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Marcus Behmer
Portrait of Marcus Behmer by Dorothea Werner
Born(1879-10-01)October 1, 1879
Weimar
DiedSeptember 12, 1958(1958-09-12) (aged 78)
Berlin
NationalityGerman

Marcus Michael Douglas Behmer (1 October 1879 – 12 September 1958), also known by the pseudonyms Marcotino[1] and Maurice Besnaux,[2] was a German illustrator, graphic designer and painter. He was the first well-known German artist to publicly admit to homosexuality.[3]

Biography

Behmer was born in Weimar, son of the painter Hermann Behmer and grandson of Friedrich Behmer, Oberamtmann of Merzien (now part of Köthen in Saxony-Anhalt) and his wife Elise, youngest daughter of the poet Philippine Engelhard. His father's twin brother Rudolf Behmer (1831–1902) was known as a breeder of Merino sheep; their sister Louise was married to Heinrich von Nathusius (1824–1890). Marcus' brother Joachim Behmer was also an artist. Behmer, in a letter, dates his artistic beginnings to about 1896.

Marcus Behmer's grave in Friedhof Heerstraße, Berlin-Westend

On 1 October 1903, Behmer joined the army. He was made a corporal on 10 June 1904 and promoted on 22 September 1907 to sergeant. From 1914 he served in World War I in Flanders and in Poland. In the summer of 1917 he fell seriously ill "after an operation in the field" and spent six weeks in the field hospital at Jarny in north-eastern France. During his time in the army, he produced many so-called "comrades' portraits" , usually finely crafted miniature profile views of young soldiers.

In 1898 Behmer made the acquaintance of Karl Walser, also an admirer of Aubrey Beardsley, with whom he remained friends for the rest of his life.[4] He launched his career as a professional artist in 1900 and over the next three years contributed 66 drawings to the monthly magazine Die Insel (The Island ) for Insel Verlag, the satirical weekly Simplicissimus, and other Munich publications.[5] From 1902 on Behmer created book illustrations, designed initials and texts and was responsible for carefully planned book productions, with the Cranach Press of Harry Graf Kessler and others. With Insel Verlag he had his first major success with his illustrations for Wilde's Salome in 1903. Behmer's early works show the strong influence of the illustrative art of Aubrey Beardsley, which later allowed some negative assessments of his work as imitative, though he soon developed his own artistic language parallel to the rise of Expressionism and the new currents of the Wiener Werkstätte. He also designed an internationally recognised work, the series of illustrations for Philipp Otto Runge's Von dem Fischer un syner Fru ("The Fisherman and His Wife").

Behmer also worked for other publishers, for example the Paul Cassirer Verlag, which produced one of his major works, a series of 40 etchings created in 1912 for an edition of Voltaire's Zadig. Like many artists of the Buchkunstbewegung, Behmer ran into financial difficulties in the 1920s, but he remained committed to what he called the "small format" instead of striving for a gallery-based artistic career as did others such as Alfred Kubin, to whom Behmer compared himself in later years.

In created his own antiqua-style typeface in the 1920's and cast it in cast in the Klingspor foundry, a building that has since become a museum and houses a large collection of Behmer's work.[6][7]

Behmer was close friends with, among others, the family of the writer Ernst Hardt, with the painter Alexander Olbricht and also with the sculptor and painter Dorothea Werner (born Leiding) and her husband.

From 1903 he was a member in Berlin of the WhK (Wissenschaftlich-humanitäre Komitee),[3] the first homosexual movement in the world.[8] Behmer was arrested in December 1936 and convicted on charges of homosexuality by a court in Konstanz. He was sentenced to two years in prison and served 19 months in prisons in Stockach, Konstanz and Freiburg im Breisgau, emerging in July 1938.[3] In his prison diaries he accepted his punishment, rejecting the idea that God would punish him as the law had for sexual behavior but accepting it as divine punishment for his sins of pride and self-satisfaction. He wrote:[6]

In order to be able to endure what God has decreed for me, I have to make this one thought clear to myself with the utmost strength, so that it is present to me every second, even the most dreadful and desperate one, as the very last: that nothing can happen to me which God does not send me.

At times he was given the opportunity to work as an artist in prison. The works produced in this period are mostly calligraphically designed panels of Greek text (prayers and Bible quotations), as well as drawings full of bitterness and irony.

From 1943 Behmer lived at the family home of Donata Helmrich, the daughter of Ernst Hardt, in Berlin-Charlottenburg. He lost almost all of his possessions, including hundreds of drawings, graphics and printing plates, when the Westend neighborhood of Berlin was bombed in November 1944.[6] He then went to live at Groẞ Nuhnen, the country estate of the Werner family near Frankfurt an der Oder. The rest of his life was spent in poverty in West Berlin, where Dorothea Werner took care of him in 1958 until his death.

Behmer died in Berlin at age 78, on 12 September 1958. He was buried in the Heerstraße Cemetery in the present district of Berlin-Westend.[9]

The Senate of Berlin ordered in 1965 that Behmer's grave (plot 8-C-54) should be dedicated as an Ehrengrab ("grave of honour") of the Land Berlin. The original dedication expired in 2011; the Senate renewed it in 2018 for the usual time period of 20 years.[10]

Renowned museums and collections such as the graphics collection of the Städel Museum in Frankfurt, the Klingspor Museum for calligraphy and typography in Offenbach and the Sternweiler collection in Berlin today house works by Behmer. A critical appraisal of his work is only now being undertaken and his art-historical importance realized.

Selected works

Graphics

Book illustrations

Binding designs

Musical compositions / Songs based on poems

Selected exhibitions

Solo exhibitions

Group exhibitions

Notes

  1. ^ Wilde's work is also known in German as Die fromme Kurtisane.
  2. ^ Five letters by Behmer about this binding along with the volume itself were offered at auction in 2020.[12]

References

  1. ^ a b c d Wiensowski, Ingeborg (29 July 2008). "Der letzte Bohemien in Berlin" [The last Bohemian in Berlin]. Der Spiegel, article about an exhibition of Behmer's works in Berlin
  2. ^ Tamagne, Florence (2007). History of Homosexuality in Europe, Berlin, London, Paris 1919-1939. Vol. 1. Algora. p. 199. ISBN 9780875863573. Retrieved 4 September 2022.
  3. ^ a b c Hall, Peter C. (5 July 2018). "Große Marcus Behmer Ausstelling im Klingspor Museum Offenbach". Feuilleton Frankfurt (in German). Retrieved 4 September 2022.
  4. ^ Senti-Schmidlin, Verena (May 2016). "Die Künstlerfreundschaft Karl Walser-Marcus Behmer". Librarium (in German). 59: 39–52. Retrieved 4 September 2022.
  5. ^ Roditi, Edouard (1970). Kamarck, Edward (ed.). "Marcus Behmer, A Master of Art Nouveau". Arts in Society. 7: 268–75. Retrieved 5 September 2022; includes a photo of Behmer late in life and reproductions of two important prints.
  6. ^ a b c Hall, Peter Christian (19 July 2018). "Fromm und schwul" [Pious and Gay]. Das Gemeinschaftswerk der Evangelischen Publizistik (in German). Retrieved 5 September 2022.
  7. ^ "Unsere Ausstellungen im Jahr 2018". Klingspor Museum (in German). Retrieved 5 September 2022.
  8. ^ Djajic-Horváth, Aleksandra (10 May 2022). "Magnus Hirschfeld". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 10 June 2022. In 1897 Hirschfeld established the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee with Max Spohr, Franz Josef von Bülow, and Eduard Oberg; it was the world's first gay rights organization.
  9. ^ Mende, Hans-Jürgen (2018). Lexikon Berliner Begräbnisstätten (in German). Berlin: Pharus-Plan. p. 483. ISBN 9783865142061.
  10. ^ Ehrengrabstätten des Landes Berlin (Stand: November 2018) (PDF, 413 kB), p. 5. Accessed 19. November 2019. Anerkennung und weitere Erhaltung von Grabstätten als Ehrengrabstätten des Landes Berlin. (PDF, 369 kB). Abgeordnetenhaus von Berlin, Drucksache 18/14895 vom 21. November 2018, p. 1 und Anlage 1, p. 1. Accessed 19. November 2019.
  11. ^ Hardt, Ernst (1907). Tantris der Narr: Drama in 5 Akten (in German). Leipzig: Insel-Verlag – via HathiTrust. Den Schmuck des Buches zeichnete Markus Behmer, Florenz
  12. ^ a b "Sale: 509, Rare Books, Nov. 30. 2020 in Hamburg, Lot 300". Ketterer Kunst. 30 November 2020. Retrieved 4 September 2022.
  13. ^ "Marcus Behmer". Galerie Buchholz (in German). Retrieved 5 September 2022.
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