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.

Paul Berger Bergner: Dore Hoyer

Paul Berger Bergner

(Prag 10-02-1904 - 18-07-1978 Mannheim 

German expressionist painter, etcher and printmaker 

Reader Archimandrill (again) solved the mystery printmaker in before posting. Thank you ! Here are some of the things I've assembled trying to understand the times, people and circles to place Steven's woodcut portrait of Dore Hoyer. 

Paul Berger Bergner was born in Prag as son of Paul Bergner and his wife Maria Tadler. Paul sr. was a restaurator and later the museum director of the Rudolfinum the famous Museum building, Concert Hall and House of Parliament from 1918-1939 in Prag overlooking river Moldau. 

When his father died young Paul Jr. went to study in the painting studio of the  porcelain factory in Schlackenwirth near Karlsbad (Karlovi Vary) and later with Walter Klemm (1883-1957). Klemm had started with his friend Carl Thiemann (1881-1966) a studio in Prag in 1908. Both men were born in Karlsbad by the way. Klemm had been taught by Emil Orlik (1870-1932) and later in Vienna by Kolo Moser (1868-1918). He was appointed professor in Berlin in 1910.

In 1925 Paul entered the Art Academy in Dresden (connection with Dore Hoyer ) to study with painter Robert Sterl (1867-1932). His studio and most of his work was lost in the anglo-american destruction of Dresden in 1945. The same faith struck his friend artist printmaker Maj Hemberg (1906-1992).

After the war he moved to Mannheim and became a painting teacher at Mannheim "Fach-hochschule" to become its director in 1957. He had a relationship with Thea Piekara and they had a son Paul who was born in 1939. 

Paul Berger Bergner's etched portrait of Josef Paul Hodin (Prag 1905 - 1995 London) a famous aesthete and art critic (Tate Museum) who'd fled to London in 1944. Hodin was about the same age as Paul and also born in Prag. 

Portraits of Josef Hodin by Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980) from a Prag family and who'd recovered in Dresden meeting expressionist circles after WW1 (left) and Ulli Nimptsch RA (1897-1977) (right) a German sculptor-painter who'd emigrated to London before WW2. He'd studied in Berlin Arts and Craft School for applied arts in Berlin 1915-1917. 

This posting now becoming a "who is who" in Expressionism: Nimptsch by Kokoschka.

And a book by Josef Paul Hodin on Paul Berger-Bergner  

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

Martha Cunz: the Dutch Connection (I)

Martha Cunz 

(St.Gallen-Switserland, 1876-1961)

Swiss painter and pioneer woodblock printmaker

This blog is not intended to high-light the already famous and well researched printmaking artists: Martha Cunz is such an artist. There are better and reliable sites to inform you about Martha Cunz who studied with Ernst Neumann in Munich Art Academy. What is more important and interesting she is among the very first artists to try at color woodblock printmaking in the beginning of the 20th century. 

Her earliest prints, after initially trying at lithography, are dated as early as 1901. Of this "Birken" lithography a single copy of a woodblock print is known. By 1905 she was able to show, in the annual Glass Palace Exhibition in Munich truly great prints in the Japanese way created in the two years before. In contrast to her many later printmaking colleagues, like Carl Thiemann, 5 years her younger and inspired by her printmaking, Walter Klemm and the Neumann brothers Ernst and Hans, she eventually became obscured but since long has been rediscovered and rehabilitated. 

"Abend" (night in in St. Gallen) and "Frühling" (Spring) the two prints shown in the 1905 exhibition were created in 1903/04. 1904 was the year Emil Orlik who taught Klemm and Thiemann, was appointed professor in Berlin. She experimented and printed the black key block on the back of the paper to soften its tone. 

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The reason for this posting is recently finding in a junkshop this mystery print without a signature or monogram. The preliminary outcome of my research I share today. 

After some puzzling it became clear it shows the harbor of the fishing village of Harderwijk with characteristic herring fishing boats (type: botter), a sailing freighter (type: skutsje or tjalk), the fish-hall were the catch was sold and  auctioned, some houses and, vaguely, the windmill named "de Hoop". 

The way the windmill is depicted is peculiar, in a light relief, created with two different shades of brown. After removing the mat (passe-partout) it is clear the darkest brown color block had probably shifted (a registering fault ?) from the left and lower margins. The framer neatly disguised and hid this "problem" under the mat.   

The Harderwijk Mill, de Hoop (Hope) originally was build in 18th century but the wooden supra structure burned to the brick build mill-base after being struck by lightning in 1909. Classic windmills often were (and are) rebuild and recycled, they had a tendency to burn of friction or strike of lighting. It was rebuild in 1911 (and it burned again in 1969 and again was rebuild). 

Martha Cunz visited the Netherlands, in 1904 and again in 1910. During her first visit and stay several of her sketches later were used as designs for prints of which two are windmills (dated 1905 and 1907)

And from this print, a view on Volendam harbor, another of Hollands "Zuiderzee" fishing villages, the sketch also survived. Her painting in oil of Volendam shows her painting skills probably meeting with the other artists staying in the artist Hotel Spaander in Volendam. From 1931 Martha Cunz turned away from printmaking to paint the rest of her long life in het studio in St.Gallen.

And here are some more of her Dutch prints: "Night in Volendam", with similar great "Japanese blues" as used in the St. Gallen print.  

And "Mondschein",  that I think could very well be a moonlit Dutch farm.

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Carl Thiemann, in 1905 finishing his studies in Prag, also visited the Netherlands, somewhere between 1908-10, and it is said, although the two artist probably never met, he was not only impressed and inspired by Martha Cunz' printing technique, but most of all her birches, 

and Dutch windmill prints,

but also by her Dutch fishing boats. In this perticular boat print (Venice 1910) Thiemann uses the same technique of rendering the reflection of the boat in the water, the sails, and also uses similar browns as in the Harderwijk print.  Later Thiemann turned to a lighter color pallet. Assuming "Harderwijk" is also 1910'ish I have no clue about any Dutch printmaker who could achieve such a result in these early years of printmaking, simply because there weren't any around or even born yet.      

Like Harderwijk, Spakenburg-Bunschoten, Marken, Enkhuizen and the Frisian cities of Stavoren and Hindeloopen (where I've found this print) these villages and cities had traditional herring fleets, that is, before the final closing of the Afsluitdijk, a masterpiece of Dutch engineering, in 1932 turning the Zuiderzee into Lake IJsselmeer blocking the herring, creating safety for millions but ending traditional fishery. 

The importance and influence of Martha Cunz on all later Modern Printmakers, her achievement to create prints like these early examples in such a short time of trial, error and effort (in 1904 !) and probably without direct guidance from Emil Orlik, cannot be emphasized enough I believe. 

Which brings me to my next posting and very much related puzzle and problem.

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

www.galeriesouris.nl

Nüremberg, the hangman's house

Henkersteg 

Although postings asking for help in attempting to identify a printmaker often do not have the result one hopes for here's a fresh puzzle. Since even a certain collector in Bavaria (thank you Claus for trying) cannot read the signature nor has he any clues based upon style and/or technique used I decided once more asking the help of readers. 

Printed in 3 colors + the key block and the easy cutting and printing technique betraying this wasn't an amateur. On the other hand he was not a very prolific printmaker: I have nothing stored in my archive and database even resembling. In the Germany section. Without the signature in old German  handwriting ("Suetterlin Schrift") I would have guessed it was English school linocut printmaking. On the back of the sheet the 3 initials were scribbled.

Probably reading ?. "Schultz" B…h..mann.

Comparing with Carl Thiemann's version of the Hangmans house ("Henkershaus") in a folio edition of "10 views of Nüremberg"  the unknown printmaker winning the decorative argument not in the last place by using of color blocks.

Trying to find out (notice how I avoid using the word research, but nevertheless) there's no way escaping stumbling over the mother of all woodblock prints (or one of its sisters) from "Weltchronik" printed in 1493(!) Designed by Michael Wolgemut (1434-1519) and his stepson Wilhelm Pleydenwurff. Alfred Dürer (1471-1528) the Godfather of printmaking himself, who was taught by Wolgemut and probably attributed in that edition.

Realising this View in Nüremberg is a lithographic and not a woodblock print by Fritz Beckert (1877-1928) I simply had it to include in this Nüremberg posting of course (courtesy of Annex Galleries USA)

  

Suddenly realising a source of inspiration for Emma Bormann (1887-1974) who (above view of Salzburg) according to her daughters account, always looked for the highest viewpoint first, before climbing and designing her prints. But now I'm wandering of. She depicted many great German and foreign cities in a panoramic way but never Nüremberg.  

Please help me to identify the Henkershaus printmaker.