WILLIAM WAUER* (Oberwiesenthal 1866 - 1962 Berlin)
Portrait of Lu
oil/canvas, 60,5 x 40,7 cm
dated 1922
verso exhibition label of gallery Der Sturm, Berlin and shipping label of William Wauer 1922, Berlin
ESTIMATE € 10000 - 15000
STARTING PRICE € 10000
William Ernst Hermann Wauer was a German sculptor, painter, educator and film director. He studied at the art academies in Dresden and Berlin, then in Munich. He continued his education for two years in San Francisco and New York, then studied philosophy and art history for a semester in Leipzig. From 1888 he worked as an art critic for the magazine “XX. Century” and as a features editor of a daily newspaper. In 1891 he took over the management of the Leipziger Tagesanzeiger. Around 1900 he published the monthly magazine Quickborn. At times he worked for the advertising departments of Lingnerwerke (Dresden), Kupferberg, Kathreiner, Exterikultur and Stollwerck; he developed the advertising for Odol. Together with Theodor Fritsch he founded the “Dresdner Tagesanzeiger” and was publisher of the art magazine “Dresdner Gesellschaft”. Wauer also wrote theater reviews there. In 1905 he completed the directing class at the German Theater Drama School. He founded the artistic theater William & Gerhard Wauer OHG with his brother Gerhard Wauer. He was a theater director at the Deutsches Theater under Max Reinhardt, at the Hebbel Theater and finally director at the Kleiner Theater Unter den Linden. He worked as an editor for several art magazines: “Der Sturm”, “Die Schaubühne” and “Gesellschaft für Bühnenkunst”. From 1913 onwards, Wauer made a number of films, including: a biography of Richard Wagner with Giuseppe Becce in the title role and an adaptation of Bernhard Kellermann's science fiction novel “The Tunnel”. The Wauer brothers then founded the W.-W.-Filmgesellschaft Wauer & Co. Wauer took over the technical management of the Flora-Film-Gesellschaft in Berlin and became managing director of Kultur Film GmbH.
He also served as a board member of the Berliner Filmclub e. V. In 1918 he took part in the 61st exhibition of the Der Sturm gallery for the first time with sculptures and in 1922 in the 65th exhibition. Wauer achieved success as a portraitist, with cubist busts of Herwarth Walden (1917), his wife Nell (1918) and Albert Bassermann (1918), and later of Friedrich Ebert and Paul von Hindenburg (both 1926). In 1920, Wauer performed a new version of “The Four Dead of Fiametta” with his stage sets and sculptures at the Albert Theater in Dresden. In the 1920s, Wauer also worked for the Bauhaus under Walter Gropius. In 1922 the third Bauhaus portfolio was published with his lithograph “Composition with Oval Shapes”. In 1924 Wauer founded the International Association of Expressionists, Cubists, Futurists and Constructivists (later: “The Abstracts”). From 1928 to 1933 he worked with his wife Ursula Scherz for Berlin Radio. In 1937, several copies of his lithograph “Composition with Ovals” were confiscated in the “Degenerate Art” campaign. In 1941, the Reich Chamber of Culture banned Wauer from working. After 1945 he was a lecturer at the adult education center in West Berlin and a board member of the Association of Adult Education Lecturers. In 1957 he became chairman of the Association of German Cultural Unity; he became an honorary member of the Association of Berlin Art and Antique Dealers.
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