Emmy Gotzmann: first result & great find !

Emmy Gotzmann

(1881 - ?)

U-Bahnhof Bülowstrasse, Berlin 
(seen in the direction of Nollendorfplatz, next station)

U-Bahnhof Bülowstraße today.

The revealing of this painting is the result of using the immense possibilities of a friendly Internet. Combining knowledge, effort and research I'm really happy to show the world this wonderful painting that has not been seen, admired or enjoyed for so long. 

(Bülow station see in the direction of Nollendorfplatz, next station)

From Emmy's viewpoint side of the street looking towards the left: Luthers Kirche. Looking right would give the exact view on Bülow station and Potsdamerstraße crossing. This view before the line was raised, the station build and a passage was created through the wall of houses. 

And after raising the line and creating a passage. Around 1905   

This posting is also an announcement and a welcome to Emmy Gotzmann's biography that will appear later this year in honor of the obscured life and career of this wonderful and neglected painter. Who knows what other great paintings will be revealed. It's publication will be announced in this Blog. 

The newly build Bülow station, the front is situated along Potsdamersträße.   

This station is one of three rather famous stops in Berlins basic first "Hochbahn" line build in the late 1890's and opened in 1902. 

Between the Luthers Kirche and Berlin-Zoo/Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church  completed in 1906 on Auguste-Viktoriaplatz and Kurfürstendamm): Wittenbergplatz, Nollendorfplatz (with "Kaufhaus des Westens" founded in 1905) and Bülowstraße crossing Potsdamerstraße. The iconic station buildings were destroyed, like anything else, in the allied bombing in the last year of WW2. However, Bülow Bahnhof was rebuild.

Emmy must have taken the Godfather of Impressionists Camille Pissarro's (1830-1903) 1897 depictions of Boulevard Montmartre with high viewpoint and  diagonal compositions in mind. Pissarro was exhibited in Berlin with 40 paintings in Kunstsalon Cassirer in 1907 in nearby Victoriastraße 35 (along with 4 works by my research subject Fanny Remak by the way).

Lovis Corinth: Berlin, "Unter den Linden" and the Brandenburger Tor (were the Liebermanns owned a city palace).

 

Max Slevogt: "Unter den Linden". 

Berlin Seccesionist Lovis Corinth (1858-1925) and Max Slevogt (1868-1932), with Max Liebermann (1847-1935) the three leading Berlin impressionists, likewise choose the high viewpoint and diagonal composition in their "Unter den Linden". And maybe Slevogt had the greatest of impressionists in mind: Claude Monet's Rue de Montorgueil from 1878 (left) 
  

Lesser Leo Ury

(Nollendorf Station)

Emmy's painting is all the more important because there are so few examples of Berlin street views in painting. Let alone of the U-bahn, build after the example of New Yorks above-ground system. That is besides the paintings by a painter who was always to stand in the shadows of this trio: Leo Lesser Ury (1861-1931) owned a studio at Nollendorfplatz(1) and he just had to look outside to paint in the rainy atmosphere that is so characteristic for much of his work.

(1) The name of Ury's neighbor George Cormon (a Berlin seccessionist) keeps popping up in many artists biographies. Cormon, a painter of flowers, also taught and ran a painting school. 
   

Thank you Hartwig D.(2) and author Ferdinand Ruigrok van de Werve ! 

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

(2) to the protection of the owner of the painting. 

Käthe Münzer: Found it !!

Käthe Münzer-Neumann

Herculesbrücke 

Berlin  

Regular readers may remember this watercolor by Käthe Münzer I used trying to find Fanny Remak a few postings back. Well, I've found it: Käthe is showing the Herculesbrücke connecting Lützlowplatz to the Tiergarten area crossing the Landwehrkanal. A man made short-cut of river Spree flowing through Berlin.  

She stood or sat, maybe on the terrace of the Albrechthof café on the opposite side of Luetzlow square, and facing West in the direction of nearby Berlin Zoo. 

Here in the Tiergarten Park area, in Viktoria-straße (parallel to Potsdamer-strasse) Max Liebermann and Paul Cassierer ran his famous Kunst-Salon buying from and selling the impressionists and introducing Vincent van  Gogh to the "nouveau-riche". And also Lesser Ury had his studio here, in Lützow-strasse. Later he moved to nearby Nollendorf Platz where his studio he was a neighbor of George Mosson, a painter of mainly flowers and who ran a private painting school. Both men taught at the Painting and Drawing school of the "Verein der Berliner Künstlerinnen". Both were in the Gruppe XI, eleven artists opposing the Kaisers choice of "what is art and what is not" in 1892 preceding the Berlin Secession. Ury left us many paintings of the Landwehrkanal and Tiergarten Park. Mosson we'll meet in next posting.      

View on Nollendorfplatz by Lesser Ury 

All was destroyed in WW2. Squares, bridges, buildings. All the trees of the immense park were cut down and used as fire wood after the war ended. Only one of the two grand statues of Hercules, placed in the middle of the bridge, survived and is now in nearby Kölnischer park. The sphinxes with "putti" are lost. 

The statues were re-used from an older Hercules Bridge in the centre that was demolished constructing Berlin's U-bahn. The new bridge replacing an older wooden bridge across the Landwehr Canal. 

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Max Liebermann and Lesser Ury

in Tiergarten Park

In Tiergarten by Max Lieberman and by Lesser Ury

Both Liebermann, generally considered Germanies greatest impressionist, and Ury painted often in Tiergarten park. Ury, who was like Liebermann Jewish, only later found recognition and is now considered "The" painter of old Berlin. 

Hercules Brücke and Landwehr canal by Lesser Ury

"Tiergarten im Herbst" by Lesser Ury

Ury's career was much hindered by a jealous Liebermann, who was worshipped  like a God even during his lifetime but was not able to accept another great artist so nearby: like the sun he burned the wings of his colleague like an Icarus in public.     

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Konrad von Kardorf (1877-1945)

in Berlin

Luetzlow-Brücke (one bridge downstream of Herkules-Brücke) 

and Viktoria-Straße. 

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Ernesto Barbero (1887-1937)

Luetzow Brücke 

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