Willy Gustav Erich Jaeckel (10 February 1888, Breslau – 30 January 1944,

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 ...

) was a German

Expressionist Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it rad ...

painter and lithographer.

Biography

Jaeckel's father was a

public lands In all modern states, a portion of land is held by central or local governments. This is called public land, state land, or Crown land (Australia, and Canada). The system of tenure of public land, and the terminology used, varies between countrie ...

manager and he originally intended to become a forest ranger, but poor health forced him to change his plans. From 1906 to 1908, he studied at the art school in Breslau, then enrolled 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 ...

, under the direction of

Otto Gussmann Otto Friedrich Gussmann (22 May 1869, Wachbach, Main-Tauber-Kreis - 27 July 1926, Dresden) was a German decorative artist, designer, and art professor. Biography His father was a pastor. After completing secondary school, he began an apprenti ...

, an ornamental painter. In 1913, he moved to Berlin to work as a free-lance artist and became a member of the

Berlin Secession The Berlin Secession was an art movement established in Germany on May 2, 1898. Formed in reaction to the Association of Berlin Artists, and the restrictions on contemporary art imposed by Kaiser Wilhelm II, 65 artists "seceded," demonstrating ag ...

in 1915. Four years later, he was elected a member of 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 ...

and became a teacher at the University of the Arts in 1925. His first successful painting was "Kampf" (Battle, or Struggle), a large canvas featuring a bellowing, muscular, naked man. In 1928, he was awarded the "Georg-Schlicht-Preis" for the "most beautiful portrait of a German woman". His work was part of the art competitions at the

1928 Summer Olympics The 1928 Summer Olympics ( nl, Olympische Zomerspelen 1928), officially known as the Games of the IX Olympiad ( nl, Spelen van de IXe Olympiade) and commonly known as Amsterdam 1928, was an international multi-sport event that was celebrated from ...

and the

1932 Summer Olympics The 1932 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the X Olympiad and also known as Los Angeles 1932) were an international multi-sport event held from July 30 to August 14, 1932 in Los Angeles, California, United States. The Games were held duri ...

. He was named an Associate Professor in 1933, but he was dismissed when the Nazis came to power. His students protested, and he was eventually reinstated. This victory was short-lived, however. Those who took classes with him were likely not to graduate and, in 1937, some of his works were officially classified as "

degenerate Degeneracy, degenerate, or degeneration may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Degenerate (album), ''Degenerate'' (album), a 2010 album by the British band Trigger the Bloodshed * Degenerate art, a term adopted in the 1920s by the Nazi Party i ...

". In response, he painted "Plowman in the Evening" (1939), meant to depict the Nazi concept of Blood and Soil. Many of his works survived the war only because the Nazi government removed them from Berlin. He lost his studio to a bombing raid in 1943 and he was killed during another raid early the following year. One of his major works, a four-part

fresco Fresco (plural ''frescos'' or ''frescoes'') is a technique of mural painting executed upon freshly laid ("wet") lime plaster. Water is used as the vehicle for the dry-powder pigment to merge with the plaster, and with the setting of the plaste ...

mural at the

Bahlsen Bahlsen is a German food company based in Hanover. It was founded in July 1889 by Hermann Bahlsen (1859–1919) as the "Hannoversche Keksfabrik H. Bahlsen". German politician Ernst Albrecht (politician, born 1930), Ernst Albrecht (1930–2014) w ...

bakery in

Hanover Hanover (; german: Hannover ; nds, Hannober) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Lower Saxony. Its 535,932 (2021) inhabitants make it the 13th-largest city in Germany as well as the fourth-largest city in Northern Germany ...

dating from 1917, was destroyed later in 1944.

Selected paintings

Jaeckel-Nude.jpg, Sitting Female Nude Jaeckel-Sculpture.jpg, Calla Lily with African Sculpture Jaeckel-Sea.jpg, Landscape by the Sea Jaeckel-Woman.jpg, Portrait of a Woman

References

External links

Arcadja Auctions: More works by Jaeckel.

Drawings by Willy Jaeckel
@

LACMA The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Page Museum). LACMA was founded in 1961, ...

*
Willy Jaeckel
@ the

Hiddensee Hiddensee () is a car-free island in the Baltic Sea, located west of Germany's largest island, Rügen, on the German coast. The island has about 1,000 inhabitants. It was a holiday destination for East German tourists during German Democratic ...

website
Article on Jaeckel
from ''Oberallgäu-Kultur'', 20 March 2010 {{DEFAULTSORT:Jaeckel, Willy 1888 births 1944 deaths 20th-century German painters 20th-century German male artists German male painters German Expressionist painters German portrait painters Artists from Wrocław Olympic competitors in art competitions German civilians killed in World War II Deaths by airstrike during World War II

Biography

Selected paintings

References

Further reading

External links