Max Kaus
Max Kaus | |
---|---|
Born | |
Spouse(s) | 1. Gertrud "Turu" Kant (1893-1944) 2. Brigitte Kamm 3. Sigrid Reinke |
Parent(s) | Joseph Kaus Elmire Möhle |
Max Kaus (11 March 1891 - 5 August 1977) was a German "second generation" expressionist painter and graphic artist. He was also influential as a university level teacher and as deputy director at the Academy for visual arts ("Hochschule für Bildende Künste" / HfbK) in the city at that time known as West Berlin.[1][2][3][4]
Life
Family provenance and early years
Max Kaus was born and, eighty-six years later, died in
War years
In 1916 he reported for military service, enrolling as a "medical orderly" and as an ambulance driver.
Career progression
Kaus had his first solo exhibition in 1919, at the
Hitler years
Early in 1933 the
Meanwhile, in 1935[4] or 1937[6] he took a job teaching "figurative art" with the Unified National Academies for Free and Applied Art ("Vereinigte Staatsschulen [für freie und angewandte Kunst]" / VS), a traditionally progressive institution in Berlin-Charlottenburg.[6][11] However, he found himself under intensifying pressure to abandon teaching entirely as the dictatorship became more uncompromising in its approach to manifestations of non-standard thought patterns. Sources differ as to whether it was in 1938[11] or 1939[6] that he was obliged to give up his teaching position at the VS (which was itself closed down during 1939).
Tragedies
The Hitler years delivered other personal disasters and tragedies to Max Kaus who during the early 1940s continued to live in central Berlin at an address in the Mommsenstraße.[7] There was little scope for landscape paintings and he reverted to portraiture, his favourite subject being now his wife, known as "Turu". Portraits survive of Turu awake and of Turu asleep, sometimes contorted into positions that must have been desperately uncomfortable, and wearing a wide array of outfits: commentators infer profound love and affection from these paintings.[7] Max Klaus' home was also his studio. During 1943 the house was destroyed by fire as a result of bombing from the air. 200 paintings were destroyed. Kaus nevertheless managed to save some of his early graphic prints which were smaller and more transportable where urgency was of the essence.[6][7]
Following the destruction by fire of his home and studio in
Turu, his wife, died in January 1944 after an intensely painful period suffering from cancer.[9] Later that same year Max Kaus married his second wife, the art student Brigitte Kamm. This marriage ended in divorce in 1948.[6]
Post-war years
After 1945, with much of his previous work destroyed in the fighting, the focus of Kaus' career switched more firmly towards teaching the next generation. As regards his own output, in the words of one commentator, "his work [became] less expressive, with form [now] dominating content".[1] On 15 July 1945 he started a new job at Berlin's "Hochschule für Bildende Künste" (HfbK / "Visual Arts Academy" subsequently merged into the city's "University of the Arts") where he served as deputy director under the leadership of Karl Hofer.[6] He subsequently, in 1949, gained a full professorship at the academy and then took charge of the department for "Freie Kunst" (loosely, "free, or non-applied arts").[6]
Golden years
In 1953 Max Kaus married the dancer Sigrid Reinke.[6] They met because Reinke was funding her studies at the Mary Wigman [dance] Academy by working as a life-model at the HfbK.[3] Their first meeting alone together started, primly enough, with a cup of tea.[3] Despite the forty year age difference and one or two other unusual elements in their situation, Sigrid Kraus later recalled that her mother surprised her by unreservedly endorsing the marriage, evidently believing that the two were "right" for each other.[3] They lived together, till 1958, at Max Kaus' apartment in the so-called "artists' colony" in Berlin-Wilmersdorf.[3]
A commentator subdivides the post-war artistic output of Kaus into four categories: there are his "North Sea paintings" and his "Rome paintings", there are the "Venetian impressionist works" of the early 1960s and then there are, fourthly, the portraits and still lifes from the final part of his creative years.[5]
In 1959 Max Kaus retired from his position at the academy. In 1958 Max and Sigrid Kaus had relocated from the Wilmersdorf "artists' colony" to Potsdamer Straße 44 in Berlin-Lichterfelde where they lived together for almost twenty years. They travelled together extensively.[6] Many years later the widowed Sigrid Kaus told an interviewer that these were "beautiful, rich and exciting years".[a][3] Max Kaus died in Berlin on 5 August 1977.[5] Sigrid Kaus was still living at the home they had shared twenty years after her husband's death. The forty year difference in their ages had always made this a likely outcome: after the death of Max Kaus his widow was able to facilitate exhibitions and other projects involving his work. She has also ensured that his surviving works are properly catalogued and indexed.[3] Since 1987 his literary estate has been held at the German National Arts Archive (Deutsches Kunstarchiv) in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum at Nuremberg.
Memberships
Max Kaus became a member of the German Artists' Association ("Deutscher Künstlerbund"/ DKB) and remained a member until 1936 when the association was forcibly suppressed by then government.[12] The physical event marking the suppression was the DKB's final exhibition (till after 1945) which was held in Hamburg, and at which Kaus participated with his "Porträt Frau im Spiegel" ("Portrait of a woman in the mirror").[13] Between 1951 and 1971 he served as a member of the executive board of the now re-established DKB, serving also as deputy chair between 1956 and 1963.[14]
Awards and honours (selection)
- 1928: Günter Wagner Prize from the Hanover Arts Association ("Kunstverein")[8]
- 1963: Berlin Art Prize[15]
Notes
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h "Max Kaus, Artist (1891 - 1977)". New Walk Museum & Art Gallery, Leicester. 30 September 2014. Retrieved 16 February 2020.
- ^ a b "Max Kaus (1891-1977)". Jude Ahern (germanexpressionism.com). Retrieved 16 February 2020.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Karla Rabe (7 February 2018). "Es begann mit einer Tasse Tee: Zu Gast bei der Künstlerwitwe Sigrid Kaus". Berliner Wochenblatt Verlag. Retrieved 16 February 2020.
- ^ a b c d e f g "Max Kaus, Berlin 1891 - Berlin 1977". Art Directory GmbH, Stockach. Retrieved 16 February 2020.
- ^ a b c d e f "Max Kaus * 1891 Berlin † 1977 Berlin". Biographies. Ketterer Kunst GmbH & Co. KG in München. Retrieved 16 February 2020.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Dipl. Ing. (FH) Ellen Juhnke (compiler) (10 September 2006). "Kaus, Prof. Max * 11.03.1891 + 05.08.1977 Maler und Grafiker". Der Waldfriedhof Dahlem. Stiftung Zentral- und Landesbibliothek Berlin. Retrieved 16 February 2020.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Gabriela Walde (23 March 2016). "Villa Grisebach entdeckt den Künstler Max Kaus wieder". Der Maler, Zeichner und Grafiker war ein echter Berliner. Die Villa Grisebach zeigt eine kleine Ausstellung mit seinen Werken. Berliner Morgenpost. Retrieved 17 February 2020.
- ^ ISBN 3-363-00730-2, p. 27.
- ^ a b c d e Ulrich Clewing (8 August 1997). "Verlorene junge Männer". Die zweite Generation: Ausstellungen des druckgraphischen Werks von Max Kaus (1891–1977) im Käthe-Kollwitz- und im Brücke Museum. taz Verlags u. Vertriebs GmbH, Berlin. p. 26. Retrieved 16 February 2020.
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- ^ a b "Max Kaus". Deutscher Maler und Grafiker. Salongalerie Die Möwe, Berlin. Retrieved 17 February 2020.
- ^ "Deutscher Künstlerbund". Tradition und Zukunft. Deutscher Künstlerbund e.V., Berlin. Retrieved 17 February 2020.
- ^ 1936 verbotene Bilder. Ausstellungskatalog zur 34. Jahresausstellung des DKB in Bonn, Deutscher Künstlerbund, Berlin 1986, pp. 48/49.
- ^ "Vorstände des Deutschen Künstlerbundes seit 1951". Deutscher Künstlerbund (Archiv). Archived from the original on 2015-12-17. Retrieved 17 February 2020.
- ^ "Prof Max Kaus. Berliner Kunstpreis 1963". Retrieved 17 February 2020.