Page 33 - Studio International - February 1972

means of production which afford every person here and there ... and I rejoice with the views on the most recent art and on the future of art.
work, spirit, bread, a home and the sense of a pencil, sing, pray and praise the Great Meidner's contribution has been reprinted frequently,
higher objective in life ... we painters and poets Almighty'. q most recently in Kunst und Künstler, aus 32
Jahrgangen einer deutschen Zeitschrift, edited by
are joined together with the poor in a holy Günter Feist, Berlin (East) 1971.
alliance.'21 In this respect, too, Meidner was a 7It was therefore most appropriate that Meidner was
typical Expressionist. asked in 1923 to design the sets for the Ufa-film Die
Strasse, which tells the story of a man living in
comfortable middle-class surroundings who
WRITING nevertheless feels the call of the nocturnal city.
Most of the Expressionists set great store by Meidner's sets for the street at night, closely related
to the drawings which illustrate this article, contrast
versatility, did their best to excel in areas other strongly with the Victorian interiors of the
than in their chosen field. Kokoschka and 9 Raoul Hausmann 1913 apartment, which the man eventually leaves,
Barlach wrote plays now regarded as literary Pen, brush, grey wash over thin pencil outline unable to resist the promised excitement of the
16 1/2 x 15 1/4 in.
street outside.
landmarks; Klee and Feininger were musicians "Ludwig Meidner, Im Nacken das Sternemeer,
of professional standard. Schoenberg and so Self-portrait for Im Nacken das Sternemeer' 1916 Leipzig and Munich, 1918.
Reed pen (printer's ink ?) over thin black chalk
Strindberg were painters, the latter of no mean 17 1/8 x 13 3/4 in. 'According to Grochowiak, Meidner later thought
that his visions in 1912 might have been partly
achievement. Like Kokoschka, Meidner took induced by the unusually hot summer and by the
his writing seriously, and although his two major Biblical figure 1916 awful conditions he was living in. Meidner visited
literary works, Im Nacken das Sternemeer and Felt pen, over pencil Heckel and Kirchner that summer and found them
11 1/4 x 8 3/4 in.
suffering equally from premonitions of some awful
Septemberschrei are fragmentary and little- disaster.
known, for their original use of language alone 12 Alfred Wolfenstein 1921 "Johannes R Becher, Ein Mensch unserer Zeit,
Black crayon
they deserve to rate among the most interesting 25 1/4 X 20 1/4 in. Berlin, 1929.
11Menschheitsdämmerung, edited by Kurt Pinthus, was
first published by Rowohlt in 1920 and although not
the first was the most important anthology of
Expressionist poetry. The sections were called Sturz
und Schrei, Erweckung des Herzens, Aufruf und
Empörung and Liebe den Menschen. The anthology
was reprinted as a paperback in 1959.
"Ludwig Meidner, 'Mein Leben', autobiographical
fragment published in : Lothar Brieger Ludwig
Meidner Junge Kunst, volume 4, Leipzig 1919.
13Apokalyptische Landschaft (Spreehafen Berlin),
reproduced, plate X in Grohowiak, is in the
Saarland-Museum, Saarbrücken. The second picture
mentioned here, also called Apokalyptische
Landschaft, is plate VII in Grohowiak and is in the
Neue Nationalgalerie, West Berlin.
14Heym's diary entry printed in the Marbach
Expressionismus catalogue, p. 31.
15 Thomas Mann Friedrich und die Grosse Koalition,
quoted in Grochowiak.
"Ludwig Meidner, Im Nacken das Sternemeer.
"George Grosz, Ein Kleines Ja und ein Grosses Nein,
Sein Leben von ihm selbst erzahlt, Hamburg 1 955.
"Meidner op. cit.
"As told to Grohowiak.
20Revolution (Barrikadenkampf), plate XIII in
Grohowiak, is in the Neue Nationalgalerie, West
Berlin.
21Ludwig Meidner in Das Kunstblatt 1919.
Brief bibliography
Thomas Grochowiak, Ludwig Meidner,
Recklinghausen, 1966. Essays in catalogues for
pieces of Expressionist prose. All the drawings which accompany this article are Meidner exhibitions in Recklinghausen, Berlin and
Meidner would have liked to become a poet from the collection of Mr and Mrs D. Thomas Darmstadt, 1963 and 1964 (travelling show),
Bergen, London, and are on loan to the Art Institute
CI always loved poetry but I couldn't rhyme. It of Chicago. I am especially grateful to Mr D. T. Darmstadt 1970, and Frankfurt 1970 (Frankfurter
Kunstkabinett). The Meidner Estate is to be found
was only enough for prose, be it said for poetic Bergen for helpful discussions concerning Meidner. in Darmstadt and is administered by the city.
prose.') and his writing has the often oppressive Wolfradt, Ludwig Meidner in Das Junge
Deutschland, 1920. Brief chronology
energy of his painting and appears to have been 2Expressionismus, Literatur und Kunst, 1910-1923, Born 1884 in Bernstadt, Silesia and from 1903 to '05
set down in a way which suggests that he wrote, exhibition in the Schiller-Nationalmuseum, Marbach studied at the art school in Breslau (Wroclaw). From
as he painted, in a kind of visionary state. Here, a.N., 1960 The catalogue, edited by P. Raabe and 1905 to 1906 earned enough to keep himself alive by
H. L. Greve, makes almost forty references to
for example, is a typical piece from Im Nacken Meidner as against, for example, less than fifteen to making fashion drawings for an advertising agency in
Berlin. 1906-7 at the Academies Cormon and Julian
das Sternemeer, describing the joys of drawing: Kirchner. in Paris, where he became friendly with
`We have loved drawing from way back, we 3 Since the war there have been four small exhibitions Modigliani. Returned to Berlin in 1907, living at first
stupid, playful, laughing humans. From the of Meidner's work in Germany, two of them in in great poverty. 1912 founded the artists' group Die
Pathetiker and exhibited at Herwarth Walden's
private galleries. The first, and so far only monograph
first charming stammerings of primitive on the artist, that by Grochowiak, appeared in 1966. Gallery Der Sturm. In 1914 he went to Dresden with
people to Kokoschka and Hermann Huber; 4Meidner did belong to a group, however. Together his closest friend, the writer Ernst Wilhelm Lotz.
from Raphael's disciplined style to the with the now forgotten painters Janthur and From 1915 until 1916 he was once again in Berlin and
was eventually called up. From 1916 until 1918 he
Steinhardt he founded 'Die Pathetiker' in the Spring
pornographic doodles on our piss-house of 1912, a group dedicated to opposing the lack of acted for part of the time as a French interpreter.
walls. Drawing makes you happy, healthy, emotion of the Impressionists and to making the During this period he also wrote Im Nacken das
and a believer. I'm always alone. No girl German medieval masters better known. The group Sternemeer and Septemberschrei. From 1919 until
exhibited with other painters at Walden's Sturm 1935 he was in Berlin, and in 1935 was declared a
loves me. No woman wants to sleep with gallery. decadent artist by the Nazis. In 1939 he fled with his
me. No friend wants to be with me. I have 'Paul Zech, Fabrikstrasse Tags, 1911, printed in family to England where he was interned on the Isle
no home, no country, am poor, outlawed and Menschheitsdammerung, ed. Pinthus, Berlin 1920. of Man and then lived and worked in a studio on the
Finchley Road in London. In 1953 he returned to
6In 1913/14 the Berlin art journal Kunst und
much hated ... but I can draw, freely swing Künstler asked a number of 'younger' artists for their Germany and died in Darmstadt in 1966.
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