Letter and artist questionnaire

Description

J.P. Hodin's questionnaire completed by Friedrich Karl Gotsch, with an accompanying letter.

[Translation/transcription]

I. LIFE AND WORK DATA

Full name:
Date and Place of Birth:
Art Schools visited:
Dates, Names of Teachers:
Friedrich-Karl Gotsch
3 February 1900, Pries on the Danish Wahld, Schleswig
Art Academy, Dresden; Academy Cola Rossi, Paris
Hans Ralfs, 1919; Oskar Kokoschka, 1920-23

Advantages connected with education in art schools: influences on further work:
Dresden circle, Kokoschka, Dix and numerous international artists. In Paris, the Café du Dôme circle, especially Léger and Picasso, were certainly influential for a time, but was working independently from very early on, see Grohmann monograph and Dr Flemming (forthcoming).

When started work in personal direction? Name works and dates:
As early as 1919
Numerous publications and catalogues. Works in many exhibitions and museums, both home and abroad.

Represented in public collections:
Name works and collections in England and abroad
Many German museums, museum in Santiago, Chile, Danish museums, Swiss collections. Private collections around the world.

Prizes, Scholarships, Awards:
Prize of the Dresden Academy of Art, 1921
Art Prize of the state of Schleswig-Holstein
Various other honours

Are you holding a teaching job in an art school:
Name school and dates:
Hamburg School of Architecture from 1950 to 1952. Co-founder of the Baukreis art school, with teaching duties from 1946 to 1950, in Schleswig-Holstein and the Rhineland.

State whether mentioned in any book on art:
Name title of book, page, and illustration, if any
Will Grohmann monograph, 1924; Geschichte der modernen Kunst [History of modern art] (Bruckmann); Kunst seit 1924 [Art since 1924] (DuMont Schauberg); Jahrbuch der jungen Kunst 1924 [Modern art yearbook 1924], many articles, catalogues etc. Many illustrations throughout.

Date and places of journeys abroad:
New York in 1923 (first citizen visa), all European countries over twenty years.

Do you belong to a group? (name)
Deutscher Künstlerbund [Association of German Artists]

Exhibitions held:
Impossible to enumerate. Group exhibitions in many places since 1955.


II. STYLISTIC DATA

(a) Describe briefly your own stylistic development, changes of style, themes, etc. State reason why and dates when occurred.
Participation in Expressionism early on (‘Crown Prince of German Expressionism’). New orientation due to French influence from 1926. Expansion initially in the direction of rigorous pictorial construction (Léger). Then simultaneity of multiple possibilities, particularly tension between Nordic runes and southern lightness (FRANCOPHILE by birth, Danish by nature). Hieroglyphs dominate now.

(b) State main sources of inspiration (in England and abroad). Names of artists and art trends, or other influences:
Poets! Jens Peter Jacobsen, Hamsun, Hesse. Theatre! Active as an actor from time to time. Also produce literature. Italian Early Renaissance. Kokoschka NOT dominant! Strongest influence: Munch. The older I get, the more influential Rubens and Rembrandt become. All Netherlandish art. Ultimate aim: ever more SYMBOLISM, HIEROGLYPHS.

(c) State when arrived at positive appreciation of ‘abstract’ principles of art and why you adopted them:
First strongly abstract painting around 1927. Inclination towards abstraction has waxed and waned since then. Total simultaneity now. Abstract and figurative cheek by jowl. Mostly amalgamation, which only seems to be achieved when painting, regardless of what it represents, becomes an elementary SIGN, a CIPHER, ideally in loose painting, which also incorporates the impressionistic.

(d) What is the chief aim of your work, seen
1) aesthetically
2) socially
Extreme ornamentality, luxury. Dynamism, both formal and chromatic, but never unbridled!
Festivity for all humanity.

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