Max Burchartz

Alfred Flechtheim and Max Burchartz

After attending the textile college in Barmen and a business apprenticeship Max Burchartz studied painting at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf and the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Munich from 1907–10. He later lived in Berlin, Antwerp and Paris. From 1919 he developed ties to contemporary associations of artists in Germany – the Dresden Secession group '1919', the November Group, the Berlin gallery ‘Der Sturm’ and the Hanover Secession, the Arbeitsrat für Kunst and Junge Rheinland. In 1919/21 Burchartz was under contract to the Galerie Alfred Flechtheim. His portfolio ‘Raskolnikoff’ appeared in 1919. He became friends with Kurt Schwitters and Otto Gleichmann, and also met El Lissitzky. In Weimar he attended Theo van Doesburg’s De Stijl course in 1922 and participated at the international congress of the Constructivists and Dadaists. In 1924 he moved away from the liberal arts. Together with Johannes Canis he founded the advertising agency ‘werbe-bau’ in Bochum. From 1926–33 he taught commercial art and photography at the Folkwangschule in Essen. In 1928 he was a member and chairman of the ‘ring neuer werbegestalter’ and participated at the Pressa in Cologne. In 1933 he joined the NSDAP and, in 1933/34, designed propaganda publications for the Reichsmarine and Reichsheer. Nevertheless his art was discredited in the ‘Degenerate Art’ exhibition in Munich in 1937. Twenty-three of his works were confiscated from museums. In 1949 he was asked to teach again at the Folkwangschule in Essen. Burchartz was the author of several books on the teaching of art and design. His publication ‘Schule des Schauens’ was published posthumously in 1962.