Theodor Brün 1885 - 1991

On September 18th 1885, Theodor is born as the first of 9 children to a respectable merchant in Hamm / Westphalia. Soon, the family moves to Essen, where young Theodor goes to school, but receives an E - ”unsatisfactory” in drawing.

1900 his father takes over quarries in the proximity of Dillenburg, where the children go to school once the family moved again. Here, Theodor’s drawing skills improve strongly and his drawing marks suddenly jump to an A - “very good”.

His first drawings mostly originate from Dillenburg, where he passes his A-levels (the “Abitur”) in 1905, but strangely enough a few others, that are dated 1904 are of Essen. From 1905 to 1906 Theodor studies law in Munich and simultaneously attends a private painting-school. In 1906 he officially gives up on his law degree and spends one term attending an etching class given by Peter Halm, a most renowned specialist in etchings at that time. There are some examples of the necessary “proofs of ability” for the entrance examination. For the winter semester 1907 he had originally planned to go to Karlsruhe, but his professor falls sick and succumbs to his disease shortly afterwards. So Theo ends up going to Paris with a friend to work amongst other places at the Academie Julien.

When his financial support suddenly ceases, he finds himself in a rather desperate position. At this point his parents live in Lüdenscheid, and some drawings and pictures from this time hint towards his being there at least every now and then. As soon as temperatures ease up, he is back in Munich and Bruck (later: Fürstenfeldbruck). In Munich he gets acquainted with Albert Reich, and probably accepts his offer to spend the summer of 1911 with him and some of his students on a farm near Kallmünz, where the conditions for work were better than in the city. Come winter he is back in the etching class of Peter Halm, where he stays until summer of 1912. Meanwhile his parents have moved to Hagen / Westphalia and their house offers enough space to allow for his work. There are only few drawings originating from this early time and some that could be, but are not dated. It is in Hagen that his first meeting with Christian Rohlfs in 1914 leads to a joint exhibition with Rohlfs and Walter Bötticher, one of his students, at Erdmann-Jennitzer in Kampstrasse. Soon thereafter the war begins and to the last day he finds himself as a soldier at the front. There are very detailed reports as well as copious amounts of portraits of his fellow soldiers, landscape drawings and etchings originating from these years. By the end of the war he is licensed to be 2nd lieutenant and awarded with two EK’s (iron crosses).

From 1919, when his father – with his children’s support – purchased a small house in Emst, one of Hagen’s suburbs, Theo works in his studio and in walking distance of the house.

Most drawings, aquarelles and oil paintings of Hagen, Delstern and the Volme valley (Volmetal) derive from these years up to 1928. At this time the economical situation is far from good, but because it’s a fate many share, Theo mentions it only once clearly and without mitigation in a letter to his twin brother Arnold.

For the very same reasons, Will Lammert, a friend from Munich who happens to be in reach before he moves to Essen, planned on buying and managing a farm in the area of Reichenhall. Since Theodor is badly wanted on the farm, he moves again: the farm was situated in close proximity to the Thumsee – a lovely summer marked by farmwork and finishing in desaster.

Lammert was to be short-changed and had to give up, but in the end he got off lightly. Following this episode Theodor first spends some time in Hagen where he gets in touch with the „Hagenring“, an association of Hagen’s artists and architects, and generally tries to gain ground. Come summer of 1924 Karl Vogt and his wife Hedwig invite Theo to stay with them in Wolfsberg / Chiemsee and later, when Vogt has to move, in Berlin, where – for a while - he could join Vogt in his studio. By pure chance while being in Berlin he gets into contact with Furche publishing, that later publish his illustrations for Tolstoi’s stories. Furthermore he joins the secession, because he can’t abide other union’s perseverance to stick to old traditions. Several times he receives offers to exhibit at the Academy in Berlin, for which he has to have Liebermann’s permission at all times. He finally gets his big exhibition at Hapke & Schmidt that reverberates considerably, but as usual isn’t followed by many sales.

He stays in Berlin as long as economically possible and only visits home on occasion. From 1926/27 he spends most of his time in Hagen, where he had met his future wife.

Also from this time derives his exclamation “if only I could paint like this…!” after seeing pictures by Renoir for the first time. This is quite surprising, given the fact that Renoir had already been around for a while, but shows that the availability of prints or publications in Germany must have been sparse.

He spends January and February of 1928 in Paris. The amount of drawings from these few weeks is so tremendous that he must have worked unbelievably fast even considering that he might have hardly slept at all. This is where the experiences from his four years in war come in handy. These drawings as well as the ones of the waiting room (“Wartesaal”), that originate from the same era up to the mid 1930’s, show his skill most clearly. Many of these drawings have been colorized years later, some on the spot, but those are few; pot, paintbrush and paint box were things he hardly ever took along when he took the train back after painting, whereas he almost always carried a pencil and sketchbook and sometimes even a fountain pen and a pot of tusche.

In 1928 the association “Junges Westfalen” vote Theodor as a member, which equals an honoration for him. The head of this association, Dr. Ossenberg, becomes more than just a friend, he is Theo’s saviour, negotiator and promoter to the time of his death.

When attending an exhibition by the VdKuK (the association for artists and art lovers) he witnesses an arrangement between members and an outsider that goes against everybody’s interests and he resigns as a result. Several years later, when asked by Dr Ossenberg to make and exception and join in an exhibition, the very members he witnessed before happen to be there as well and a confrontation can’t be avoided. The „court of honour“ which had originally been established for cases like this, is made up of the accused and therefore the outcome of this case was clear from the start. Without his asking the case was taken up by another party, the accused were let go, one of them had to leave the architects association as well and Theo was humbly asked to rejoin.

In November of 1928 he marries Karla in Erfurt where she has found a position as a teacher. Still some time will pass until he moves into his own place.

When his parents moved into their house in Emst, they needed a knob for the stair rail. This knob was to be his first wooden sculpture. In the following years up to 1930, he carves many sculptures, most out of oak, of which some have survived. Others, that were kept in Berlin, Darmstadt, Munich, Bremen, Elberfeld, Hannover and Hagen were destroyed during the war. The economical situation is bad around 1930 and everybody shares the losses. Several times Theodor Bruen tries to raise some money through door-to-door sales of drawings and etchings.

His experiences of these times are clearly described in letters. He has friends in Berlin and stays with them every now and then for short amounts of time. So it happend that he got the job of creating a cross when a friend’s husband has a fatal accident. The cross was cast in 1932/33 and created a great commotion in Berlin. The cross, like many other items, has been stolen or destroyed in 1946. His closest friend Wilhelm Loew, a theologist from Trarbach, orders a statue of honour for the church from Theo, which is finished in 1931. But even Wilhem Loew has to draw the consequences of the current political situation and moves his family to Graz, only returning to Germany after the war.

The life long relationship between Theodor and Wilhelm is characterized by constant disputes that inspire a number of drawings, etchings and sculptures of christian content or background. The close relationship to Loew also leads to further acquaintances, most importantly the family of Dr Stoevesandt, who was later to become honorary citizen of Bremen, with whom he kept close contact to the time of Steovesandt’s death.

Stoevesandt owned countless smaller statues and etchings, most of which have been returned by his children after his death.

Slowly but surely the articstic situation improves. Theo’s art is displayed in increasingly more exhibitions and the niveau of some is solely attributet to the quality of his exponates.

His sons are born in 1930, 32 and 34 and with the family grow the financial responsibilities. His wife also works as a teacher. There are jobs in Berlin and rarely even in Hagen until suddenly there are five simultaneous exhibitions in 1937: Duesseldorf, Hagen, Hamm, Muenster and Hannover. The latter happening at the Kestner Inc – the last one for over 8 years – where he once again exhibits with Rohlfs. But still the income from the occasional sales aren’t sufficient to cater for the regular necessities of a family. Driven by the need for money he jumps at the opportunity to affix wall paintings in barracks of which some sketches have survived. Through this work he gets to know his colleague Kuhmichl whose situation is as desperate as his own judging by correspondence between the two.

This work lasts until the end of 1936 and earnes him a regular income. At present everything points towards harder times: Phasing has started, most associations have dissolved, and conditions for exhibitions have become stricter. On the "Westfront 36" exhibition one of his sculptures ("die heiligen drei Koenige") and all of Rohlf’s are removed. Several etchings that didn’t comply with Munich’s terms – that nobody is really familiar with – are rejected.

In 1937 everything is rejected in Munich at first, but then the sculpture "Schauspieler", that had been in the foyer of Hagen’s Theater for several years, suddenly appears at the "Entartete" - an exhibition of degenerate art - and vanishes without trace. The same fate share two other sculptures "Noli me tangere" and "Zwei gegen einen" that disappear from the Osthaus museum in Hagen. One of his bigger wooden sculptures "Lobgesang" is orderd from Hamm to Berlin and destroyed while unpacking.

Strangely enough even landscape etchings count as "degenerated". This doesn’t stop Baldur von Schirach from personally selecting several of these for an exhibition that runs parallel to the "Entartete" in Munich and is to be sent to Florence and Vienna as part of a „propaganda campaign“.

There are hardly any official orders anymore, but instead Theo gets into an argument with the head of the museum, who seems to be overtaxed with his position and only leaves few openings for artists to get into exhibitions.

One of these openings is represented by Baenfer, then director of the museum in Hamm, who repeatedly gives Theo the opportunity to exhibit despite the ban, which every now and then even leads to a few sales. It seems that the ban is not carried out that strictly in Hamm. Apart from Baenfer only Kaetelhoen is one of the few people that can satisfy and understand Theo’s demands for perfect prints of his etching plates and do so with rare patience and joy. Theo keeps close contact to both of their families. They are joined together not only by the sympathie of fellow combatants, but also by deep friendship between like-minded people.

But even their help can be only sporadic, which in 1939 – just before the war starts - leads him to Cologne, where relatives of his wife’s are living, to try to sell drawings of Cologne.

The weather at the time doesn’t allow for aquarelles, so he uses tusche instead. As usual success is low, respect high. Driven by the ban for exhibitions, the "Degeneration" and the necessity to earn enough money to provide for his family, Theo volunteers for the army. He is allocated to Allenstein to participate in a course for company commanders, which leads to his retirement: he carelessly rejoiced the fact that Paris wasn’t destroyed, and was therefore considered untrustworthy for the purpose of the third Reich.

Once again, the family is faced with ruin. At this very moment, Theo is approached by the Calig, the Caritas-Lichtbild-Gesellschaft, to draw illustrations for world literature – triggered by his previous illustrations (Furche publishers: Tolstoi: Where there’s love, there’s god).

Theo accepts and his family is once more secure. The opposite of three of his siblings: one loses his job for refusing the use of „Heil Hitler“, his twin brother is thrown in prison to be reeducated and „purified“, his sister is sent into a concentration camp and only escapes by pure luck when the only amnesty ever sends her back home.

Throughout the following years of the war, the family gets by through his wife’s work, income from his illustrations and the crops from their garden. In 1943 they are evacuated. The children are sent to Stolp in Pommern (Poland), accompanied by their mother. Theo himself finds a single order for a portrait, apart from that he works the garden. Come autumn after the harvest, he follows his family to Stolp, where they share two simple mansards. He mainly paints at the Baltic sea and more and more portraits.

Having been a soldier during WW1, he guesses what was going to happen and, in the summer of 1943, moves his family back into the west. Just after noon on the last day of the war, in May 1945, four grenades (ca. 22cm in diameter) hit the house, destroy the front gable end and tear a hole into the middle of the roof. Fortunately the latter one was blowing sideways rather than downward: the whole family was sitting directly under the impact zone. Two more grenades hit a few meters from the house and inflicted only minor damage on windows and ‑frames.

What was it he kept on saying: „If only these bombs could make me have a studio...“. The one grenade caused exactly that: the inner ceiling kept the statues and pictures left on the attic from being damaged. The floorboards have to do for a sporadic thatching, over time more and more cover is organised from somewhere and the groundworks for the studio have been built. „So after all there was something good coming out of the war“ is what he sometimes said.

Unfortunately the quality of the roofing and windows is low, so not only snow comes in during winter, but even wind and rain aren’t entirely kept out. The girders are starting to rot in the moisture and finally – in 1970 – can’t be trusted to keep the roof up anymore. „Once the war was over, artists were slowly on the incline. Tradition was torn and one tried to hectically patch the most modern, that hadn’t grown yet, with what had looked fertile in 1933. We’re still in that process.“ Theo himself writes sometime in the 60s. „We frantically try to prove we’re as modern as the others by imitating other’s achievements. But why?“

The differences in the evaluation of what was to come and what was to be done to get in between were shown clearly in a discussion between Theo and Emil Schumacher, who came by more frequently after the war – this must have been in 1945 or more likely 46. Theo’s advise was constant practice: “draw, it doesn’t matter what, trees, bushes, flowers, people, animals...“, but Schumacher had different views and furthermore felt compelled to sustain his family with his work and therefore chose the other way. Later, another artist who had a lot of respect for Theo took up this warning. It was Erwin Hegemann who kept on admonishing the students of his painting class to „Keep drawing. Everything is drawing, be it with a quill, a paintbrush, a puff or a chisel.“

But all this at a time long after Theodor Brüns death.

From those years – so pretty much after 1948, when painting material became available again-, emanated most of the aquarelles that can be sub summarised “types” or “people and situations”: portraits and various approaches to situations that spring up from memories.

These pictures don’t need to be named, since “every picture should speak for itself; something is wrong if it can’t.”. Basically everybody knows situations as the ones shown and the immediacy of the expression is consistently depressing and astounding even if one started to think that time had frozen over for a bit.

During the months of summer and autumn the garden is awash with a plethora of flowers that offer endless opportunities for motives. Additionally, the workbench has been moved to the attic studio so he can work on sculptures while the temperatures still allow for it.

In 1946 the arrival of an oaken beam of specific measurements, that had been previously ordered, allows him to reproduce the “Lobsgesang” sculpture that had been destroyed in 1937. This copy is now owned and displayed by the Karl-Ernst-Osthaus museum in Hagen.

While working on the copy, the following story took place: in interested visitor enters the “bower”, watches Theodor work and finally asks, “how much is that going to be?”. “Uh…if I ever get the rate of an assistant for this, I’ll be happy. I’ve been working on this for several months on 10 hours a day shifts.” - “too much.”

In 1952 the sculpture “Handlanger” disappears from an exhibition and furthermore most etchings as well as several other graphics “disappeared” from the museum’s stock removal. Later on it became clear, that several series of drawings and aquarelles, that were once made for Calig, mysteriously ceased to be found as well. Orders are still sparse, but there are enough to keep everybody’s head over water.

The last big exhibition – for his 90th birthday – is held in Hamm, not Hagen.

Through money raised from selling his parents’ house, indemnification-payments and his wife’s pension, life is bearable. Exhibitions are less than during the 30s, more and more galleries and banks exhibit in museum’s stead and the taste of the masses tends towards different ideals.

The last big oaken sculpture, called “WIR”, brings Theo to the physical limits coming with over 80 years of age, so that he confines himself to only creating smaller sculptures from then on. While he was sculpturing oaken firewood during the war, he can now revert to his friend’s donations of exotic wood. Thus some small sculptures carved during the last years of his life are made from unknown wood.

Theodor Brün dies of a heart attack on the 4th of August 1981, only 6 weeks short of his 96th birthday.

In his lifetime he exhibited in about 100 exhibitions in Germany, Italy and Austria; he kept friendly connections to many people, of which only a few shall be named here: Achenbach, Gert Arntz, Paul Fechter, Lis Goebel, Große Perdekamp, Lotte Schrenk, Kätelhöns, Otto Coester, Kuhmichel, Will Lammert, Lewy, Karel Niestrath, Grete Penner, Albert Reich, Christian Rohlfs, Schmurr, Eberhard Viegener, Karl Vogt.

Of his works, many are found in museums. The lexicon of artists only represents his work up to 1939. of his sculptures many are found in museums and private collections, some at unknown locations.