Wilhelm Lachnit (12 November 1899, , near

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 ...

— 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 the

Kunstgewerbeschule A Kunstgewerbeschule (English: ''School of Arts and Crafts'' or S''chool of Applied Arts'') was a type of vocational arts school that existed in German-speaking countries from the mid-19th century. The term Werkkunstschule was also used for thes ...

Dresden under

Richard Guhr 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. Biography Guhr was born in Schwerin in 1873. At an age of 17 he came to Dresden, th ...

, and later 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 ...

, where he was acquainted with and influenced by

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 ...

Conrad Felixmüller Conrad Felixmüller (21 May 1897 – 24 March 1977) was a German expressionist painter and printmaker. Born in Dresden as Conrad Felix Müller, he chose Felixmüller as his '' nom d'artiste''. Early life and career He attended drawing classes ...

, and

Otto Griebel Otto Griebel (31 March 1895 – 7 March 1972) was a German painter. In 1933, he was arrested by the Gestapo and his paintings were branded as degenerate art. His painting "Child at a Table" was one of the artworks found in the 2012 Munich ar ...

. He joined the

Communist Party of Germany The Communist Party of Germany (german: Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands, , KPD ) was a major political party in the Weimar Republic between 1918 and 1933, an underground resistance movement in Nazi Germany, and a minor party in West German ...

in 1924 and was active in producing various forms of

Agitprop Agitprop (; from rus, агитпроп, r=agitpróp, portmanteau of ''agitatsiya'', "agitation" and ''propaganda'', "propaganda") refers to an intentional, vigorous promulgation of ideas. The term originated in Soviet Russia where it referred to ...

throughout the 1920s. He co-founded the "Neue Gruppe" with

Hans Grundig Hans Grundig (February 19, 1901 – September 11, 1958) was a German painter and graphic artist associated with the New Objectivity movement. He was born in Dresden and, after an apprenticeship as an interior decorator, studied in 1920–1921 ...

, Otto Griebel, and Fritz Skade; successful exhibitions in Paris, Düsseldorf, Amsterdam, and Dresden followed. After the Nazis seized power in 1933, Lachnit's work was declared "

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 ...

" and confiscated by authorities. During this period he was not allowed to make art and worked as an exhibition designer. Much of his confiscated work was destroyed during the February 1945

firebombing of Dresden 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 Royal ...

. His 1923 watercolours ''Man and Woman in the Window'' and "Girl at Table" were found in the Munich Art Hoard. Lachnit continued to paint after the end of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. In 1947 he was appointed professor at the Hochschule für Bildene Künste Dresden. Among his more important students were

Jürgen Böttcher Jürgen Böttcher (pseudonym Strawalde, born 8 July 1931) is a German film director and painter. He is best known for his film '' Born in '45''. See also * A. R. Penck Ralf Winkler, alias A. R. Penck, who also used the pseudonyms ''M ...

, Manfred Böttcher, and Harald Metzkes. Lachnit died of a

heart attack A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when blood flow decreases or stops to the coronary artery of the heart, causing damage to the heart muscle. The most common symptom is chest pain or discomfort which may tr ...

in 1962 and was buried in Loschwitzer Friedhof in Dresden.

References

External links

*
Entry for Wilhelm Lachnit
in the

Union List of Artist Names The Union List of Artist Names (ULAN) is a free online database of the Getty Research Institute using a controlled vocabulary, which by 2018 contained over 300,000 artists and over 720,000 names for them, as well as other information about artist ...

* *
About William Lachnit's work
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lachnit, Wilhelm 1899 births 1962 deaths 20th-century German painters 20th-century German male artists German male painters Artists from Dresden

Life

See also

Further reading

References

External links