflowers were sold by the way btw.

"Somewhere, someone" wrote: 1932 in Dresden as her year of death and I'\m not sure if the 1942 Munich exhibition showed her work posthumously. She is not mentioned in any Artists Lexicon nor in my Dresslers Kunsthandbuch (1921 & 1930) other then mentioning her living in Fürstenfeldbruck Münchner-strasse 31 in 1930. 

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Please send anything (any scrap of information, fact or pictures that may contribute to better understanding the life and career of Cläre Neuhaus-Nissen for sharing in this Blog and to help complete my Pioneering German Women Printmakers Index. 

Or just leave a comment.

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All pictures borrowed freely from the Internet for friendly, educational and non-commercial use only.

Carl Thiemann and some Dachau colleagues

To all readers:

Best Wishes for 2013

In this last posting of 2012 I'd intended writing a report of my virtual visit to Dachau (where I met Carl Olof Petersén discusssed in before posting) and of course running inevitably into printmaker Carl Thiemann (1881-1966).

Since this blog is not meant to be about world famous printmakers and other artists who already have been subject of more scholarly investigation I have been seriously in doubt whether to continue with todays posting. 

Thiemann upper, Ludwig Dill lower 

Adding something worthwhile reading (and sharing rarely seen prints) to the web that wasn’t previously there, or presenting some new context  is one of the rules and criteria I try to maintain after I've started this Blog following my personal discoveries.

Clockwise: Carl Thiemann, Ludwig Dill, Adolf Hölzel and Arthur Langhammer: Dachau moor and birches. The compositional meaning of every bend in the water and in the tree trunks has been subject of some kind of professional discussion. 

In the beginning, before Thiemann and Walter Klemm arrived in 1908 there was this trio of friends, painting and teaching in Dachau: the colorist Arthur Langhammer (1854-1901) who died young, theorist and later abstract artist  Adolf Hölzel (1853-1934) who left in 1905 and Ludwig Dill (1848-1940) who was never to leave and rediscovered the Dachau landscape. 

Thiemann and Ludwig Dill

Langhammer and Hölzel were very influenced after visiting Claude Monet (1840-1926) in Paris but it was Dill, a master of light and shadow, who came closest to Monet (poplars and haystacks) and van Gogh (cypresses and pines) concerning the series of outdoor created paintings of Dachau moor and its birches. Hölzel returning every summer to teach in his New Dachau Painting School.

Thiemann and Carl Moll (1861-1945) who worked in Vienna at the time

Reading about the art colony in Dachau and its painter-teachers and looking up their paintings I think it is nice to see and compare the things that awoke my curiosity trying to figure out how these artist and the landscape may have influenced each other and later students.

"Alte Kanalbrücke Dachauer moor", woodblock and painting by Carl Thiemann etching by Carl Felber (1880-1932). Felber, a painter etcher, shared the same teachers as Thiemann and also settled in Dachau and worked along the Mediteranian and Adriatic sea coast where teachers artists and students from Dachau and München moved to in summer. Felbers work of Dachau moors I intend showing   soon. 

Workmens houses along the canal by Carl Felbers.

There was Ferdinand Mirwald (1872-1948), an artist who also moved with his young family permanently to Dachau, arriving at the same time as Thiemann and Klemm in 1908. He was famed for his color woodblock prints although most of his work was lost and surviving prints are extremely rare. 

Left Mirwald, right Thiemann: Dachau, and Dachau moor canal.

Although the landscape around Dachau, its moors and waterways obviously had the same attraction to all painting artists todays availability and easy access of the internet of so many pictures makes it tempting to try and compare them.

 In later years the use of color changed dramatically in Thiemann's prints.

In the case of the printmaker Carl Thiemann it is astonishing to see how he was able to keep up with his painting colleagues and teachers in capturing the atmosphere of the place and its surroundings even with the limitations presented by the medium of the multi colored woodblock print. 

Carl Thiemann (1881-1966)

 Carl Johne (1887-1959)

Thiemann's birches obviously were an inspiration to Dutch printmaker Piet Rackwitz (1892-1968) whom I shall present in due time.

All pictures borrowed freely from the internet for friendly non commercial use only.