Richard Guhr (30 September 1873 – 27 September 1956) was a German sculptor and painter. He became also known as one of the most important teachers of

Otto Dix Wilhelm Heinrich Otto Dix (; 2 December 1891 – 25 July 1969) was a German painter and printmaker, noted for his ruthless and harshly realistic depictions of German society during the Weimar Republic and the brutality of war. Along with Geor ...

Biography

Guhr was born in

Schwerin Schwerin (; Mecklenburgisch dialect, Mecklenburgian Low German: ''Swerin''; Latin: ''Suerina'', ''Suerinum'') is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Germany, second-largest city of the northeastern States of Germany, German ...

in 1873. At an age of 17 he came to

Dresden Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label=Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth larg ...

, the former home of his parents, to study at the Academy of Applied Arts. From 1892 he continued his studies in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

with

Alfred Grenander Alfred Frederik Elias Grenander (26 June 1863 – 14 March 1931) was a Swedish architect, who became one of the most prominent engineers during the first building period of the Berlin U-Bahn network in the early twentieth century. Biography Gre ...

Richard Guhr contributed to the

Louisiana Purchase Exposition The Louisiana Purchase Exposition, informally known as the St. Louis World's Fair, was an World's fair, international exposition held in St. Louis, Missouri, United States, from April 30 to December 1, 1904. Local, state, and federal funds tota ...

1904 and to the interior of the 1907 opened

Hotel Adlon The Hotel Adlon Kempinski Berlin is a luxury hotel in Berlin, Germany. It is on Unter den Linden, the main boulevard in the central Mitte district, at the corner with Pariser Platz, directly opposite the Brandenburg Gate. The original Hotel Adlon ...

in Berlin. In 1905 he came back to Dresden where he was appointed professor at the Academy of Applied Arts in 1907. From 1910 to 1914

was student in his class of figurative decorative painting. Moreover,

Friedrich Kurt Fiedler ''Friedrich'' Kurt Fiedler (8 March 1894 – 11 November 1950) was a German graphic designer and a representative of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, Social Democratic Party. During the Weimar Republic he was acknowledged for his poster ...

Wilhelm Lachnit Wilhelm Lachnit (12 November 1899, , near Dresden — 14 November 1962, Dresden) was a German painter who was primarily active in Dresden. Life Lachnit was born in the small town of Gittersee; his family moved to Dresden in 1906. He studied at t ...

and Karl Völker were among his students. Until 1930 Guhr created some important artworks as the ''Goldener Rathausmann'' on top of Dresden's town hall, sculptures for the town halls in

Barmen Barmen is a former industrial metropolis of the region of Bergisches Land, Germany, which merged with four other towns in 1929 to form the city of Wuppertal. Barmen, together with the neighbouring town of Elberfeld founded the first electric ...

and

Bremen Bremen (Low German also: ''Breem'' or ''Bräm''), officially the City Municipality of Bremen (german: Stadtgemeinde Bremen, ), is the capital of the German state Free Hanseatic City of Bremen (''Freie Hansestadt Bremen''), a two-city-state consis ...

as well as paintings for the town hall in

Bochum Bochum ( , also , ; wep, Baukem) is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia. With a population of 364,920 (2016), is the sixth largest city (after Cologne, Düsseldorf, Dortmund, Essen and Duisburg) of the most populous Germany, German federal state o ...

. Guhr was a great admirer of

Richard Wagner Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most op ...

. Already in 1911 he had designed on his own expenses the world's biggest memorial to the composer. It was originally planned for the

Großer Garten The Großer Garten (English: Great Garden) is a Baroque style park in central Dresden. It is rectangular in shape and covers about 1.8 km². Originally established in 1676 on the orders of John George III, Elector of Saxony, it has been a p ...

, but finally found its place in the valley of the river

Wesenitz The Wesenitz (''Wjazońca'' in Upper Sorbian language) is a river in Saxony, Germany, right tributary of the Elbe. Its total length is . The Wesenitz runs through the tourist regions of the Lusatian Highlands and Saxon Switzerland. Its name is d ...

near Graupa. During the

Weimarer Republik The Weimar Republic (german: link=no, Weimarer Republik ), officially named the German Reich, was the government of Germany from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional federal republic for the first time in history; hence it is al ...

, Guhr participated in the upcoming

antisemitism Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism. Antis ...

and wrote some publications in which he blamed the

Jew Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""Th ...

s for the "decadence in art".R. Guhr: ''Der Judenstil oder der Expressionismus''. Dresden, M. E. Fischer, 1922; R. Guhr: ''Die Schuld am Verfall der Künste''. Dresden, M. E. Fischer, 1923 In 1934, immediately after the dismissal of his former student and friend Otto Dix, Guhr was appointed professor at the

Dresden Academy of Fine Arts The Dresden Academy of Fine Arts (German ''Hochschule für Bildende Künste Dresden''), often abbreviated HfBK Dresden or simply HfBK, is a vocational university of visual arts located in Dresden, Germany. The present institution is the product o ...

. Many of his works, especially to Richard Wagner, were destroyed in the

bombing of Dresden in World War II The bombing of Dresden was a joint British and American aerial bombing attack on the city of Dresden, the capital of the German state of Saxony, during World War II. In four raids between 13 and 15 February 1945, 772 heavy bombers of the Roya ...

. Guhr dedicated his last years in

Höckendorf Höckendorf is a village and a former municipality in the Sächsische Schweiz-Osterzgebirge district, in Saxony, Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most pop ...

to recreate some of these pieces. Guhr died here in 1956.

References

Literature

* Joan L. Clinefelter: ''Artists for the Reich: culture and race from Weimar to Nazi Germany''. Berg Publishers, 2005

External links

Article in the Saxon Biography

Article in the city wiki of Dresden

at

Europeana Europeana is a web portal created by the European Union containing digitised cultural heritage collections of more than 3,000 institutions across Europe. It includes records of over 50 million cultural and scientific artefacts, brought togethe ...

Portrait of Richard Guhr (1912)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Guhr, Richard 1873 births 1956 deaths Artists from Dresden 20th-century German sculptors 20th-century German male artists German male sculptors People from Schwerin

Biography

See also

References

Literature

External links