Margarete
Scheel (born
September 28,
1881 in
Rostock , †
November 9,
1969 ) was a German
sculptor and
ceramicist . Queer Places:
Breite Str. 19, 18055 Rostock, Germany
Augustenstraße 112, 18055 Rostock, Germany
Baleckestraße 2, 18055 Rostock, Germany
Blumenweg 11, 18057 Rostock, Germany
Neuer Friedhof
Rostock, Stadtkreis Rostock, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany
Margarete
Scheel (born
September 28,
1881 in
Rostock , †
November 9,
1969 ) was a German
sculptor and
ceramicist .
Margarete Scheel was born as the third daughter of the doctor Ludwig Scheel (1849-1913) and his wife Sophie Schleker (1853-1934). She was born and christened on October 27, 1881 in the Jakobikirche in Rostock. Her younger brother Paul Friedrich Scheel (1883-1959) was a professor of orthopedics [2] and since 1917 the director of the Elisabeth home of the "Landeskrüppelanstalt von Mecklenburg" in Rostock. The family lived in Breiten Straße 19. Margarete Scheel attended a private secondary school in her hometown from 1887 to 1897, then from 1900 to 1902 the Rostock teacher training college .
Margarete Scheel went to Berlin in 1903, where she studied at the school of the Kunstgewerbemuseum Berlin and at the Reimann School. Since that year she has described herself as a sculptor. During this time she had contact with many important artists and took lessons with some of them, such as drawing figures with the painters Hans Baluschek, Martin Brandenburg and Lovis Corinth in 1904. From 1905, she acquired the essential foundations of her sculptural training in Arthur Lewin-Funcke's studio. Her first assignment, reliefs for the Mecklenburgische Hypotheken- und Wechselbank in Neuer Markt in Rostock (destroyed in 1934), brought her enough money to finance her study visit to Paris . She became a student of Aristide Maillol, with whom she further developed her sculptural and spatial skills in 1910 and 1911.
After working in Belgium and the Netherlands, she returned to Berlin from 1911 to 1913. Margarete Scheel successfully participated in exhibitions of the Freien Secession (Free Secession), of which she became a member. Leading German art magazines have published works by the artist. After an exhibition at the Kunsthalle Mannheim dedicated to new art, Margarete Scheel went to Rome in 1914, where she worked in her own studio. In the same year she took part in the Cologne Werkbund exhibition. Some German art magazines published articles about the artist, thereby making her known to a larger audience.
In addition to working on plastics, Margarete Scheel also turned to new art forms in the following years, so she worked on pottery at the Berlin School of Crafts in 1919. After practical work in the Guhl pottery in Teterow, she opened her own pottery workshop in Rostock in 1920. After the death of her father, she moved with her mother to Augustenstrasse 112, in the garden of which she set up the workshop.
In 1919 Margarete Scheel acknowledged the goals of the Arbeitsrates für Kunst (Art Council) , which was founded in Berlin in 1919 and whose first spokesman and chairman were Bruno Taut and Walter Gropius. [4]
In 1922 Margarete Scheel became a member of the Rostock Artists' Association , which included some of the leading Mecklenburg modernist artists in painting and architecture, such as Walter Butzek, Bruno Gimpel, Thuro Balzer and Heinrich Tessenow. She worked closely with the sculptor Hertha von Guttenberg and showed great interest in the work of architects of new building , such as Butzek and Gustav Wilhelm Berringer. This led to larger orders for buildings such as the new trade school, whose architectural plastic jewelry she created. These include four larger-than-life sculptures that symbolize “color”, “iron”, “wood” and “stone”. Two works of art representing "work" and "relaxation" were placed behind the building.
During the period of National Socialism from 1933 to 1945, Margarete Scheel hardly accepted any public orders; she was opposed to National Socialism. Her nudes made in 1910 “Commerce”, “Business” and “Shipping” at the Mecklenburgische Hypotheken- und Wechselbank were refused by the fascist city administration. Margarete Scheel worked mainly in the studio, producing small sculptures, portrait busts and ceramic ceramics.
Her apartment and the studio with numerous works were destroyed in 1942 during a bomb attack on the city of Rostock. Until the end of the war she found a new home in the garden city, at Blumenweg 11, after which she moved to Haus Baleckestrasse 2, where she set up a modest studio. Little is known about her last years of life, but she continued to work on portrait busts and sculptures until her death.
Margarete Scheel died on November 9, 1969, her urn was buried on November 14 in Rostock's new cemetery in her brother's grave.
Numerous works by Margarete Scheel shape public art in Rostock today, the Kunsthalle Rostock is in possession of some small sculptures. Many of her smaller works are privately owned.
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