Emy Roeder (1890-1971)

Emy ROEDER (Wurzburg 1890-01-30 / Mainz 1971-02-07)

sculptor, draftsman, teacher

Emy Roeder received her first art training (drawing and modelling) from 1908 at the Polytechnic Zentralverein Würzburg. In 1911 she moved to Munich after the death of her father. From 1913 to 1915 she studied with the sculptor Bernhard Hoetger in Darmstadt. In 1915 she moved to Berlin, where she established herself as an artist. She became acquainted with Rudolf Belling and her future husband Herbert Garbe (1888-1945), among others, as well as the work of sculptors such as Alexander Archipenko and Wilhelm Lehmbruck, and she became a member of the artists' group Freie Secession. In 1918 she joined the Berlin Secession and in 1919 the Vereinigung der radicalen bildenden Künstler group, Max Pechstein's revolutionary November group. She married Garbe on January 20, 1919. Together they were friends with the expressionist artists Käthe Kollwitz, Ernst Barlach and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff. In 1920 she received the Preis der Preußische Akademie for her work Die Schwangere. From 1920 to 1925, Roeder studied in Hugo Lederer's Meisteratelier, which had just been opened to women, at the Preußische Akademie der Künste in Berlin.

In 1933 Garbe, who had meanwhile joined the NSDAP, received the Villa-Massimo-Preis for a stay in Rome. Together they left Berlin, but Roeder did not return to Germany with her husband in 1934 and only stayed in Rome, Paris and Bavaria (in 1935 Roeder and Garbe got a divorce). She was awarded the Villa-Romana-Preis in 1936 for a stay in Florence. In 1937 her previously award-winning work Die Schwangere was exhibited at the Entartete Kunst exhibition in Munich and she was banned from exhibiting her etchings. She decided not to return to Germany and to stay in Florence, where she was supported by the director of the Villa Romana Hans Purrmann. In 1944 she was interned by the Americans, but released again after the mediation of artist friends. She worked in Rome until 1949, when she was persuaded to return to Germany. The city of Mainz provided a home/studio and appointed her professor of sculpture at the Landeskunstschule Mainz.[1] In 1953 she gave up this position again, but she remained in Mainz and settled there as a free artist. In 1955 Emy Roeder was invited to participate in documenta 1 in Kassel. She, like Max Bill, Wilhelm Loth and Herbert Volwahsen, submitted a design for the Georg-Büchner-Denkmal in Darmstadt in 1955, but was not chosen. Her work was dominated by the themes of female figure, mother and child and animals in the materials wood and bronze. She became known for her portraits (of, among others, Gustav Seitz and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff) and sculptures.[2] In 1966 Roeder was awarded the Großer Kulturpreis der Stadt Würzburg for her entire oeuvre.

Emy Roeder died in 1971 and was interred in the family plot at Hauptfriedhof Würzburg. Her own work and that of other artists (including Erich Heckel) are exhibited in the Museum im Kulturspeicher in Würzburg[3].

In 1979 a culture prize named after Emy Roeder was established by the state of Rhineland-Palatinate and the Kunstverein Ludwigshafen am Rhein for young artists up to the age of 35, the Junge Rheinland-Pfälzer Künstlerinnen und Künstler - Emy Roeder Preis (Emy-Roeder-Preis).