Egon Tschirch

From 1907 to 1912, Egon Tschirch attended three prestigious Art Academies in Berlin. Among his teachers were Bruno Paul and Anton von Werner.[5] A study trip to Southern France and Tunisia in 1914 awakened his preference for vibrant colours. Tschirch fought in World War I and, after being injured, worked at the Imperial army press office in Berlin producing posters for the department of pictorial propaganda from 1916 to the end of the war.[6] These posters featured darkly colored war targets with corresponding text and messages encouraging wartime perseverance. He returned to Rostock after the war.[3]

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  Self-portrait (1908)
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  Bassins des Aglabites, Kairouan (Tunisia) (1914)
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  What the enemy wants I (1917/18)
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  What the enemy wants II (1917/18)
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  Summer day (1919)

His most important creative period lasted from 1919 to the late 1920s. His productivity and willingness to experiment made him the most fitful yet successful artist in Mecklenburg in the early Golden Twenties.[7] Some outstanding examples of the paintings are Boats with Fishermen (1922) at the Rostock Museum of Cultural History and Warnow Fishermen (1923) at Rostock Art Gallery. In 1923, Tschirch created his expressionist cycle of paintings centered around the biblical Song of Songs.[8] These long-forgotten works of art were rediscovered in 2015 after being lost for more than 90 years. Tschirch is also considered a master of portrait art who was able to capture the character and traits of his clients extremely concisely.[9] Several members of Mecklenburg's bourgeoisie were portrayed by him. Examples of this are the portrait Max Samuel (1920) and the series of twenty Heads (1921) that are only labeled with numbers.[3]

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  Song of Songs, No. 11 (1923)
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  Song of Songs, No. 19 (1923)
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  Warnow Fishermen - study (1923)
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  Max Samuel (1920),(Portrait with suede brush)
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  Heads (1921), (Portrait Line Ristow)

Beginning in the early 1930s, there was little significant artistic development.[10] His art, objective and realistic, fit the times and was mostly appreciated. In the emerging era of Nazism, Egon Tschirch identified for a long time with national conservative views. In 1931 he joined the NSDAP.[11] Several works on commission in the service of the Nazi regime and persistently plentiful assignments from private individuals enabled him to live a comfortable life until the beginning of the Second World War. Only when the systematic extermination of the Jews began and his hometown was destroyed in 1942 did Tschirch criticise National Socialism and become inwardly distant.[12] He finally turned away from the regime. In St. Mary's Church in Rostock there still hangs a famous painting from this time depicting the church surrounded by the city’s ruins.[3]

In 1948, Egon Tschirch died childless in Rostock at the age of 58.[3]

The destroyed town (Rostock)(1942)

In the summer of 1937 there were discussions about whether some of his works from the early 1920s should be classified as Degenerate art and removed from the State Museum Schwerin. The intervention of advocates on his behalf prevented this.[13]

Tschirch was treated with caution and largely forgotten in East Germany.[14]

The rediscoveries of the Song of Songs cycle and the Portrait Max Samuel in 2015 set in motion a new contemporary debate.[4] The first monograph on his life and work was published in 2020.[3] From today's perspective, the contradictions between Tschirch's work and mentality are evident. His art, which by far surpasses its artist in character, remains of enormous importance for Mecklenburg and beyond.[3]

• Song of Songs (1923), private collection
• Boats with Fishermen (1922), Rostock Museum of Cultural History
• Warnow Fishermen (1923), Rostock Art Gallery