Elisabeth von Rosendorff-Hoerschelmann and Karl von Hoerschelmann

On August 13th 2004 the exhibition of the artists couple – Elisabeth von Rosendorff-Hoerschelmann and Karl von Hoerschelmann – shall be opened in the Adamson-Eric Museum in Tallinn. The exhibition has been organized thanks to the heirs of the artists in Germany - Konstantin Hoerschelmann and Anna Röder- Hoerschelmann.

Elisabeth von Rosendorff-Hoerschelmann and Karl von Hoerschelmann were remarkable figures in the Baltic-German art in Estonia during the 1920s and 1930s. Elisabeth von Rosendorf (1898-1984) was born in the manor Wrangelstein (Maidla) in North Estonia. She studied 1916-1920 at the Stieglitz Art School in Petrograd (Sankt-Petersburg) and became world-famous with her porcelain paintings from the years 1919-1920. Her teacher Sergei Tshekhonin who was the artistic director of the 1st Porcelain Factory (former Imperial Porcelain Manufacture, nowadays the Lomonossov Porcelain Factory) commissioned works from his most talented students. The plates, painted by E. Rosendorff, can be found in the museums of St.-Petersburg, Moscow and Tallinn. In 1920 the artist returned to Estonia and married Karl von Hoerschelmann in 1926 in Tallinn.

Karl von Hoerschelmann (1899-1951) derived from a Baltic-German family, but was born in Sevastopol (the Crimea). He was prepared for the military career in the schools of Odessa and St.-Petersburg, took part in the World War I and the Civil war as officer and came to Estonia in 1922 after an adventurous journey. He started to exhibit his art, as his wife did, in the exhibitions in Estonia and abroad from 1925 to 1933. Later on the couple did not take part in artistic life any more, as the new artistic atmosphere – the tendency towards Realism – did not suit them. Although their watercolors and drawings of the 1920s-1930s were influenced by New Objectivity and Art Déco, their artistic ideals had been formed by the Russian avant-garde. Karl von Hoerschelmann was also active as a writer taking part in Russian literary life in Tallinn, particularly in the first half of the 1930-s. In 1940 the Hoerschelmann family was forced to leave Estonia. They went to Poland, from there in 1945 to Bavaria. Karl von Hoerschelmann died in 1951 in Eichstatt, Elisabeth von Hoerschelmann in 1984 in Andernach.

There have been several historical exhibitions of Elisabeth von Hoerschelmann as well as of both of them in Germany. The exhibition in Adamson-Eric Museum is the first one in Estonia. The exhibition widens considerably the knowledge of the Baltic-German art of the XX century. Pressetext

Known and Unknown - Elisabeth von Rosendorff-Hoerschelmann and Karl von Hoerschelmann
Kurator: Mai Levin
Ort: Adamson-Eric Museum, Tallinn