Grethe Jürgens (February 15, 1899 – May 8, 1981) was a German painter associated with the
New Objectivity.
Jürgens was born in
Holzhausen and grew up in
Wilhelmshaven.
[Schmied 1978, p. 127.] In 1918 she enrolled in the
Technische Hochschule in Berlin (now
Technische Universität Berlin), where she studied architecture.
[Michalski 1994, p. 213.] From 1919 until 1922 she studied at the Hanover School of Arts and Crafts under Fritz Burgr-Mühlfeld.
[Schmied 1978, p. 128.] She was employed in advertising as a draftswoman for the Hackethal Wire Company in Hanover from 1923 to 1927, and continued afterward to work as a freelance commercial artist.
Her paintings from this period, such as ''Garden Picture'' (1928) and ''Employment Exchange'' (1929), show the influence of French artists such as
Henri Rousseau and
Auguste Herbin.
From 1931 to 1932, Jürgens edited the 12-issue run of the magazine ''Der Wachsbogen'', which served as a theoretical organ of the Hanover artists of the New Objectivity movement. In an essay she published in the magazine, she described the group's artistic approach:
One paints a landscape, trees, houses, vehicles, and sees the world in a new way. Unemployed people, tramps, or beggars are painted, not because they are "interesting characters" ... or through a desire to appeal to the sympathy of society, but because one suddenly realizes that it is in these people that the most powerful expression of the present time is to be found.[Michalski 1994, p. 136.]
In 1932, she participated in the exhibition "Neue Sachlichkeit in Hanover" ("New Objectivity in Hanover") at the
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum in
Brunswick.
In 1933 she had a solo exhibition in
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 ...
. After 1933, she worked extensively as an illustrator and designer of book covers.
In 1951, the
Wilhelm Busch Museum
The Wilhelm Busch Museum (german: Wilhelm Busch - Deutsches Museum für Karikatur und Zeichenkunst, links=no, "Wilhelm Busch - German Museum of Caricature and Drawings") is a museum in Hanover, Lower Saxony, Germany. It features the world's larges ...
in Hanover presented a retrospective exhition of her works.
Jürgens died in 1981 in Hanover.
Notes
References
* Michalski, Sergiusz (1994). ''New Objectivity''. Cologne: Benedikt Taschen.
* Schmied, Wieland (1978). ''Neue Sachlichkeit and German Realism of the Twenties''. London: Arts Council of Great Britain.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jurgens, Grethe
1899 births
1981 deaths
20th-century German painters
20th-century German women artists