Otto Antoine, Berlin, Potsdamer Tor 1930 mit vielen Personen und Autos, Signed

Otto Antoine

Koblenz 1865 - 1951 Unteruhldingen

Potsdam Gate, 1930

Oil on cardboard

Signed and dated lower left

Size: 66 x 52 cm

Frame: 76.5 x 62.5 cm

Good condition considering its age, cardboard slightly warped (see photos)

Authenticity is confirmed in writing.

Otto Antoine studied part-time at the Academy of Fine Arts, taking courses in landscape and nude painting. He found in Professor Franz Skarbina (1849–1910) an artist who recognized and encouraged his talent and taught him what he, a self-taught artist, still had to learn.

In his early years, Antoine painted primarily landscapes and extensively in watercolor. After his apprenticeship with Skarbina, he preferred oil paint as a more expressive medium for larger paintings and increasingly turned to city motifs. The number of oil paintings, pastels, watercolors, and etchings with Berlin motifs is large. Horse-drawn carriages on rain-soaked streets, the hustle and bustle of Leipziger Straße, and passersby at the Brandenburg Gate are impressions that the artist captured in their randomness and momentaryness. The cathedral, the palace and the palace bridge (Kaiser Friedrich Bridge), Unter den Linden, the Brandenburg Gate, Leipziger Platz with Wertheim, Potsdamer Platz, Alexanderplatz with Berolina and the police headquarters, the Reichstag, the Tiergarten, the Kurfürstendamm, the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church and Tauentzienstraße, the City Hall, and the Old Museum are all naturally included in the long, by no means exhaustive, list of Berlin paintings. It is representative Berlin, the Berlin of monumental buildings. All the pictures are atmospherically painted in virtuoso Impressionist technique. The atmosphere of the period and its changes are evident in the means of transport, the cabs, trams, and buses with their still-open upper floors, as well as in the clothing of pedestrians. Otto Antoine also captured military scenes in his paintings several times, such as the Changing of the Guard on Unter den Linden or the Kaiser's birthday parade. On Saturdays and Sundays, he enjoyed going out into nature, accompanied by his wife and children, to paint outdoors outside the city gates.

Since a stay in Neuwarp on the Baltic Sea in 1916, Otto Antoine had been friends with the painter Hans Hartig. While Hartig, who had previously preferred landscapes and the Baltic Sea as motifs, discovered the city for his painting under the influence of his friend Antoine, Hartig, conversely, succeeded in inspiring Antoine's interest in Baltic motifs. with the portrait of Hans Hartig painting in the harbor of Neuwarp, Antoine created a lasting monument to his friend. Among the artists with whom Otto Antoine was friends were other "post-painters," such as Richard Albitz (1876–1954) and Gustav Fenkohl (1872–1950), who had become prominent in Berlin's artistic scene.

Otto Antoine remained committed to Impressionism throughout his life. After his apprenticeship with Skarbina, he barely changed his style of painting. Not even when an art revolution began in Berlin around 1905, leading from Impressionism to Expressionism. Under the pressure of state control of art since 1933, he, like other painters, tended toward more realistic depictions.

In 1893, a work by Antoine was exhibited for the first time at the Great Berlin Art Exhibition (Grobeka) in the State Exhibition Building at Lehrter Bahnhof. An oil painting ("It's getting dark...") followed in 1894. from 1897 onwards he was an almost regular participant in this annual exhibition which, during the time of Kaiser Wilhelm II (1859–1941, Kaiser from 1888 to 1918), only presented works of official painting. At first these were depictions of his Rhineland homeland (e.g. “Evening on the Moselle” in 1900, “Lahneck” in 1901 and “At the Loreley” in 1901), then, from around 1911 onwards, mainly Berlin motifs. Antoine’s pictures also always had a place in the Künstlerhaus, the permanent exhibition of works by living artists of the Association of Berlin Artists. In 1938 and from 1941 to 1943 Antoine was represented with depictions of monumental buildings, squares and avenues in the Reich capital, such as those he had painted in the Berlin Wall. The works he had created, for example, in his paintings "Brandenburg Gate," "Victory Column," and "In Front of the Armory in Berlin" with its armory, cathedral, guardhouse, and scenes from the university and opera, were represented at the Great German Art Exhibition in the House of German Art in Munich.

Otto Antoine was a member of the Association of Berlin Artists, founded in 1841. Later, he represented his fellow artists on the association's board and repeatedly contributed to the development of the Great Berlin Art Exhibition. He then became an honorary member and honorary president of the association. When, after the First World War, democratic pluralism prevailed in officially supported Berlin art, and the artists' associations Association of Berlin Artists, Berlin Secession, Free Secession, and November Group provided a comprehensive overview of Berlin's artistic output for the first time under one roof, Otto Antoine and Hans Hartig represented the interests of the Association of Berlin Artists on the joint jury formed for this purpose. When the Reich Chamber of Culture was created by law in the fall of 1933, Antoine became a member so he could continue practicing his profession.

As Otto Antoine's fame grew, so did his recognition and commissions. Museums, public and state institutions, private enthusiasts, and collectors purchased his works. He further gained popularity through the reproduction of his paintings in calendars and through large print runs of many of his paintings, including postal motifs. Antoine was represented at all of the Great German Art Exhibitions in Munich from 1938 to 1944, except for 1939.

Several works by Otto Antoine were lost in the turmoil of World War II. These include, for example, 24 oil paintings depicting Berlin streets, bridges, and squares, which the city of Berlin took into wartime custody as important historical documents and placed in the Warthegau region. Also considered lost is the painting "Leipziger Straße" from the Berlin National Gallery's holdings, which was housed in the Upper Silesian Museum in Gliwice. Fortunately, a large part of his oeuvre survived. However, a complete overview of the locations of Antoine's works does not currently exist. The following information can only serve as a guide. A large number of works are owned by the family and other private collectors. The pictures Antoine painted for the Reichspostmuseum and some works acquired by German postal museums after the Second World War are now housed in the Museum Foundation for Post and Telecommunications. These include primarily 22 oil paintings and 16 watercolors, as well as drawings and colored facsimiles. The Berlin City Museum Foundation preserves four paintings ("Security Police in Berlin, 1920," "Kaiser Friedrich Bridge, 1921," "Leipziger Platz, 1925," and "At Potsdamer Platz, 1930") and two prints by Antoine that were formerly owned by the city. The German Museum of Technology in Berlin owns the painting "Transfer of the Elevated Railway to Berlin over the Electric Suburban and Long-Distance Railway" (presumably 1905) showing the yellow street mail vans at Gleisdreieck. Antoine's oil painting from around 1920 of Berlin traffic on Alexanderplatz, built in 1882, is housed in the Reinickendorf district office in Berlin. Rhein-Chemie Holding in Heidelberg owns a collection of watercolors depicting views of Berlin (29 were on display in the aforementioned exhibition "Alt-Berlin im Bild" (Old Berlin in Pictures) commemorating the artist's 100th birthday).