Card Players, 1926
Buildings in Linden. View onto the Limmerstrasse, 1927

Hans Mertens (January 2, 1906 – August 18, 1944) was a German painter associated with the New Objectivity.

Mertens was born in Hanover and had his artistic training there at the School of Arts and Crafts during 1925–26.[1] He found work as a restorer, first in the Provinzialmuseum and then in the Kestner-Museum in Hanover. He was a friend of Carl Buchheister and Kurt Schwitters.[1]

During the 1920s, Mertens painted still lifes, landscapes, and figurative subjects in a controlled style. A Constructivist tendency is visible in his painting Card Players (1926): the imposition of geometric order onto organic forms causes the man's hair part, shirtfront, and cards to align with an edge of a background wall.[2] Still Life with Household Articles (1928) is typical of much New Objectivity painting in its dispassionate rendering of mundane objects.[3]

Mertens remained dependent on work as a commercial artist to make a living. In 1933 he married Hanna Vogel.[1] In 1939 he was called to military service.[4] Many of his works were destroyed when his studio was bombed by Allied forces in 1943. In 1944 Mertens was killed in action at Albi.[1]

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 4 Schmied 1978, p. 128.
  2. ↑ Schmied 1978, p. 15.
  3. ↑ Michalski 1994, pp. 140, 162.
  4. ↑ Michalski 1994, p. 214.

References

  • Michalski, Sergiusz (1994). New Objectivity. Cologne: Benedikt Taschen. ISBN 3-8228-9650-0
  • Schmied, Wieland (1978). Neue Sachlichkeit and German Realism of the Twenties. London: Arts Council of Great Britain. ISBN 0-7287-0184-7
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