Hans Lehmkuhl

Johannes (Hans) Ludwig Lehmkuhl was a German painter and restorer .

Lehmkuhl was born on March 19, 1883 and grew up in Bremen and, after graduating from school, initially worked in a commercial position for nine years. He received his first painting lessons from the Bremen painter Karl Windels. In 1908 he moved to Munich and studied for two months at Walter Thor 's private school . He then received private painting lessons from Julius Exter . At the same time he was engaged as a tenor in the choir of the Munich Court Opera and toured Spain and Portugal.

From 1910 to 1914 Lehmkuhl studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich with Carl Johann Becker-Gundahl , Hermann Groeber , Hugo von Habermann , Ludwig von Herterich , Angelo Jank and Max Doerner . He traveled to Feldwies , Chiemsee with Julius Exter to paint plein air nudes and landscapes.

During World War I he served as a lieutenant in the 9th Bavarian Field Artillery Regiment Landsberg and was stationed in France in 1914. In 1916 he was awarded the Iron Cross I by Kaiser Wilhelm II as a senior lieutenant in charge of the battery .

Lehmkuhl's serious war injuries resulted in a one and a half year hospital stay in Munich. In 1920 he resumed his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. There he became vice chairman of the Academics Committee. Until 1922 he painted numerous pictures of officers in Munich, e.g. Lieutenant Philipp Bouhler , a later Reichsleiter .

In 1923 he moved back to Bremen and joined the Bremen Artists' Association, where he became second chairman. Lehmkuhl exhibited there and directed artist festivals.

In 1927 Lehmkuhl moved to Nassauische Strasse 53 in Berlin-Wilmersdorf because Berlin was "the cheaper art center". From 1930 to 1940 he was deputy chairman of the Wilmersdorf Artists' Association. In 1930 he painted i.a. Ludwig Quidde, winner of the 1927 Nobel Peace Prize, whose picture now hangs in the Focke Museum in Bremen. In 1932, Lehmkuhl was the last painter to receive permission to portray the then President of the Reich, Paul von Hindenburg. In 1933 he painted all of the city councils of Wilmersdorf.

In 1935 he was the only painter to receive permission from Hauptmann Wolfgang Fürstner , commander of the Olympic Village , to paint pictures and views in the Olympic Village in Elstal near Berlin. From April to July he painted about 30 pictures there, which were later to be sold to the athletes.

In 1935 Lehmkuhl joined the Nazi exhibition association "Frontkampferbund of visual artists". Due to the disadvantages for "non-party artists", Lehmkuhl was active again from 1936 onwards, but without pecuniary success, which is why the employment was short-lived. During this time, many portraits, landscapes and still lifes were created. He also received commissions for restoration work. In 1936, Oberbaurat Dölle commissioned the army administration to paint a four-meter-high picture of Adolf Hitler, as well as a Werner von Blomberg picture for the small hall of the General Command building in Berlin. In December Lehmkuhl was commissioned by Military District Command 3 to paint a Hindenburg portrait for General Wilhelm Adam 's representative rooms. In the same year he was admitted as a restorer by the Reichskunstkammer.

Lehmkuhl was a member of the Nazi Schutzstaffel SA and took part in e.g. 1942 in Dresden with the picture of a sports rider at the art exhibition of the SA. 

In 1939 and 1940, some of his paintings were accepted for the Great German Art Exhibition in Munich. After more than three weeks of negotiations with the Ministry of Propaganda and the High Command of the Wehrmacht (OKW), Lehmkuhl painted 50 large and small studies in the Luckenwalde POW camp in the winter of 1940/1941. In addition, five large views of military buildings in and around Berlin were created for the Todt organization , which were shown in a closed exhibition in the Berlin Art Gallery. This was followed by the appointment as titular professor "for very good achievements in portrait painting".

In 1942, Lehmkuhl was the only artist who received permission to paint pictures of prisoners in the Dreilinden and Großbeeren prison camps, 25 studies of which were exhibited in the Berlin Arsenal. At the beginning of 1943 he painted a portrait of Rear Admiral a. D. Hermann Lorey , then director of the Berlin Arsenal .

In 1943 he moved with his wife to Millstatt am See , Austria. During this time, Lehmkuhl was able to secure his living through restoration work, watercolors and portrait commissions - mostly from English officers.

In 1946 he returned to Bremen; since the Berlin apartment and studio had been bombed out, he moved into a small studio building at Mendestrasse 13a and was given a heated studio in the Reich House , where he portrayed many Americans and politicians.

In 1947, Sergeant Wouralis commissioned Lehmkuhl to decorate the American exhibition hall in the Reich House with American landscapes. Ten 4 × 2 m large pictures were taken. Lehmkuhl later portrayed General Lucius D. Clay , General Karting, and Mr. Murphy during a lecture. From July 9th to 31st of the same year he worked in St. Hülfe (now Diepholz), where he painted portraits and landscapes.

In 1948, Friedrich Hilken, curator of the Kunsthalle Bremen , arranged for Lehmkuhl to commission a number of restoration projects, e.g. Pictures of the councilor von Aschen (Tilemann-Schenck, 1645) and the mayor Dr. Alfred Dominicus Pauli (Konrad von Kardorff) for the Güldenkammer in Bremen City Hall . In winter, more pictures were taken for the exhibition rooms in the House of the Reich.

From 1949 Lehmkuhl documented views of the bombed-out north aisle in St. Petri Cathedral in Bremen and in the course of this also made pictures in the lead cellar . Lehmkuhl discovered two paintings by Lucas Cranach in the cathedral : a Luther and a Philipp Melanchthon picture, which he restored. The restoration work in the Bremen town hall lasted until 1950. A total of around 25 paintings were restored, with the large painting of "Alt-Bremen" and the dismembered painting of the "Hansehaus in Antwerpen" being the most labour-intensive. Both pictures still hang in the upper town hall. In the same year, Lehmkuhl portrayed Pastor Adzomada from Togo/West Africa during his stay in Bremen.

On March 9, 1950, Federal President Theodor Heuss traveled to Bremen. Lehmkuhl received permission from Mayor Wilhelm Kaisen to sketch at the receptions and, after exchanging letters with Heuss about the sketches that had been sent, made several portraits. In the same year he portrayed Rear Admiral Charles Richardson Jeffs , the military governor and state commissioner of the USA in Bremen, at the Reich House. In 1951 several portraits of well-known personalities from Bremen were created. The opening of Lehmkuhl's exhibition at the Wilhelmshaven Art Association took place on October 21st.

From May to July 1952, the Portrait Art Exhibition in Bremen followed in the Bremen Art Gallery. In 1953 the restoration work on the picture of the Hansehaus in Antwerp continued. In August, the painting was completely reassembled and hung in Bremen City Hall. In 1954 a portrait of the actor Werner Krauss was created, which was exhibited in the Theater am Goetheplatz.

In 1955, Lehmkuhl painted a portrait of Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie and sent it to Addis Ababa as a gift . In the same year work began on the pictures "Bremen 1937" - before the destruction in World War II. Hans Lehmkuhl continued to work in Bremen until his death.

Lehmkuhl died on February 24, 1969.