Heinrich Harder (2 June 1858 – 5 February 1935) was a German artist and an art professor at the
Prussian Academy of Arts
The Prussian Academy of Arts (German: ''Preußische Akademie der Künste'') was a state arts academy first established in Berlin, Brandenburg, in 1694/1696 by prince-elector Frederick III, in personal union Duke Frederick I of Prussia, and late ...
in Berlin best known for his depictions of extinct animals.
Life
Heinrich Harder was born in
Putzar
Putzar is a village and a former municipality in the Vorpommern-Greifswald district, in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most popu ...
, Pomerania, the son of a farmer. From 1874 to 1876, he studied at the Royal Art School in Berlin, followed by tutoring by
Martin Gropius
Martin Carl Philipp Gropius (11 August 1824, Berlin – 13 December 1880) was a German architect.Wirth, Irmgard (1966).Gropius, Martin Carl Philipp. In: ''Neue Deutsche Biographie''. Band 7. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot. . p. 132-133 retriev ...
and later (1890-1892) with
Eugen Bracht
Eugen Felix Prosper Bracht (3 June 1842 – 5 November 1921) was a German landscape painter.
Biography
Bracht was born in Morges, Waadt (near Lake Geneva in Switzerland) of German parents. His family later moved to Darmstadt, Germany, where ...
at the Royal Art School (''Königlichen akademischen Hochschule für die Bildenden Künste'') in the same city. After his studies, he settled in
Steglitz
Steglitz () is a locality of the Steglitz-Zehlendorf borough in Southwestern Berlin, the capital of Germany. is a Slavic name for the European goldfinch, similar to the German .
Steglitz was also a borough from 1920 to 2000. It contained the ...
, where he lived until the end of his life. He shared a workshop in the Berlin suburb, on Lutherstraße 10, with the decorative artist Hans Hartmann. In addition, Harder taught from 1906 to 1923, and from 1913 as an art professor, at the Prussian Academy of Fine Arts (now the
Berlin University of the Arts
The Universität der Künste Berlin (UdK; also known in English as the Berlin University of the Arts), situated in Berlin, Germany, is the largest art school in Europe. It is a public art and design school, and one of the four research universiti ...
).
Harder died in 1935, at the age of 76. He is buried in the Steglitz cemetery.
Work
As a
landscape painter
Landscape painting, also known as landscape art, is the depiction of natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, trees, rivers, and forests, especially where the main subject is a wide view—with its elements arranged into a coherent compos ...
, Harder exhibited paintings inspired by the scenery of
Lüneburg
Lüneburg (officially the ''Hanseatic City of Lüneburg'', German: ''Hansestadt Lüneburg'', , Low German ''Lümborg'', Latin ''Luneburgum'' or ''Lunaburgum'', Old High German ''Luneburc'', Old Saxon ''Hliuni'', Polabian ''Glain''), also calle ...
(like his mentor Bracht),
Mecklenburg
Mecklenburg (; nds, label=Low German, Mękel(n)borg ) is a historical region in northern Germany comprising the western and larger part of the federal-state Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. The largest cities of the region are Rostock, Schwerin ...
, the
Harz
The Harz () is a highland area in northern Germany. It has the highest elevations for that region, and its rugged terrain extends across parts of Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Thuringia. The name ''Harz'' derives from the Middle High German ...
mountains,
Sweden
Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...
and
Switzerland
). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...
, at the ''Grosse Berliner Kunstausstellung'' in 1891. He was also active as a decorative artist and worked for advertisement companies.
In 1900, Harder prepared 60 lithographs for the series ''Tiere der Urwelt'' ("Animals of the Primeval World") by the Hamburg cocoa and chocolate manufacturer Theodor Reichardt, depicting dinosaurs, trilobites, ammonites, and primeval mammals. The writer
Wilhelm Bölsche
Wilhelm Bölsche (2 January 1861 – 31 August 1939) was a German author, editor and publicist. He was among the early promoters of nature conservation and committed to popularizing science.
Life
Bölsche was born in Cologne on 2 January 1861 ...
, with whom Harder had worked since 1898, described the animals on the back of the cards. In 1906 Bölsche published articles about the planet earth in the weekly magazine ''
Die Gartenlaube
''Die Gartenlaube – Illustriertes Familienblatt'' (; ) was the first successful mass-circulation German newspaper and a forerunner of all modern magazines.Sylvia Palatschek: ''Popular Historiographies in the 19th and 20th Centuries'' (Oxford: ...
'', likewise illustrated by Harder. Harder was also involved as a draftsman in Bölsche's ''Tierbuch'' (1908) and ''Tierwanderungen in der Urwelt'' (1914). In 1910 he supplied designs for a collection card series similar to the Reichardt one for the
Cologne
Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western States of Germany, state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 m ...
chocolate producer Ludwig Stollwerck.
Berlin Aquarium
In 1913, Harder designed a series of
relief
Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces are bonded to a solid background of the same material. The term ''relief'' is from the Latin verb ''relevo'', to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that the ...
s and
mosaic
A mosaic is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and were particularly pop ...
s on the two façades of the newly built aquarium of the
Berlin Zoo
The Berlin Zoological Garden (german: link=no, Zoologischer Garten Berlin) is the oldest surviving and best-known zoo in Germany. Opened in 1844, it covers and is located in Berlin's Tiergarten. With about 1,380 different species and over 20,2 ...
, on the Budapester Straße and inside the zoo itself. They show prehistoric creatures, such as dinosaurs, fossil invertebrates, extinct reptiles, and extinct mammals. He also helped create a large statue of an ''
Iguanodon
''Iguanodon'' ( ; meaning 'iguana-tooth'), named in 1825, is a genus of iguanodontian dinosaur. While many species have been classified in the genus ''Iguanodon'', dating from the late Jurassic Period to the early Cretaceous Period of Asia, Eu ...
'' on the zoo side of the aquarium building, together with the sculptor Otto Markert. When the destroyed aquarium was rebuilt after the Second World War, Harder's badly damaged pictures could not initially be restored due to lack of funds. In 1977, 14 original designs were rediscovered, which served as a template for the restoration of the murals in 1978.
[Lescaze, Z. (2017). Paleoart. Visions of the Prehistoric Past. Köln: Taschen, 109-129.]
References
External links
Works by Harder
Tiere der Urwelt(Serie 1a, ca. 1910)
About Harder
Geschichte des Zoo-Aquariums Accessed 25 August 2021 (Archive.org).
{{DEFAULTSORT:Harder, Heinrich
1858 births
1935 deaths
People from Vorpommern-Greifswald
German artists
People from the Province of Pomerania
Scientific illustrators
Paleoartists
Academic staff of the Prussian Academy of Arts