Clara Telge (part I): visiting "das Alte Land".

Clara Telge 

German painter and illustrator. 

(Shanghai 19-03-1870 - 25-02-1947 Hamburg)  

Here follows what I came to know about the artist Clara Telge and I invite readers and passers-by to send all they know about this forgotten artist and her family. To my knowledge she not known as a printmaker.  

Less then a handful of paintings by her hand can be found in the Internet. I stumbled over Clara Tele because she came to paint in "das Alte Land" while researching another artist printmaker, Anna Bähker who, I discovered a few weeks ago,  also visited this picturesque region just West of Hamburg. 

What I do know is Clara was born in 1870 in Shanghai where her father Carl Bernard Hermann Telge had started an important trading house (import/export) on “the Bund”, the strip of land in Shanghai along Huangpu River. 

Bernard Telge came to Shanghai the moment it was allowed to foreign companies to settle and open business in China following the opening of the Chinese market after the 1842 Treaty of Nangking and when England finally ended  the Chinese Opium wars: in the early 1860’s steaming from Hamburg or Bremen.

Shanghai: The Bund 

Telge’s trading company was involved in the construction of China's infrastructure: steel bridges and railways and the selling of torpedos to China’s imperial navy as well as importing Prussian railway steam-engines and was also active in China’s (coal) mining, owning mines and recruiting German mining engineers. 

Paul Kayser: Teacher in and view from "Malschule Valeska Röver" in Hamburg.

Students in Valeska Rövers painting school. 

Going by the names of Clara’s no doubt private painting teachers her fathers business must have been as successful as she was talented: returned from China she studied in Hamburg at Valeska Rövers paintings school (above) while in Berlin she became a master student of Max Liebermann and Lovis Corinth and was allowed to study in Paris with Lucien Simon.

Please send all you may know about this Telge family. In Berlin at the time was active a Carl Franz Paul Telge a famous jeweller/goldsmith and jewellery designer admitted to the Rumanian court of King Carol-I and Queen Elisabeth. During his reign (1866-1881) King Carol encouraged and “imported” many artists and craftsmen from Germany/Prussia (many from Hamburg) to his Kingdom. More about this you can read in the book. Paul Telge's father was Julius Telge (1814-1887), also goldsmith in Berlin since the 1840's but originating from a Braunschweig mr. shoemaker. (A jeweler Bernard Telge is also mentioned in a Berlin chronicle but probably a mistake with Paul. This could be a clue to a family connection).  

I met Clara Telge visiting and painting around 1910. Like so many of her artistic sisters, not much about her life and career is delivered to us in the textbooks or artist lexicons. She was there to paint while staying, for many years as a guest in the house of Pastor (referent) August Meyer in Borstel a rural community in a picturesque district close to Hamburg. 

Clara is not known as a printmaker but she is known by an illustrated with watercolours booklet she created privately and exclusively for the children of the Meyer family. The once private booklet with these great illustrations was published in 2004 in a limited edition: "Ein Altenländer Bilderbuch" für große und kleine Pastorenkinder".   

I further learned the Meyer residence in the village of Borstel also received other Liebermann students: Alma del  Banco and her friend Gretchen Wohlwil but also Clara’s sister (?)  and nephews and nieces (?) from Berlin (as a biographer would I love to know their names....).

Clara Telge: Helgoland 

One of the very few paintings by Clara I was able to trace: View on Helgoland, a strategic rocky North Sea island and Ice age remnant just north of Bremen. Helene Mass was here obviously (above) and one of my favorite German impressionist painters Leonhard Sandrock (below). 

“Das Alte Land”, today Germanys largest fruit producing district consisting of former marshlands claimed from the sea by 12^th century Dutch settlers was also the favourite subject of painter and printmaker (and Emil Orlik student)  Hans Förster (1885-1966) a native from Hamburg and awarded an exhibition in Hamburg Altona Museum that was extended until spring 2018.

More details about Clara Telge are mentioned in her short biography, one of the hundreds I’ve collected in my book that will finally be published later this month in a private and limited edition as a Liber Amicorum (book for friends) containing over 300 pages of short biographies of German, Scandinavian, Russian, Baltic and Dutch women printmakers active 1900-1935. 

Pictures embiggen by mouse-click

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

Brussels construction works around 1915 by René Vandesande.

This etching, possibly of historic importance and in very good condition definitely is showing Brussels, its Town Hall ("Hôtel de Ville" at the Groote Markt) dominating in the centre clearly visible under a 45* angle and a large wood supported construction site the obvious subject of this great composition in the best French tradition.     

Although I searched I have not been able to find any photographs of a fitting similar construction site in Brussels around this date (1900-1915).
  

The artist shows construction work of a viaduct in a direction parallel with the front the Town Hall. It could very well show the building of Viaduct Rue Gray in the Rue Couronne (Kroonstraat), a double traverse of both the road and (in a second smaller and lower bridge) the railway from and towards central station. As seen by the artist from approximately the Zwemkunststraat (quartier Elsene). 

I invite readers and passers-by and all who know better to identify the signature, and monogram RV (Vande......) (Thank you reader Mich for solving the signature: R. Vandesande)

This etching, a great diagonal composition, is with many more fine graphic works available for swapping and trading to further my collection of German women printmakers in a friendly way.

Rene Vandesande (Doornik 1889 - 1946 Anderecht) was a Belgian painter and graphic artist).  

Anna Bähker, printmaker in "das Altes Land".

Anna Bähker 

Still unidentified etcher and printmaker.

 Living in Berlin 1921-30, member of the VdBK.

 Probably living for some time in the artist colony of Nidden.  

Anna Bähker is one of the artists who, in spite of all my efforts remains to this day a very unknown artist: I still have no idea who she actually was. Although I discovered the identity of so many obscured artists over the past years (all revealed in the book) Anna Bähker is still an enigma although her prints regularly show up in Ebay and other auctions. But gathering all small pieces one day will be successful and helpful in clearing her from obscurity. 

She is best known for the half a dozen prints showing (Baltic) fishing boats (more about these prints and their location in a later posting). She has been obviously working and/or staying in Nidden where printmaker Daniel Staschus and his wife lived. It is situated on the Curonian-Spit an ice age remnant, a long sandy stretch of dunes situated in Prussia's Baltic sea, now Kaliningrad/Königsberg-Lithuania)  

Recently and shortly after each other I found these two etchings (German :"Radierung") they are the first examples I ever saw other then her woodblock prints. Unlike many other printmakers I've never seen an oil painting by her. 

The first is said to be (possibly) showing "Worpswede" which is a picturesque village and artist "colony" near Bremen. The title is "Am Kanal" (at the canal). She possibly visited Worpswede artist colony because it is not far from her woodblock print titled "Altenländer Fleet" (canal Altes Land) 

"Das Altes Land" is however the region situated on the west bank of river Elbe, north-west of Hamburg. The old country, "laid dry" centuries before (since 12th century) by Dutch settlers and today Germanys fruits and vegetables garden.  

The other one (very small only 6 x 8 cm) is highly interesting because it is a mirrored version of her best known woodblock print "Stadttor" (town gate) which I would very much like to find and have one day. And of course finding out where this gate is located would be even better.

I can offer many fine works (in every international discipline) for swapping or trade if you happen to have or know a decent copy of this print that is on my wishlist for my collection of German Women Printmakers. 

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

 

Jacques Jeichienus Ottens: What's in a name ?

My book on German women printmakers born 1850-1900 is in its final stages  and almost ready for subscription: 300 pages (text only) of short biographies treating German women printmakers born in the 19th century who were  involved in woodblock printmaking 1900-1935. It is written in the English language. A last moments decision was: to add a chapter with contemporary Dutch printmaking sisters. 

This impulsive initiative resulted in three extra pages: there were just so few women  artists to compare which made me curious enough to decide writing and adding a complete Dutch printmakers (born in the 19th century) section instead. Together these odd 100 extra short biographies in 30 pages are indispensable for anyone who is collecting or is interested in Dutch (relief) printmaking and printmakers 1900-1940. There's also a Baltic section, a Russian section and a Scandinavian section. I was informed a (possibly the) final book on British printmakers is expected to appear soon.   

From this "extra" section I today share this forgotten short-lived printmaker and his short biography. 

Jacques Jeichienus Ottens

(Bellingwolde 15-10-1895 – 22-11-1930 Bellingwolde)
Dutch painter, graphic artist, poster designer and printmaker.    

Jacques and Martha Ottens-Hüfler

Son of merchant Hendrik Ottens (1859-1952) and Sophia Sachs (1861-1917). His mother was from local provincial Jewish descent. His grandparents were Jan Ottens (1820-1890) married to Jeichien Suichies (1827-1916), and Jacques Loëhman Sachs (1825-1911) married to Rebekka de Jonge (1821-1902) explaining his highly unusual first names. He had a sister  Bertha Ottens and a brother Jan Ottens. He married Martha Margaretha Hüfler (1896-1985), daughter of Dr. Ernst Emil Hüfler (1863-1927) of whom I know nothing. Since no records of any artistic education, study or training are known I assume he was mainly a self taught artist.  

In 1919 he is mentioned in a secret-service report of people with "communist sympathies" living with his brother Jan in Bellingwolde and also having an apartment in the Hague. Designed posters for the NSDAP (Dutch national socialist labour party). 

Known for woodblock portraits of NSDAP leader Pieter Jelles Troelstra (1860-1930) and of Karl Marx (1818-1883) 

His bathing nude print was obviously inspired by Felix Valloton's (1865-1925) 1894 well known print “Trois Baigneuses” (collected in New-York MOMA and Amsterdam van Gogh Museum).

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

Mart de Niet: Dutch dunes and sea side inspiration for 2018

Before continuing discussing and sharing vintage woodblock prints and forgotten printmakers from the past with this first posting of 2018 I keep my promiss to  printmaker Mart de Niet (1952), a retired mathematics teacher and amateur painter to share some of his recent sea side and dunes prints which I happened to discover last year. 

Living walking distance from the beach and the dunes in the Hague (NL) Mart has never to travel far for inspiration. These prints show that after recently following a summer course in printmaking (in Groningen Academy) lead by professional contemporary Frisian etcher Reinder Homan (1950) and well known woodblock printmaker Siemen Dijkstra (1968) the first results can be quite good.

Experimenting with paint, different inks and colors and practicing cutting and printing skills these prints also show the joy of printmaking and an inspiration for 2018 to many readers of this humble Blog I sincerely hope.