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Biography of Oskar SchlemmerName: Oskar SchlemmerBirth Date: September 4, 1888 Death Date: April, 1943 Place of Birth: Stuttgart, Germany Nationality: German Gender: Male Occupations: painter, sculptor, stage designer Oskar Schlemmer Oskar Schlemmer (1888-1943) was a German painter, sculptor, and stage designer. His single subject was the human figure, which he reduced to puppet-like, two-dimensional shapes that were expressive of the human body as a perfect system of proportions and functions analogous to the machine age.Oskar Schlemmer was born on September 4, 1888, in Stuttgart to Carl Leonhard Schlemmer and his wife Mina Neuhaus. The youngest of six children, Schlemmer learned at an early age to provide for himself following the untimely death of both his parents around 1900. As early as 1903 the young Schlemmer was completely independent and supporting himself as an apprentice in an inlay workshop.In 1906 Schlemmer enrolled at the Stuttgart Academy, where he studied under Landenberger until he left for Berlin to work independently in 1910. While in Berlin Schlemmer painted his first important pictures--some landscapes and two rare self-portraits. These early pictures anticipate Schlemmer's life-long search for the geometric …showed first 150 words…
…showed last 150 words…mystical light. In 1937 Schlemmer moved to Sehringen before his pictures were displayed at the National Socialist exhibition of "Degenerate Art."Schlemmer's last years were spent working at a paint factory owned by Kurt Herbert in Wuppertal. The factory offered Schlemmer the opportunity to paint without the fear of persecution. His last series, the so called "Window Pictures," were very small pictures painted while looking out the window of his house and observing neighbors engaged in their domestic tasks.During the summer of 1942 Schlemmer fell ill. After clinical treatments at numerous hospitals Oskar Schlemmer died in Baden-Baden in April 1943. Further Reading Museum catalogues provide the fundamental information on Schlemmer's art. His letters and diaries are available in English translation edited by his wife: Tut Schlemmer, The Letters and Diaries of Oskar Schlemmer (1972). Useful background material may be found in H. H. Arnason, History of Modern Art (1968) and in Frank Whitford, Bauhaus (1984). |