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Rudolf Bredow (born 2 November 1909 in
Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...
, died 17 November 1973 in
Bremen Bremen (Low German also: ''Breem'' or ''Bräm''), officially the City Municipality of Bremen (, ), is the capital of the States of Germany, German state of the Bremen (state), Free Hanseatic City of Bremen (), a two-city-state consisting of the c ...
), German post-expressionist painter, draughtsman and art teacher. Bredow's lifework became famous only after his death. It comprises ca. 1000 documented works (watercolour paintings, coloured chalk drawings, oil paintings and figurines) and numerous previously unreleased drawings. "Bredow’s best works are classical in their simplicity and balance and are equal or quite often even superior to Schmidt-Rottluff’s late black-rimmed watercolour paintings, for instance". The artist is considered to be "one of the greatest discoveries of the German art market during the 90’s".(MÜLLER 2001)


Life

1930–1934: he studied at the arts and crafts school in Berlin and took lessons with the graphic artist
Hans Orlowski Hans Orlowski (1 March 1894 - 3 May 1967) was a German Woodcut artist and painter. Life Hans Otto Orlowski was born at Insterburg, a midsized town a short distance to the east of Königsburg in East Prussia, which at that time was part of Germany ...
(1894–1967), the costume and stage designer Harold Bengen and the painter Max Kaus (1891–1977). After finishing his vocational education he became a painter and graphic artist for film, advertisement, fashion and theatre in Berlin. He was befriended with Bogislav Barlog and was acquainted with
Erich Heckel Erich Heckel (31 July 1883 – 27 January 1970) was a German people, German Painting, painter and printmaker, and a founding member of the group ''Die Brücke'' ("The Bridge") which existed 1905–1913. His work was part of the art competition ...
and
Karl Schmidt-Rottluff Karl Schmidt-Rottluff (Karl Schmidt until 1905; 1 December 1884 – 10 August 1976) was a German expressionist painter and printmaker; he was one of the four founders of the artist group Die Brücke. Life and work Schmidt-Rottluff was born in R ...
. 1940–1942: he worked as art teacher in Berlin, afterwards did his military service in the
German Armed Forces The (, ''Federal Defence'') are the armed forces of the Federal Republic of Germany. The is divided into a military part (armed forces or ''Streitkräfte'') and a civil part, the military part consists of the four armed forces: German Army, ...
. 1949: he became teacher for costume design and taught drawing and painting at the municipal technical college for textile industry and fashion. 1952–1954: he was art master at the vocational school Berlin-Neukoelln and in 1954 director of the sketch courses at the dressmaker's guild Berlin. Since 1955 he had been working as art teacher at private and public schools (
Bad Sachsa Bad Sachsa is a town in the district of Göttingen, in Lower Saxony, Germany. The town was one of the few municipalities in West Germany that imported electric power from former East Germany. This was done via Neuhof Substation. Geography Bad ...
1955–1964;
Langeoog Langeoog (; ) is one of the seven inhabited East Frisian Islands at the edge of the Lower Saxon Wadden Sea in the southern North Sea, located between Baltrum Island (west), and Spiekeroog (east). It is also a municipality in the district of Wittm ...
1957–1958;
Hinterzarten Hinterzarten is a resort village in the Black Forest (German: ''Schwarzwald''), located in the southwest of the state of Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Although Hinterzarten is mostly famous for its ski jumping, it has many other tourist attractions. ...
1959;
Oberhausen Oberhausen (, ) is a city on the river Emscher in the Ruhr Area, Germany, located between Duisburg and Essen ( ). The city hosts the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen and its Gasometer Oberhausen is an anchor point of the European Rout ...
1961–1964, 1966–1971;
Bad Honnef Bad Honnef () is a spa town in Germany near Bonn in the Rhein-Sieg district, North Rhine-Westphalia. It is located on the border of the neighbouring state Rhineland-Palatinate. To the north it lies on the slopes of the Drachenfels (Siebengebirge), ...
1964–1966; Schloss Schwarzenberg 1971–1973; since 1973 at the public boarding school of Lower Saxony in Esens/ East Frisia). On 17 November 1973 Bredow died during an eye operation in Bremen. He was interred in Nienburg. Bredlow's estate became Sofie Walter's († 2005) property by order of the local court in Aurich. In 1989 the art collection Tumulka (Munich) took over the largest part of Bredow's works. The artist's written estate has been kept safe in the archive for fine arts of the Germanic National Museum in Nuremberg since 1992.


Artistic Development

Bredow is an "artist of the lost generation", who were born during the turn of the century and due to the confusion during the world wars and the artistic dictatorship of the National Socialists cannot be classified to a movement that belongs to abstraction or the Art Informel, which were accepted after 1945. Like other artist of this generation (
Eduard Bargheer Eduard Bargheer (25 December 1901 – 1 July 1979) was a German painter and printmaker. His early oeuvre had a close affinity to Expressionism. Life and work Eduard Bargheer was born in Finkenwerder, Hamburg as son of Karl Bargheer, a prima ...
, Werner Gilles, Werner Heldt, Xaver Fuhr, Hans Puhrmann, Philipp Bauknecht, Hermann Teuber, Alfons Klein,
Heinrich Steiner Heinrich Steiner (October 16, 1911 – January 29, 2009) was a German Painting, painter and printmaking, printmaker.Traueranzeige der Familie und Freunde, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 7. März 2009, Ausgabe 56, Seite 36 Life and work Hei ...
, Wendelin Schied etc.), who were around 40 or 50 years old, Bredow also took up the techniques of cubism, abstraction and especially of expressionism, when he continued his work after 1945. From this he developed his post-expressionist style, whose foundations he laid in 1955 and which led to artistically mature and independent late works of art from 1960/1 until his early death in 1973. Bredow did not focus on representing a certain motif. Concerning themes he, as a draughtsman, preferred sketched nature observations and romanced figuration in the foreground. As a watercolour artist he favoured the condensed visual experience of landscape or still life and in oil paintings the depiction of idealised or sometimes abstract females. The dominating theme in his coloured chalk drawings are figurative, such as depictions of Christ and the saints. Journeys play an important role in artistic advancement. In 1941 and 1949 Bredow visited the
Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by the countries of Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden, and the North European Plain, North and Central European Plain regions. It is the ...
and in 1957-158 the North Sea (Langeoog). In 1955 he took up an invitation from consul Thomas Entz, a ship-owner from Flensburg, and went on a cruise across the Mediterranean to Algeria, Greece, Bulgaria and Turkey. In the museums of
Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
(1939, 1958–1973) he came face to face with modern masterpieces. In
Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...
(1958–1967),
Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...
(1964–1971) and
Ticino Ticino ( ), sometimes Tessin (), officially the Republic and Canton of Ticino or less formally the Canton of Ticino, is one of the Canton of Switzerland, 26 cantons forming the Switzerland, Swiss Confederation. It is composed of eight districts ...
(1959, 1972) he was enthralled by nature and landscape. His travel experiences find graphical expression in his travel diary (Germanic National Museum in Nuremberg) and his watercolour paintings: picturesque places, mountains, coastal landscapes, harbours with boats, fruits and flowers, but rarely humans. His pictures are influenced by his search for motifs typical of a country and they very often express his desire for colour and harmony. Particularly in his watercolour paintings Bredow increasingly discovered colour as a means to form his works, which are characterised by a combination of increased spontaneity and a rush of colour especially during his mature period. They show the tension between bright almost glowing colours and scarcely outlined forms. In his coloured chalk drawings and oil paintings Bredow explores abstracting representationalism, which is reminiscent of Werner Gilles' geometrical use of forms and Ernst Wilhelm Nay's
abstract expressionism Abstract expressionism in the United States emerged as a distinct art movement in the aftermath of World War II and gained mainstream acceptance in the 1950s, a shift from the American social realism of the 1930s influenced by the Great Depressi ...
.


Exhibitions (selection)

Bredow displayed his works only once in his lifetime (1954 participation in a group exhibition at the Kunstamt Berlin-Wilmersdorf). Not until his death did exhibitions of his works attract interest: * 1976 Bremen, Bankhaus Martens und Weyhausen * 1977
Worpswede Worpswede (Northern Low Saxon: ''Worpsweed'') is a municipality in the Osterholz-Scharmbeck, district of Osterholz, in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated in the Teufelsmoor, northeast of Bremen (city), Bremen. The small town itself is located n ...
, Galerie in der Lindenallee * 1978 Nienburg, Museum der Stadt * 1979 Berlin, Haus am Kleistpark * 1991 Chemnitz, Städt. Kunstsammlungen * 1991 Landsberg, Neues Stadtmuseum * 1991 Meiningen, Staatl. Museen * 1992 Halle, Staatl. Galerie Moritzburg * 1992 Leipzig, Neuer Kunstverein * 1993 Worpswede, Galerie Bollhagen * 1993, Aschaffenburg, Galerie Will * 1994 Ismaning, Galerie im Schloßpark * 1994 Euskirchen, Rathausgalerie * 1994 München, Kunstsalon Franke * 1994 Salzburg, Galerie Kutscha * 1994 Worpswede, Galerie Hubert * 1994 Nürtingen, Galerie „Die Treppe“ * 1995 Berlin, Galerie Pfundt * 1995 Würzburg, Galerie Hetzler * 1995 Wiesbaden, Altstadtgalerie * 1995 Lübeck, Galerie-Westenhoff * 1996 München, Galerie im OSRAM-Haus


Works of Art

Bredow's works of art are owned by Dresdner Bank, Leipzig; the municipal art collection Chemnitz; the national gallery Moritzburg Halle; the Vatican Rome. His written estate is kept at the archive for fine arts of the Germanic National Museum in Nuremberg.


See also

*
List of German painters This is a list of German painters. A > second column was into info box --> * Hans von Aachen (1552–1615) * Aatifi (born 1965) * Karl Abt (painter), Karl Abt (1899–1985) * Tomma Abts (born 1967) * Andreas Achenbach (1815–1910) * Oswald ...


References

* L.TAVERNIER: Rudolf Bredow, in: ''Weltkunst'' 61 (1991), H. 11, S.1644. * G. MEISSNER, L.TAVERNIER: Rudolf Bredow (1909–1973). Expressionist aus Überzeugung. Mit einem Verzeichnis der Ölgemälde, Aquarelle, Farbkreiden und farbigen Figurinen. München: Hirmer 1995. * G. MEISSNER: Rudolf Bredow, in: ''Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon'', Bd. 14, München/Leipzig: Saur 1996, S.60-61. * CHR. HORNIG: Rudolf Bredow. In: ''Weltkunst'' 66 (1996), H. 5, S.531. * L. TAVERNIER: Rudolf Bredow, in: ''Dictionary of Art'', vol. 4, London/New York: MacMillan 1996, S.732. * I. MÜLLER: Rudolf Bredow
www.kunstmarkt.com
(12.09.2001)


External links




Local References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bredow, Rudolf 1909 births 1973 deaths German modern painters 20th-century German painters 20th-century German male artists German male painters Painters from Berlin