Clara Telge (part II): Hamburg & friends

Clara Telge (1870-1942) 

(II)

Hamburg & Friends

Clara Telge, here seen painting at the banks of river Elbe, probably just outside Klein Borstel (now part of Jork) and accompanied by one of the Meyer children, 6 km opposite and downstream Hamburg. She would like so many painting women stay unmarried and without children. 

Three weeks ago I had never heard of Clara Telge, just stumbling over her researching painter/printmaker Anna Baehker who obviously visited das Alte Land (Altenlande) near Hamburg. An etching proving she was there. As a "native" Hamburg painter Clara is only "mentioned by name" in some of the important Artist Lexicons, she has no entry in Wikipedia let alone a  monograph seems to exist. Works or pictures are very scarcely found in the Internet or auction catalogues: she seems, very undeservedly, to be almost completely forgotten and obscured. 

Pastor Meyer's St. Nicolaikirche in picturesque Klein Borstel 

We found however her talent was highly appreciated and recognized a century ago. Today a new episode and account of our research, a joined effort together with Hannelore in Austria to extract as much from the digital world to be able to  create and start her short-biography. The amazing discoveries we found about her and her family we intend to share and report in this Blog. If you've found these postings, please send all you may know about Clara and the Hamburg Telge family for sharing.   

In the booklets preface, reprinted in a strictly limited edition, it was mentioned colleague painters Gretchen Wohlwill and Alma del Banco also stayed in the Meyer residence (see Anna Telge part I). Gretchen (Grete) Wohlwill is known to have painted on the nearby Isle of Finkenwerder (now the International Airbus Assembling Works), and del Banco from the heights of Altona. 

Gretchen Wohlwill: "Heu-ernte" in Finkenwerder"

Alma del Banco: "Blick von Blankenese über die Elbe". Seen from where she lived 1938-1943.      

* Borstel, ** Finkenwerder, *** Altona/Flottbeck 

Read about Finkenwerder and river Elbe in several older postings using the search function upper left (type "Finkenwerder") or follow the labels attached this post, meeting many fine artists and great paintings in Hamburg. 

30 years later in a 1942 Hamburg Adress books I found Clara, Alma and Gretchen mentioned in the same page. Clara then lived Baron Voghtstrasse in  "Klein Flottbeck", a posh quarter just outside the centre of Hamburg: the house seems to be still there. In 1930 she was mentioned (Dresslers Kunsthandbuch) living, like Gretchen Wohlwill, in Eppendorf north of the Alster basin and near the heart of Hamburg. Alma lived and worked in the heart of Hamburg at Theaterstrasse but moved to Blankenese in 1938 when her only brother died. 

She lived not far from Clara and not far from the Süllberg Terrace with Restaurant Jakob, where her Berlin teacher Max Liebermann also painted the view over river Elbe, before she took her own life in 1943, being Jewish and terrified of the Nazis.    

"Fräulein Telge und Fräulein Wohlwill" were mentioned together in 1922, their paintings recognized and admired as "talented and good" and recommended for buying, collecting or exhibition abroad by one of Matisse's first students Hungarian modernist and Fauvist ("wild ones") painter Csaba Vilmos Perlrott (1880-1955) ("Kunst ist Spiel und tiefer Ernst" by Anke Munster; 2003).

 

Garden and trees by Alma del Banco & Vilmos Perlrott

Nude drawings by Wohlwill & Vilmos Perlrott 

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

Next posting Clara Telge (part III): a surprise and meeting the family in China.   

Hans Förster, another pioneer and true Orlik student

Förster, Hans

(Hamburg 09-02-1885 – 1966 Hamburg)

Graphic artist, illustrator, author and 
pioneer woodblock printmaker, 
Emil Orlik student. 

He was the son of Hamburg painter and graphic artist Christian Förster (1825–1902). A student in the “Kunstgewerbeschule” in Hamburg 1902-1904 he  was encouraged by its director Justus Brinckmann (1843-1915) known for his collections and books on Japanese art and woodblock prints to study further in  Berlin with Emil Orlik (1870-1932) in 1905-1906. Orlik since 1904/05 taught "Technic und Stil des Japanischen Farbholzschnitts" in Berlin's “Unterrichtsanstalt" of the "Kunstgewerbemuseum”. 

So far I was able to collect the names and (short)biographies of some 100 Orlik students, Förster was among his first students. 

Hans Förster is mostly known for his large woodcuts depicting local fisherman and working class people around Hamburg, his native and rural Vierlände area and the isle of Finkenwerder just opposite. It is recalled and described in detail how he stayed faithful to and followed the Japanese printing method he’d learned from Orlik. 

His best prints were created until the end of WW1 and he must have known and been inspired by the Brittany prints by Emil Orliks friend (and student) Carl Moser (1872-1939) who created his prints from around 1905 and also the pioneering prints by Henri Rivière (1864-1951). Rivière's experiments  preceded Orlik's endeavors in the noble art as early as 1890: without visiting Japan. (More to follow soon).  

On Finkenwerder was a small artist colony visited by famous painters like impressionists Thomas Herbst (1848-1915) and Friedrich Schaper (1869-1956) and marine painter and Berlin professor Carl Saltzmann (1847-1923), professor Eduard Steinbach (1878-1939) and his wife printmaker Louise Steinbach-Weinholdt (1879-1971) worked and lived on the Island from 1901-1916 and Gretchen Wohlwill (1878-1962), also working on the isle of Finkenwerder. Wohlwill was a close friend of painter and printmaker Eduard Bargheer (1901-1979) who was born on the island.

Förster wrote many books on “Plattdeutsch” the local dialect, and also illustrating them. It is said he lead the life of a neglected artist and an eccentric. He would have died in poverty and obscurity in an old peoples home was it not for a small allowance he received in return of a bequest of 100 woodblock prints left to the Altona Museum in Hamburg. An exhibition with his work was held in the Hamburgische Landesbank in 1978/79. His prints, when on the market, today fetching high prices. 

Hans Förster is buried in  Neuengamme-Vierlände cemetery near Hamburg next to painter Hermann Haasse (1862-1936) who from 1895 was a teacher at drawing in Brinckmann's  “Kunstgewerbeschule” and probably had been, besides a local colleague, his friend and teacher.

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

(und danke Markus !)

Louise Steinbach-Weinhold: Pollards on the isle of Finkenwerder.

Steinbach-Weinhold, Louise (Lise)

      (Dresden 1879-1971 Hamburg) 

Visiting Hamburg and enjoying the city and river Elbe in last postings this is a  good opportunity to show this print that showed up in German Ebay recently. To my knowledge (but that is not a way of measuring) the second example of a print by this forgotten printmaker. It is a limited (12/50) copy printed in 1990 from the original 1909 blocks. I do not have a clue who printed them, where and why, and if the original was at hand to determine and choose colors. (If it wasn't for the horizon it could easily be mistaken for a view of Provincetown Mass. USA)

It's titled "Kopfweiden" (Pollard Willows) in "Finkenwerder": an island in river Elbe just south of the great city. An idyllic place, a fishing community, around 1900 but 100 years later hardly recognizable by "progress': it's todays centre of the German Airbus industry. The sad thing about progress is it cannot be stopped. 

Louise's Pollards: although it's not 100 years old, as it should be, I loved it the moment I saw it. Just three color blocks (blue, green and purple) and a key block were used but it is how the eye is drawn into the composition and the great suggestion of depth (the purple roof top placed under the horizon) by overlooking the broad river from the heights of the moraine, a wall created by friction from the glaciers advancing from the North in successive ice-ages (350.000-150.000 years ago). When they retreated and melted the river bed of todays tidal river Elbe was formed.  

The traditional Elbe "Fischkutter" fleet is/was marked HF (Hamburg Finkenwerder) below by Thomas Herbst. The nearby (opposite) Blankenese fleet SB (Schleswig-Holstein Blankenese).  

Visiting Hamburg and Blankenese, the picturesque village on the opposing Elbe bank, and using the unique Hamburg water taxi service we enjoyed similar views from the other side, the North Bank, overlooking Finkenwerder and the bustling river with endless rows of cargo ships, fishing boats, tugboats and ocean steamers entering and leaving majestic Hamburg harbor. It created an everlasting impression in my memory. As it did on many artists who came here to paint and sketch 100 years before. A selection will be shown in next posting.
  

Louise, who had been a student of Lovis Corinth (1858-1925) in Berlin's Art Academy, was trained a painter but for most women artists that was to have a career as teacher, what she actually was for a while at a drawing school in her native Dresden. While studying in Berlin she will have learned that new way of Printmaking-the-Japanese-way from Emil Orlik (1870-1932) who was appointed to teach the craft (or is it an art ?) in Berlins "Kunstgewerbe Museum Schule" in 1905. 

Friedrich Schaper: Sommertag in Finkenwerder 1895.

Louise was married to painter and professor Eduard Steinbach (Hamburg 1878-1939) who taught at the Academies of Berlin, Leipzig, Karlsruhe and Hamburg and together leading a private painting school in Hamburg. They lived and worked in Berlin and Hamburg (below: camping along the river  by Eduard Steinbach).

She exhibited in the Berlin Secession 1909/10 and was close friends with painter/printmakers Arthur Illies (1870-1952), who also taught at the Hamburg Arts and Craft (Kunstgewerbe) school and that wonderful but short-lived Friedrich Lissmann (1880-1915) who appeared earlier in this Blog (do follow the label below to read more !)

Willy Dammasch (1887- ?), The Elbe seen from Finkenwerder.

Willy Tiedjen (1881-1950), Elbe impression and Hamburg skyline from Finkenwerder.  

Eduard and Louise worked (and possibly lived) on the Isle of Finkenwerder from 1901-1919 where a small artist colony had emerged frequented in summer by famous impressionist painters like Thomas Herbst (1848-1915) and Friedrich Schaper (1859-1956) but many other artists, local Hamburg painters and the lesser gods, will have payed a visit to this idyllic place with flowering fruit trees, haymaking and its traditional islanders, the inviting "Gasthausen" and fishing fleet.

Gretchen Wohlwill: Heu-ernte auf Finkenwerder.

Rolf Diener (1906-1988) Finkenwerder  

Gretchen Wohlwill (1878-1962), was here, the Jewish painter-printmaker who was befriended with painter, printmaker and Finkenwerder born Eduard Bargheer (1901-1979) (below). 

Printmaker Luigi Kazimir (1879-1937) visiting Hamburg also halted on Finkerwerder Island overlooking the Elbe and Hamburgs skyline on a gloomy day, obviously inspired by Emil Nolde's "Elbe Schlepper" (Elbe tug boat). 

Emil Nolde (1867-1956) 1910: "Elbe Schlepper" 

Hamburg printmaker Hans Förster (1885-1966), a shamefully neglected artist, but one of the earliest (1905-06) and a brilliant student of Emil Orlik in Berlin, immortalized the fishing village individuals of Finkerwerder making him a nice candidate to appear next in the Linosaurus. 

All pictures are mouse-clickable to embiggen.

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