Clara Telge (part III): Hina Matsuri

Clara Telge

(1870 - 1942)

(Part III)

Hina-matsuri 

Co-incidence or serendipity ? 

This wonderful painting emerged in auction in the first week of March while I was still deeply involved in my research into the life of forgotten Hamburg painter Clara Telge. Sold: and although I tried, sadly not to me. I was too involved reading and discovering the 1922 remarks by Hungarian Fauvist  Vilmos Perlrott-Csaba (1880-1955) about the quality of Clara's work (see before posting). I think the quality in this painting is what he meant and was referring to. I'm not an expert on paintings but would it be far fetched to recognize the free and impressionist hand of her Berlin teacher Lovis Corinth (1858-1925) ?    

Lovis Corinth: portrait of an older lady

A double co-incidence because on first (European) glance it is "just" a painting of "some Chinese Dolls". The 4 puppets arranged and displayed before a mirrored mantelpiece, most likely in Clara's home and possesion, are actually showing  members of the imperial Japanese family. 

Detail of Clara Telge's painting.

The tradition setting up or installing a home altar with the beautifully dressed puppets the third day of the third month is deeply imbedded in Japanese culture and is called Hinamatsuri (Hina-matsuri, 雛祭り). It happens to co-incide or is also called "Girl-day" or Princess-day . Read here (follow the link) all about this history and tradition in Kyoto National Museum. 

  

Although Clara was born in Shanghai (in China) and her father had a long career and thriving business in China, the moment I discovered this painting I also found the link to Japan which I shall reveal in next episode and posting. 

As this "Hina-matsuri" is only the third example of an oil painting by Clara known to me I invite readers and passers-by sending other examples for sharing as well as details about her life and family helping me to compose her short biography.

Next: Part IV, Clara's father in the Orient  

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

Doramaria Purschian

Recently my attention was pointed to and was asked by a reader of the blog to pay attention to Doramaria Purschian, a painter and graphically active woman artist. She had not come to my attention but I agree, she should be in my index. So far I was only able to find one example of her graphic work, an etching. 

Purschian, Doramaria (Ella Margaretha Maria Dora) 

Berlin 06-07-1890 – 11-07-1972 Berlin

Painter, portrait painter and graphic artist. 

She was the daughter of engineer Ernst Purschian and his wife Gabriela, studied 1907-1909 at Berlin “Königliche Kunstschule in the "Zeichenlehrer-seminar” graduating as a teacher at drawing in 1909. She was one of the first women to graduate from an official institution in Germany, at the time very controversial: Berlin “Staatliche Kunstakademie” not accepted female students until 1919. 

Castle (Schloß) Eutin (between Kiel and Lübeck). 

She continued her studies in 1912 with Fritz Bürger (1867-1927) and Lovis Corinth (1858-1925). Her first and very successful solo exhibition was held in 1918 in the Roemer- und Pelizaeus Museum in Hildesheim. She worked as a Red-Cross nurse in WWI 1914-1918 and afterwards as a free creating artist until 1930 and well known portrait painter. After her brother Frank died in 1939 she lead the heating company established by her father. Described as “gute Portraitistin und Kindermaler” (good portrait and children painter) in the (Nazi) “Reichskammer für bildende Künste (Leistungsgruppe B)”.

After WWII she received a "Mention Speciale" during the 1969 New York "2^nd Exhibition of European Painters in the U.S.A.” and an honorary membership in Rome’s Art Academy.

Member of the VdBK 1928/29-1961 and member of the "Darlehns- und Unterstützungsdasse  since 1946. Exhibited with the VdBK 1928/29, 1929, 1934, 1937, 1942, 1954.Member of the VdBK 1929-1961 and since 1946 of the “Berufsverband Bildender Künstler Berlins”. In 1949 she was the victim of a brutal robbery and became severely injured never recovering completely. She is buried in the old part of Berlin-Lichterfelde “Parkfriedhof” cemetery.

Dresslers KHB 1930: Berlin Dahlem, Humboldstraße 19, Member RvBK, VdK.

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Her teacher 

Fritz Bürger (Munich 16-07-1867 – 1927 Lindau) 

Painter, lithographer and well known portrait painter. 

Studied at Munich “Kunstakademie” 1883-1888, at the “Ecole des Beaux-Arts” 1891-1897 and at the “Académie Julian” in Paris 1893-1896. Awarded many awards gold and silver medals 1897-1909. Settled 1899-1905 in Basel and then moved to Berlin where he became a professor in the “Kunstakademie” moving to a villa near Berlin 1910.

Exhibited from 1895 in the Munich Secession and at the “Großen Berliner und Dresdner Kunstaustellungen” and was awarded many silver and gold medals. He was a celebrated portrait artist painting many of his contemporaries and was highly praised for his children portraits. Bürger is from Swiss descent. Besides his portraits he known from a series of 1898 lithographs: "Frauentypen vom Münchner  Künstlerfest". 

  

He married sculptor, painter and arts and crafts artist Sophie Hartmann (Munich 23-05-1868 – 1940 Munich), selftaught but also studying 1884-1887 at Munich “Königliche  Kunstgewerbe-schule” at the “Damen-akademie des Münchners Künstlerinnenverein” and at the “Académie Julian” in Paris where she met her husband.

Bronze pen holder  

Like her husband she was an international award winning artist 1900-1907. After a stay in Dürnbach they moved to Lindau in 1922 and after the death of Fritz Bürger she moved back to Munich. 

Dresslers KHB 1921: Dürnbach near Gmund at Tegernsee (Bavaria). Member VBK, VSMBA, BasKG, MS, ADK.   

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

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 Mosson (a Berlin seccessionist) keeps popping up in many artists biographies. Mosson, 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. 

Fanny Remak part IV: Eugenie Fuchs

From reader Lutz Mauersberger from the Berlin-Mitte Archiv I received a comment on before's Käthe Münzer's "Herculesbrücke" posting. The following account of my initial "research" renders some clues and insight but raises also more questions, it is an ongoing project. Like Fanny Remak, Eugenie Fuchs is largely forgotten today although both were taught (influenced and surrounded) by the leading painters of the period.    

Fuchs, Eugenie Caroline

(25-06-1873 Berlin-Charlottenburg – murdered in Majdanek concentration camp Poland)
German painter 

Wannsee near Berlin by Eugenie Fuchs

and by Max Liebermann who build a villa on its shores and by Lesser Ury. Both were Jewish, impressionists and world famous. Max Liebermann obstructed Ury's career fearing his talent might be greater then his (he burned Ury's wings, like Icarus, when and where ever he could). Comparing these Wannsee impressions it becomes obvious what a fine painter Eugenie Fuchs was.  

Eugenie Fuchs was like Fanny Remak and Käthe Münzer a Jewish landscape and portrait painter and had been a student of Franz Skarbina (1849-1910), Walter Leistikow (1865-1908) and Lovis Corinth (1858-1925). Then she moved to Paris for further studying. Sadly it is not known and unmentioned with whom she studied and in what year she returned to Berlin. In Berlin the house she owned (1933) a 1/4* of by heritage, Schlossplatz 5  was confiscated by the Nazis in 1941. (

* 1/4 by Dr. Gerhard Fuchs a nephew who probably was killed in car accident in the 1930's and 1/2 by Gertrud Fuchs, her sister-in-Law who possibly wasn't Jewish, possibly explaining why their share wasn't seized by the Nazis). Eugenie never lived here, the building probably had been bought by her father as an investment. Her parents lived at Kronprinzen-ufer 22, north of Tierpark and around 1876 he was the Consul of Honduras in Berlin.  

She had fled to Paris in 1933, banned from working by the Nazis, in the same year as Käthe Münzer (1877-1943). In Paris she exhibited with Käthe Münzer (1877-1943), Eugen Spiro(*) (1874-1972), Victor Tischler (1890-1951) and Fred Uhlmann (1901-1985), refugée artists meeting in the Café de Dôme circles.

(*) Eugen Spiro in 1903 married famous actress Tilla Durieux (1880-1971) (above by Franz von Stück). In 1906 they were divorced and in 1910 Durieux married Berlin art dealer Paul Cassirer (1871-1926)(above) who exhibited 4 of Fanny's works (I shall discuss those later) along with 30 by French impressionist Camille Pissaro (1830-1903) in 1907. Cassirers world famous Art Gallery was located in Viktoria-strasse in the Tiergarten area and next door to the studio of Max Liebermann.

Schlossplatz nr. 6-1. Kaiser Wilhelm's city palace is opposite (the palace is now being rebuild). On Nr. 3 was Lagergren Conditorei & Café, popular and visited by Scandinavians ("and mainly women") according to an early 1900 Baedeker tourist & city guide. 

Scandinavian immigrant Ryno Edvard Lagergren (b. 1855) married Gertrud Schmidt (b.10-07-1875) in 1901 and owned the Café and Conditorei.  

Georg Leisegang(link) ran a drugstore and photo studio on nr. 4 (but later seems to also occupy the shop/ground level of nr. 5) advertising widely and frequently in Berlin's newspapers (Schlossplatz 4/5). Before Leisegang, at nr. 4, advertised also selling perfumes as can be read in the older lower photograph. The company that evolved after WW2 is still existing (in the US) building specialist medical optical equipment. All was completely destroyed by bombing in 1945. 

Carl Wilhelm Gropius, a Royal Academie painter and member and famous diorama (showcase) builder once owned Schlossplatz nr. 1 on the corner running a studio and painting school (later possibly his son Paul). Eugenie like most victims, was denied posthumously compensation for the robbery of her property in the 1990's. 

After ten years of living in Paris she was seized in 1943 in a “Nacht und Nebel” (night and fog) operation, the preferred and perfected method of the Nazis to get rid of the resistance, dissidents, gypsies, homosexuals and Jews. She was interned in notorious Drancy internment camp North of Paris, transported to Auschwitz and later murdered, aged 70, in Majdanek death camp.

She had been a member of the "Verein der Berliner Künstlerinnen" (VdBK)  1927-1933, exhibited with the VdBk 1927-1930 and with “Das Kind” 1930, 1932-33).

All 5 paintings shown are by Eugenie Fuchs.

Please help me with more examples of paintings, biographical and genealogical data concerning Eugenie Fuchs and her family and Fanny Remak. 

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

Bertha Schrader continued: Blaues Wunder !

Bertha Schrader

(Memel 1845 - 1920 Moritzburg/Dresden)  

Painter and woodblock printmaker 

In 1893 the “König Albert Brücke” spanning the Elbe River was opened. A marvel of technical engineering it was the worlds first bridge this length spanning an entire river without a central pillar. It connects the Dresden townships of Blasewitz and Loschwitz. It was named after King Albert of Saxony (1828-1902) but in 1912 it was renamed "Loschwitzer Brucke" and knicknamend lovingly "Blaues Wunder". 

It was Dresdens 5^th bridge across the Elbe river and the only one to survive WWII devastations (and German sabotage) undamaged.  

Bertha Schader will have witnessed its construction, completion and opening. In 1912 a painting showing the bridge in a "recent Exhibition of Women Painters" in Dresden is mentioned (below). Sadly I cannot find any records of it other then this article in the prestigious magazine “The Studio”. The painting is probably lost.

The exhibition was held under the auspices of H.R.H. princess Mathilde, (she appeared earlier in this Blog here*) and was herself also represented with a painting. She was the artistic daughter of Albert’s successor, his brother King Georg of Saxony (1832-1904) but he died after just two years of reign. 
     

Bertha's view on Loschwitzer Bridge, painting owned by reader Katy in America

Bertha Schrader was as most (all?) pioneering women printmakers an accomplished and professional painter first. Until last week her history (she came from Memel in the Baltic) was shrouded in the mist of time. And lost in the total destruction of Dresden. She must have loved this spot because from the few surviving and known paintings by her hand there are 4 she made from this bend in the river upstream from the bridge and the "Altstadt". In the pointillist style of her teacher Paul Baum (1859-1932) in Dresden and also in the style of another of her teachers: Paul Graeb (1842-1892) from Berlin (below). 

Both paintings by Bertha Schrader

Dresden, build over centuries, “Florence on the Elbe”, was destroyed in just two days between 13 and 15 February 1945 as act of barbaric retaliation by civilized nations on a scale the world had never seen before. Disguised as, justified a necessity by bomber command to end a war that already was coming to an end. We today judge. Probably 25.000 citizens died in the firestorms, nobody knows. Exactly. Today Dresden is rebuild to its former glory.

Bertha Schader appears only as foot-notes in the transcendent German "Thieme Becker Künstler Lexikon" and French “Benezit”. She had been a student of Paul Baum, a former Meissen porcelain painter. He had been living and working since 1890 in the Knokke “artist colony” in Belgium and had returned in 1895 to be involved in the Dresden Secession. He himself had been a student of landscape painter Theodor Hagen (1842-1919) in Weimar.

Paul Baum (above), considered Germany’s last impressionist, soon returned to the Low Lands living and working in Sint Anna-ter-Muiden, near Sluis in province Zeeland for almost twenty years (1895- 1914). But eventually he returned to Dresden as a professor in Dresden Art Academy. Comparing Bertha with Paul Baum one can see how close they must have been: paintings by the student and the master are hardly distinguishable. Bertha, I'm sure, stayed with Baum in Sluis (below) and I could see them painting together on the canal.
    

"Canal" (possibly Sluis) by Bertha Schrader and "Sluis" by Paul Baum

(added info, see comments) 

In Sluis Baum also was visited by Lovis Corinth (1858-1925) the master from Berlin who on the occasion painted him (below). Max Liebermann (1847-1935) also liked to paint on the Dutch and Belgian coast.

Meeting Dutch painter Theo van Rijsselberghe (1862-1926) and already a (late or post-) follower of the Impressionists Baum later adopted the pointillist technique and colour theories of George Seurat (1859-1891) and Paul Signac (1963-1935).   

As we shall see in next posting Bertha (above right, probably in the Netherlands, left: Seurat in Honfleur) had besides her colleague and teacher (and friend?) Paul Baum family connections in the Netherlands. As she had in Norway where she also travelled to, to visit and to paint. 

She visited relatives and family on a little island connected with a wooden bridge to the mainland and no doubt has met a couple of very illustrious and famous colleagues (like the one above who happened to live there). All this I learned thanks to Katy, the present owner of this “Blaue Wunder” painting which today is in America. She is distantly, not directly since Bertha stayed unmarried, related to Bertha Schrader and Katy has found me through the Blog. Wonderful ! More to follow soon.

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