Oskar Schlemmer is a world famous German artist whose life and creative career were mercilessly destroyed by the Nazis

Oskar Schlemmer is a famous German artist of the twentieth century, a prominent representative of modernism, an outstanding master of painting and sculpture. He was also a respected stage designer, choreographer and art theorist. In his work, he boldly experimented with various styles, painted pictures, created frescoes, developed original sets and costumes for theatrical performances. The biography of this talented person is full of interesting facts and significant events.

Oskar Schlemmer devoted a significant part of his life to teaching and research. He was one of the best teachers in the Bauhaus School, where he taught drawing and scene theory, and developed a groundbreaking interdisciplinary course called Human, well ahead of its time.

Biography

Oskar Schlemmer was the youngest, sixth child in the family of an entrepreneur and little-known amateur poet. Unfortunately, the parents of the future artist died when he was eleven years old, and from that moment on, the older sister was engaged in raising the boy.

In 1903, Oscar dropped out of school and got a job as an apprentice in a workshop for the manufacture of decorative and applied arts. Here he mastered the basics of drawing, after which in 1906 he entered the Stuttgart Academy of Arts. Under the guidance of Professor Friedrich von Keller, he successfully completed his studies in painting and in 1911 moved to Berlin with the firm intention of pursuing an independent professional career as an artist.

The two-year stay in the German capital had a strong impact on the young man. Here he got acquainted with various directions of avant-garde art, was carried away by the ideas of cubism and abstractionism, wrote several interesting paintings, but was never able to achieve recognition from the public and critics. Soberly assessing the situation, Oskar Schlemmer returned to Stuttgart, where the popular artist Adolf Hölzel offered him a job as an assistant in his workshop.

Soon Oskar Schlemmer received an order for the production of twelve frescoes for the main hall of the German exhibition Werkbund in Cologne and brilliantly coped with this work. Then the young painter decided to open a new art salon of avant-garde art in Stuttgart, but this idea turned out to be a failure. Due to harsh criticism in the press, he had to abandon it.

At the beginning of World War I, Oscar volunteered for the army.

He managed to visit both the Western and Eastern fronts even before he was seriously wounded and was declared unfit for military service. After long-term treatment, Schlemmer was discharged from the hospital at the very end of the war and returned to Stuttgart. Here he, together with fellow student at the academy, Willi Baumeister (Willi Baumeister) began organizing exhibitions of his work, including in the prestigious Berlin gallery Der Sturm.

This time, Schlemmer’s works were received by the public much warmer. The most fruitful and successful stage of his professional career began, which lasted until the Nazis came to power. In 1919, Schlemmer created the first sculptural compositions, and a year later he married Helene Tutein. In the marriage, the couple had three children.

At the same time, the artist received an invitation to head the department of wall painting in the newly organized Bauhaus school, and accepted a tempting offer. He moved to Weimar, where he finished work on the famous “Triadic Ballet”, for which he personally created the sets and costumes. The very first premiere of this piece of music in Stuttgart brought the author wide fame, and several years later the fashionable performance was shown with great success in Paris and New York.

He transferred to Breslau as professor at the Academy of Arts, which was later closed for political reasons. In a surprising way, Schlemmer was able to combine lecturing, painting and travel to exhibitions with his works around the world.

The talented artist was at the peak of his fame when Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933, and from that moment on, the master’s life began to rapidly change for the worse. The Nazis banned his personal exhibition in Stuttgart, and the master’s works were ranked as the so-called “degenerate art”. Fearing political persecution, Schlemmer had to go with his family to a remote province, to the resort town of Söringen, located in the foothills of the German Alps.

Due to the persecution of the Nazi authorities, the painter found himself in a very difficult financial situation. Customers turned away from him, no one wanted to buy paintings, doctors diagnosed the artist with diabetes mellitus, and then Botkin’s disease. Mental and physical shock drastically weakened his health and caused his early death. On April 13, 1943, Oskar Schlemmer died of a heart attack at the age of 54 and was buried in the Stuttgart forest cemetery under a modest gravestone.

The most famous paintings by Oskar Schlemmer

• The Novel or Five Figures in Space (1925) is a landmark work of the master, in which the figures of two women and two men are placed in a strict geometric order. This masterpiece of the artist, miraculously survived the war years, is now kept in the museum in the Swiss city of Basel.
• The Bauhaus Staircase (1932) is a work created in protest against the closure of the famous school of modern art. The figures of people going up and down the stairs symbolize the desire of mankind for a brighter future, over which the threat of a fascist dictatorship looms.
• Three Figures on the Railing (1933) is one of the last works of the author, written before the active persecution of the Nazis began. There is still a light color scheme in it, which subsequently completely disappeared from the artist’s paintings.
• Lunch (1935) is a work that clearly illustrates the significant changes that have taken place in German society. Faceless characters sit at a dining table covered with a white tablecloth against a background of dark walls.

Oskar Schlemmer lived a bright and eventful life of a great genius. And his beautiful masterpieces will forever remain in the memory of grateful descendants.