Jaeckel, Willy

PAINTER (GERMANY)
BORN 10 Feb 1888, Breslau (now: Wroclaw) - DIED 30 Jan 1944, Berlin
BIRTH NAME Jaeckel, Willi Gustav Erich
CAUSE OF DEATH killed in air raid
GRAVE LOCATION Stahnsdorf, Brandenburg: Wilmersdorfer Waldfriedhof, Bahnhofstraße 2 (Feld L III-10-236-239 (Ehrengrab))

Willy Jaeckel studied in Breslau (1906 to 1908) and Dresden, where Otto Gussmann was his teacher. He married the concert singer Charlotte Sommer (1894-1950) and in 1914 their son Peter was born. In 1913 he went to Berlin, where he joined the Sezession in 1915. He sided against the First World War. In 1919 he became a member of the Prussian Academy of Arts. In 1925 he obtained a professorship at the State Academy in Berlin. After the nazis came to power in 1933 he was fired, but after student protests he was reinstalled.

Hitler personally ordered to remove his "Madonna" from an exhibition in 1935. In 1937 his work was confiscated. It was included at the Entartete Kunst exhibitions and much of it was destroyed. In 1938 another attempt to dismiss him failed. He resigned and after his studio was destroyed in 1943 he moved to the country for a while. He returned to Berlin in January 1944 and he died shortly afterwards when his house at the Kurfürstendamm 180 was bombed.

Work: "Der Krieg" (Neue Gallerie, Linz); "Russische Landschaft" (1919, Museum Ostdeutsche Gallerie, Regensburg).

Images

The grave of Willy Jaeckel at the Wilmersdorfer Friedhof in Berlin.
Picture by androom (23 Aug 2006)

 


Jaëll, Alfred

Published: 13 Feb 2022
Last update: 13 Feb 2022