ArtistZipperer, Ernst Hermann

Artist Years1888-1962

Artist NationalityGerman

TitleFigure by a Stand of Trees by the Side of a Road

Yearca. 1920

MediumPrint > Etching

DimensionsPlate: 7.3 X 8.1 inches

Accession Number916386

NotesErnst Gustav Zipperer was born in Ulm in 1888 as the son of the upholsterer Ernst Hermann Zipperer and his wife Friederike. Zipperer and his younger brother Max grew up in the immediate vicinity of Ulm Minster. After his schooling in Ulm from 1894 to 1902, at his father’s request, he followed in his footsteps and trained as a saddler and upholsterer. After passing his journeyman's examination in 1905 and working both in the family business and for a time for another employer, he followed his inclination for art and attended the arts and crafts school in Hanover from 1907 to 1909. He then transferred to Paul Heinrich’s academy in Hildburghausen for further qualification (1909 – 1910). From October 1910 to November 1911, he did his military service as a volunteer in Neu-Ulm. He then attended the arts and crafts school in Kassel where he obtained a qualification as drawing teacher for secondary schools and teacher training institutions (1911 – 1913). Following that, he attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich for one term as a student of Heinrich Wölfflin. In March 1914, Ernst Zipperer took up his first post as trainee drawing teacher at Berlin-Lichterfelde Grammar School. However, this was interrupted due to being drafted into war service in Masuria, East Prussia in August 1914.

In World War I, Ernst Zipperer served as an officer. He was seriously wounded near Minsk in Russia in 1915 due to a head shot and lost his left eye. As a consequence, he underwent treatment at the Eye Hospital in Stuttgart for a period of one year. As a result of his injuries, he suffered from severe headaches and spells of dizziness as well as kidney problems for the rest of his life.

In June 1917, he returned to Berlin-Lichterfelde Grammar School and qualified as drawing teacher in September. From October 1917 to September 1918, he served as district officer in Rastenburg in East Prussia.

In 1918, Ernst Zipperer married Elisabeth Nestler (born 3 November 1894 in Hildburghausen; died 5 June 1977 in Heilbronn). Following their wedding, he took up the post of art teacher at Hermann von Helmholtz Grammar School in Berlin-Schönefeld. The couple had three children: Ernst Wilhelm (1919 – 2005), Gisela (1921 – 1928) and Vera Charlotte (born 1931). In 1920, he moved to Berlin-Friedenau Grammar School where he taught until 1940. There, until 1940, he influenced a whole generation of young people. His pupils included persons such as the resistance fighter Friedrich Justus Perels, the columnist Friedrich Luft and the politicians Egon Bahr and Peter Lorenz. Zipperer was deeply respected by his pupils and many remained in close contact with him until his death. He enjoyed a deep friendship with Helmut Ammann who became a prominent sculptor, painter and graphic artist.

Ernst Zipperer’s first years of teaching in Berlin also marked the beginning of his first major creative phase which lasted until 1940. During these two decades, Zipperer produced a significant body of work. He traveled extensively throughout Germany and to various European countries in order to study and produce art works. His preferred technique at the time was drypoint etching and with this technique he became known both in and outside Germany.

In Berlin, Zipperer developed friendships with the artists Heinrich Zille and Max Liebermann. He was particularly close to the sculptor August Gaul, in whose house he lived for almost one year in 1917. Gaul appreciated and sponsored Ernst Zipperer. Through Gaul, a member of the Executive Committee of the Berlin Secession, Zipperer came into contact with Berlin arts world.

In 1931, Zipperer bought Tannenburg Castle, a castle dating back to the Staufer period, with its farm estate near the village of Bühlertann in Ellwangen District (now Schwäbisch Hall District) in north-east Württemberg. He leased the associated farm estate and continued to work in Berlin.

The artistic work of Ernst Zipperer covers his early work until 1918, the creative phase in Berlin (1918-1940) and his late work (1950-1972). According to the current status, about 1,300 works have been documented. Already as a child and during his apprenticeship, Ernst Zipperer showed a particular talent for drawing. During this period, many drawings and sketches evolved, but most of them are now lost. From the period of his artistic education in Hanover, Kassel and Munich, numerous studies on perspective and shadowing as well as technical drawings still exist.

Under the influence of Prof. Heubach in Hanover Zipperer turned its attention to the drawing of architecture. At the same time he created landscapes, portraits, nudes, ornaments and still lifes, which he mainly executed as pencil drawings, rarely as watercolors.

During his wartime deployment in Russia (1914 – 1915), his artistic talent expressed itself in a wide variety of ways. Due to a lack of photographic resources, he sketched military combats which were used in connection with strategic decisions. In the trenches, he sketched portraits of fellow soldiers and officers as a memento to be sent to their families. Two small drawings from this period are extant.

His severe war injury was followed by a one-year convalescence period at the Eye Hospital in Stuttgart. After regaining the sight of his remaining eye, he produced many art works, while still in hospital. In numerous sketches and drawings, he focused on people who showed considerable signs of what they had gone through during the war. Some pictures of that time clearly show the influence of Heinrich Zille.

After the turmoil of the war and the handover of Tannenburg to his son, Ernst Zipperer was able to devote himself entirely to his art. He left the era of drypoint behind him and entered a new intense phase of artistic creation. The late work of the artist is characterized by experimentation and new ideas. For Zipperer, the movement runs along the art-historical development of his time from realistic-naturalistic to abstract-reductionist representation. At the same time, the realistic and abstract modes of expression do not stand for a closed stage of artistic recognition. Rather, both exist side by side. Abstract depictions are again followed by a landscape or a bouquet of flowers. He is always looking for "ground under his feet," as he called it.

It is a further thematic arc that spans the "complexity of its meaningful images". In many cases, these are already well-known motifs that recur again and again - often in a reduced form - trees in the landscape, a ravine and clouds above; especially the clouds occupied him throughout his life. In addition, there are themes such as peace and quiet, but also division and destruction, which he translates abstractly. "Everything you can think of, you can also draw", the artist described his own spectrum in later years.

Ernst Zipperer found in pastel and oil pastels, but also in tempera and oil paint adequate materials to express his imagination and his mystical inwardness - sometimes cautious-mindful, then again powerful-dynamic.

Works by Zipperer are held in German museums or municipal archives. Ernst Zipperer’s artistic estate is managed by his daughter Vera Prior and grandson Lothar Zipperer.
(source: wikipedia.org)

Price $350.00

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