First a star in the art scene, defamed by the Nazis and then forgotten: the painter Alfred Leithäuser, who lived in Gauting for decades, is little known today.
An exhibition is planned for his 125th birthday in two years, for which the pictures first have to be restored.
Gauting
- The viewer hardly notices the colorful small painting with the motif of the
Gauting
nursery Arnold, which has long since disappeared, on the wall of the small conference room in the town hall.
It comes from Alfred Leithäuser.
The painter, born in Wuppertal-Barmen in 1898, was a star of the Munich art scene in the 1930s and lived in Gauting after the war.
Since the artist's death in 1979, some of his works have been slumbering in the local community archive, almost forgotten.
For Alfred Leithäuser's 125th birthday, archivist Regine Hilpert-Greger has an exhibition in mind.
But there is a hurdle.
"I was immediately attracted to the pictures by Alfred Leithäuser," enthuses the archivist.
In the town hall she presented a fascinating self-portrait of the artist in oil: At first glance, the realistic self-portrait with its strong contours and intense colors is reminiscent of Max Beckmann.
Leithäuser's self-portrait with horn-rimmed glasses is well preserved and nicely framed - making it an exception.
Most of the works are not framed at all, for example the picture with the turquoise-blue glass roofs of the Arnold nursery on the forest promenade.
After the severe hailstorm in 1984, the local model was created there.
The archivist shows damaged areas at the corners of the small format that urgently need to be restored.
A Leithäuser painting of the stately villa “Peregrina” on Unterbrunner Strasse, which was demolished in 1974, is also owned by the municipality - Alfred Leithäuser lived with his wife Emma on Unterbrunner Strasse and the corner of the Waldpromenade.
The little house he bought in the early 1950s as his “childhood dream” is still there today.
When a “literary squatting” took place there in 2011 as part of the “Art in the Colony” series, the archivist also hung up a few pictures by Alfred Leithäuser, including a short biography.
The archivist from Gautingen reports that she is in constant contact with Julia Reich, a printmaker from Tutzing who researches Alfred Leithäuser's work.
“Leithauser's eventful life reflects the entire history of the 20th century,” wrote Julia Reich in Starnberger Merkur on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the artist's death.
Born in 1898, Leithäuser was seriously injured as a young soldier in the First World War.
He first studied art in Wuppertal and in 1923 switched to "the very progressive" academy of Franz Hofmann in Munich.
At the beginning of the 1930s, the representative of the “New Objectivity” with his still lifes, portraits and landscapes was on the way to “becoming the shooting star of the German art scene”, analyzed Julia Reich.
Well-known museums such as the Heydt Museum in Wuppertal and the Lenbachhaus in Munich bought works.
But during the Nazi era, Leithäuser's major works, such as the “Mushroom Gatherers”, were considered “degenerate”.
The painter went into hiding in Altenbeuren am Inn in 1939.
Leithäuser was still able to send some works to group exhibitions until 1942.
During that time, "haunting self-portraits" of inner emigration were created, but also calm Inntal landscapes, which are among other things in the Pinakothek der Moderne, writes Julia Reich.
After the Second World War, the painter was involved in the rebuilding of the Munich art scene and in the sensational exhibition “New Realism” in 1961 with his realistically painted pictures “Thieves in the Forest” and “Solar Eclipse”.
But the painter could no longer build on his earlier success - it became calmer around him.
The archivist regrets that there is not a single work by Alfred Leithäuser in the collection of Joseph Hierlin from Tutzing, who once planned an art museum in Gautingen's Fußberg Castle.
Leithäuser's “bad luck” was that he painted representationally in the post-war period.
Together with the famous dancer and choreographer Pina Bausch, the painter of the “lost generation” from Gauting was awarded the Von-der-Heydt Prize in his hometown of Wuppertal in 1978 for his life's work.
After Leithauser's death on May 16, 1979, the community of Gauting initially bought three paintings.
Today's former mayor Dr.
Ekkehard Knobloch kept in contact, says the archivist.
After their death in 1996, the community inherited around 80 works, including graphics - the couple had remained childless.
An exhibition is planned for 2023, on the painter's 125th birthday, says Regine Hilpert-Greger.
But with or without an exhibition: the oil paintings would have to be restored.
The municipal budget currently has 23,000 euros available for this.
According to a well-known Berlin art auction house, Leithauser works are currently only getting prices in the three-digit range or "around 1000 to 1500 euros".
But the painting “The Young Sicilian Woman” by the still little-known painter from Gauting came under the hammer in 2012 for 12,500 euros.
Christine Cless-Wesle