Works by Walter Otto Grimm from Lonbersyl Fine Art

Walter Otto GRIMM was born in 1894 in Philadelphia, the son of German parents. When his father died in 1908 his mother took him with his brothers and sisters to Dresden. In 1915 Grimm began law studies in Leipzig and in the same year his artistic and literary work began. After the USA declared war on Germany in 1917, Grimm, who still possessed American nationality, was made an "unwanted foreigner" and was required to report daily to the police! This weighed heavily on him and he left his studies. He returned to Dresden and became acquainted with the expressionist artists around Felixmueller, Stiemer and Tappert. Here he found a beautiful rare peace and contributed regular illustrations to the magazine "Die Menschen". From 1918 he worked at the Dresdner theatre and the Dresdner opera for various theatre and ballet productions (e.g. "Peer Gynt" and "Macbeth"), for which he made the stage design. After his first successes the renowned Kunstkabinet showed 15 of his woodcuts. Grimm's work became ever more expressionist, more abstract, the lines harder, the figures rougher. But Grimm felt lonelier, humiliated by the treatment of the police authorities and withdrew himself from his artist colleagues. Only his life companion Lotte Haunstein did he see now and then. In remaining letter fragments Grimm shows his total isolation and depression. His work revolved increasingly around isolated people in the large city. The first booklet of the graphics books "The Black Tower" appeared in Kiel with numerous original woodcuts by Grimm. The member of the Novembergruppe Rudolf Ausleger wrote the best page in the epilog: "Grimm's best work gives deserved hope for emerging young artists on the road to fulfillment". A few weeks afterwards Walter O. Grimm committed suicide. (Spring 1919)

Only some of Grimm's work was kept over many decades, affectionately retained and cared for by his life companion Lotte Haunstein. In 1986 the Berlin gallery Bodo Niemann showed these works in a remarkable exhibition (with catalogue) which presented "the narrow, precious and very personal inheritance of this forgotten late-expressionist painter and commercial artist, an important contribution to the understanding of late expressionism." (Paul Raabe). The most important work was sold to international collections and museums (among others, the Gore Rifkind Collection, L.A. and the City Museum Kiel). See the excellent catalogue by Bodo Niemann with foreword by Paul Raabe published by Galerie Bodo Niemann in 1986 on the occasion of the gallery's exhibition of some 70 works by Grimm.