Spurensuche

Chicago has always been a center of German artists.

The following list is intended as a sample introduction, certainly not a list of all German artists that have worked in Chicago

Carl Beil (1857- ), moved to Chicago to work on the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893 and stays. Worked with Peter Weber, an architect.

Albert Bloch, Born in St. Louis, studies in Germany, joins Blue Reiter and exhibits with them. Lives in Muenchen in 1914? Returns to USA and teaches at U of Kansas.

Richard Bock, American (1865-1949). Was the first sculptors to work with Frank

Lloyd Wright. His sculpture of two crouching men can be seen on the FLWirght Home and Studio in Oak Park. Bock also did the Lucius Fisher Monument, a Columbarium, 1916, at Graceland Cemetery. He has several works throughout Illinois and the Midwest.

Sebastian Buscher, designed the wood original St. Martin and the Beggar, St. Martin’s Catholic Church, 5842 S. Princeton.

Franz Engelsman (1859- ), was born in New York, studied in Germany. Did statue of German novelist, Fritz Reuter, 1893, in Humboldt Park, near Grower Drive, north of Division.

Joseph F. Falkenbach. Trained in Germany and Belgium, Falkenbach was an artists of religious subjects who moved to Milwaukee around 1930. He may be the same artist known as Felix Falkenbach who was associated with Conrad Schmitt Studio in Milwaukee. He painted a station of the cross series for St. Peter's Catholic Church, Skokie (was Niles Center).

Gustav Fuchs a German-American, painted a large mural on plaster in the State of Illinois new Capitol Building. He was employed by the Phelpson ? Co. of Chicago?

Engelbert Gast (d.1915), Bavarian born sculptor and stonecutter who designed cemetery monuments and executed the work of such well known artists as Leonard Volk as a sideline to his stone cutting business. George S. Bangs Monument, no date, Rosehill Cemetery.

Herman J. Gaul (1869-1949), designed new version of St. Martin and the Beggar, installed September 1939, St. Martin’s Catholic Church, 5842 S. Princeton. He was also a major architect of Chicago churches.

Felix Görling (??), sculpture of Alexander von Humboldt, 1892, in Humboldt Park, was cast in Europe, probably Germany.

Herman Hahn (1868-1944), Lincoln Park monument of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1913. Hahn lived and died in Munich. Did he ever visit Chicago? 1893?

Joseph Hann (in Austria, November 1867 - ) He was a sculptor and altar builder who immigrated to the US in 1892 and by the following year was president of the Statuary and Art Carving Co. in Milwaukee. Associated with him in this business was Michael H. Wiltzuis. Hann is listed in the 1900 Federal Census.

John Hauser (1859-1913) lived in Cincinnati. He loved the West where he and his wife were adopted by the Sioux.

Wolfgang Hoffmann(1900 – 1969), son of Joseph Hoffmann, Wien, lived in Geneva, IL and designed for several kitchen and houseware companies in the vicinity.

Bernard Kamy (1930s-60s) studied art in München and with Prof. Albert Fotke at Hamburg's Landeskunstschule. He specialized in painting, design, and color chemistry. Worked in China for 9 years as a fabric and textile designer. In 1948, became staff artist and restorer at the art gallery of Marshall Field & Co.

Franz Machtl, lived in Munich but designed the Rosenberg Fountain, 1893, in Grant Park, Michigan Avenue at 11th Street. The figure was cast in Munich.

Nicola Marschall (1829-1917), a German born and trained painter, worked in Alabama. A painting of his depicting 3 women in Neapolitan garb resting, hangs in the Montgomery Museum.

Charles Henry Niehaus (1855-1935) was born in southern Ohio to German immigrant parents. He studied art at the McMicken School of Design in Cincinnati before moving to Munich for his European studies. As runner-up in the Trinity Church NYC bronze door competition, he received the south door. He had gained fame for his portraits of President James Garfield and William Allen, both of Ohio, in Washington D.C.

Joseph Prestele, Sr.(1796-1867) was born in Bavaria and drew plants in the US West. Very high quality lithographs. Joined the Community of True Inspiration at Ebenezer near Buffalo NY, 1843-58. He then moved to Amana, Iowa. His botanical work is published in Drawn from Nature by Charles van Ravensway, Smithsonian, 1984.

Gotlieb Prestel (1827-1892), a son of Joseph Prestel Sr.? seems to have been a printmaker, too.

Ernst Rau (1839-75), sculpture of Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller, 1886, in Lincoln Park.

Gustav Runge (1822-1900), an architect, was a member of a highly musical Bremen family, who turned to architecture in his youth and studied in Berlin and Karlsruhe. He was a classmate of Edward Collins. Though he was steeped in Schinkel’s teachings, his personal taste inclined to the florid, and he built a number of highly mannered storefronts in Philadelphia. Runge joined in an architectural partnership with Napoleon LeBrun to form the firm of LeBrun and Runge. The partnership lasted through the completion of the Academy of Music, then collapsed. LeBrun went to NY and Runge, worked for a time for the Drexel family (German Bankers in Philadelphia) and in 1859 returned to Germany, for a lengthy visit. He returned to Germany in 1861 and became the chief municipal architect in Bremen. He immediately published the Academy of Music as a portfolio of drawings, one of the first American buildings to be published in Germany.

Fritz Vogt was born in Germany in 1841 and lived there for 48 years before arriving in Montgomery and Schoharie Counties, upstate NY, where he died, 1 January 1900. He seems to have been a free spirit, preferring to sleep on hay in barns, and itinerant artist with some 200 portraits of rural and small-town homes to his credit. Exhibition: “Drawn Home: Fritz Vogt’s Rural America”, American Folk Art Museum, NYC, June-Sept. 2003.

Leonard Wells Volk (1828-95). Was born in New York into in German family and then raised in St. Louis. Leonard Wells Volk was Chicago’s first important resident sculptor. His monuments include: Volunteer Fire Fighter’s Monument, 1864; Civil War Monument, 1869-70; and Leonard Wells Volk Monument in Rosehill Cemetery; Stephen A Douglas Monument .

Joseph P. Vorst (1897-1947): painter. Vorst studied at the Folkwang Schule in Hagen before (?) WWI. After the war he moved to Berlin where he studied at the German National Academy with Max Lieberman and Max Slevot. Vorst identified with Social Realism. Vorst settled in St. Louis in 1930 and became part of a group of artists depicting the American scene, especially farmers, sharecroppers and laborers. Vorst did a number of Post Office murals (in Vandalia and Bethany MO and Paris Arkansas). He exhibited widely. Won prizes at the AIC, Kansas City Art Institute, Corcoran Gallery and Pennsylvania Academy of Art.

EXH: McCaughen & Burr Fine Arts, St. Louis, 23 June - 7 July 1990.

A.A. Weinman (1870 born in Germany-1952). Elks Memorial sculpture, The Terror of War, The Glory of Peace, Patriotism, Fraternity. Interior frieze of Supreme Court, Washington, D.C. Louisiana State Capitol exterior frieze.

Thomas Worthington Whittredge, American ( 1820-1910). From Cincinnati. Studied in Düsseldorf between 1849 and 1853 and then returned to Cincinnati.

Some public sculpture in Chicago by German artists:

Hebe on Rosenberg Fountain (1893) is by Franz Machtl who lived in Munich and cast the statue there.

Merchandise Mart Hall of Fame head of Edward A. Filene (1860-1937), 1953, is by Henry Rox, born in Berlin.

Head of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1966) by Marino Marini in the Lobby of the IBM Bldg.

Head of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe by Hugo Weber, S.R. Crown Hall, IIT.

Statue of Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller, 8 May 1886, in Lincoln Park is by Ernst Rau (1839-75). The statue was commissioned by a group calling itself, Chicago Citizens of German Descent.

Monument to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1913, in Lincoln Park, is by Herman Hahn (1868-1944). Monument unveiled 16 June 1914. Hahn lived and worked in Munich.

Adolph Alexander Weinman (1870-1952) sculpted the stone Elks Memorial frieze, The Terror of War and The Glory of Peace, and the two bronze sculpture groups, Patriotism and Fraternity.

Egon Weiner (1906-?), born in Vienna, came to US in 1938, did the groups called Brotherhood, 1954 At the St. Joseph Medical Offices, corner, Diversey and Sheridan. He also did Polyphony, 1964, at the entrance of St. Joseph’s Hospital. Flame at the site of Mrs. O’Leary’s cow.

Wolf Vostell (1932-?) born in Berlin, entombed car in cement, called Concrete Traffic 1970, at the University of Chicago, 1970.

Ruth Duckworth was born in Hamburg 1919. Master of ceramics, Univ. of Chicago, Earth, Water, and Sky, 1968-69, in the lobby of the Hinds Laboratory Bldg.

Heinrich von Kleist Monument in Park behind DuSable Museum by ?

Drexel Fountain, 1881-82, 51^st and Drexel, is by Henry Manger, a German sculptor who worked in Philadelphia.

Statue of St. Martin on former Church of St. Martin is by Sebastian Buscher.

Statue of Fritz Reuter, 1893, in Humboldt Park, is by Franz Engelsman (b. 1859-) born in NY studied in Germany and thought of himself as German.

Felix Görling’s statue of Alexander von Humboldt stands in Humboldt Park where it was installed in 1892. The statue was donated by Francis J. Dewes (1845-1921) who made a fortune in brewing and whose house still stands at 503 W. Wrightwood.

Richard Bock (1865-1949) Sculpted for FLW and others of the Prairie School. Lucius Fisher Monument, a Columbarium, 1916, at Graceland Cemetery.

Born in New York into in German family and then raised in St. Louis, Leonard Wells Volk (1828-95) was Chicago’s first important resident sculptor. Did ; Volunteer Fire Fighter’s Monument, 1864 and Civil War Monument, 1869-70, and Leonard Wells Volk Monument in Rosehill Cemetery; Stephen A Douglas Monument.

Engelbert Gast (d.1915) from Bavaria, did George S. Bangs Monument in Rosehill Cemetery.

Other than these many historical connections, Chicago has been the center of

much German art in the 1980s and 1990s, starting with the Oskar Friedel

Gallery. For several German artists also called Chicago home in the 1990s.

Among the most noted was Florian Depenthal, whose series of paintings made in

Chicago was entitled American Paintings, 1992-95.

More important were the several long visit of Jens Hanke and Ulrike Dornis. Ulrike Dornis’ work focused with great success on Chicago’s once mighty industry and its shadowy reminders.

Starting in 2001, the city of Luzern, Switzerland, a sister city of Chicago, has sponsored Kuenstlerhaus Chicago. Actually an apartment in Ukrainian Village, each year, three Swiss artists are given a stipends to live and work in Chicago. The outstanding individual so far has been Peter Stobbe. His stay culminated in a series of paintings and a book to be published in Switzerland based on his street experiences.

Arguably the most famous living German artist calling Chicago home Ruth Duckworth. Born immediately after World War One in Hamburg, Duckworth exhibited her ceramics at the famed Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago in 1965 and then moved to the city. Working in Chicago, many students of ceramics have been inspired by her as collectors sought her out. Over the years she has received many honors for her work, but more important, she has gained international acclaim for her innovative ceramics.