Biography Louise Stomps 1900 - 1988

1900

Louise Stomps was born in Berlin on November 5, 1900. She was the second child of Otto Stomps, a lawyer, and his wife Else Stomps, née Kempff. Wilhelm II was still German emperor until 1918. The family lived in their own house in Lichterfelde-Ost from 1910. Their brother is the writer and publisher Victor Otto Stomps (called VauO or V.O.), born in Krefeld in 1897.

1917

Louise Stomps graduates from the Elisabeth Lyceum in Berlin (Lichterfelde-Ost). She creates her first animal sculptures.

1918

Attends a girls' boarding school in Feldafing on Lake Starnberg.

1920

Marriage to Hans Becker, a graduate engineer who was ten years older.

1921

Birth of daughter Inge (died 2003).

[Child portrait of daughter Inge, around 1925, height 22,5 cm, plaster]

1922

Birth of daughter Annemarie (died 2013).

The year 1922 also marked the beginning of hyperinflation in Germany, which reached its peak in 1923.

1927

Divorce after a period of separation - Stomps adopts her birth name again. Predominantly she works at this time in plaster, but there are also first works in stone.

[Seated woman, 1928, height 27 cm, grenn sandstone]
[Seated woman, 1930's, height 17 cm, plaster, coloured]

1928

Evening sculpture class held by Johannes Röttger at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste Berlin. Attends Milly Steger's sculpture class at the Association of Berlin Women Artists. First wood sculptures. Member of the Association of Berlin Women Artists from 1928-1943.

1930

Death of the father. She creates the gravestone sculpture Mother Earth for her father's grave at the Berlin-Zehlendorf cemetery. Also buried there are her brother V.O. Stomps, her daughter Inge and she herself.

[Vestal virgin, 1932, height 197 cm, oak | private collection]

[Mother Earth, around 1930, height 128 cm, granite stone]

1930-33

First participation in exhibitions. Beginning of friendship with the sculptor Lidy von Lüttwitz (1902 - 1996). Temporary joint use of a studio.

[Portrait Lidy von Lüttwitz, 1933, height 35 cm, plaster | location unknown]

1930's

Occasional participation in the regulars' table of the Rabenpresse (1926-1937), the publishing house of her brother Victor Otto Stomps. Together with Ludwig Meidner, Paul Steegmann, Luigi Malipiero and others.

from 1933

Because of her deep rejection of the Nazi regime, Stomps was forced into internal emigration. This period is characterized by frequent changes of studio.

1936

The works of Ernst Barlach and Käthe Kollwitz are removed from the anniversary exhibition of the Academy of Arts as "unacceptable". Out of solidarity, Stomps decides not to exhibit any more.

[The pair, 1937, height 45,5 cm, oak | Berlinische Galerie, Berlin]

1937

Visit to the World Exposition in Paris with Lidy von Lüttwitz and the painter Else Driessen.

[Mother with child, 1937, height 170 cm, oak | the sculpture is exposed on permanent loan in the Museum Wiesbaden]

1938/39

Thanks to her brother V.O. Stomps encounter with the painter, collector, patron and art dealer Hanna Bekker vom Rath (1893-1983). Bekker vom Rath exhibited secretly ostracized artists in her Berlin studio at Regensburger Straße from 1940-1943.
In 1947 Bekker vom Rath opens her gallery Frankfurter Kunstkabinett with an exhibition of prints by Käthe Kollwitz.

[Portrait Hanna Bekker vom Rath, 1966, height 35 cm, bronze cast | Stadtmuseum Hofheim am Taunus]

1940

After the first bombing raids, Louise Stomps rents a farmer's cottage in the Berlin suburb of Caputh as emergency quarters and buries many of her works there.

[Sitting woman, 1939, height 52,5 cm, marble]

1943

During a bombing raid, her apartment at Achenbachstrasse 3 (Berlin-Wilmersdorf) was totally destroyed on November 3, 1943, as was her studio at Neue Grünstrasse 40 (Berlin-Mitte) on November 23, 1943. Loss of the majority of the works created until then.

1945

Louise Stomps supposedly has been denounced and was imprisoned for six weeks in the Soviet zone under false suspicion of contact with the Nazi regime.
In August, the Rosen Gallery opens in Berlin. The formerly ostracized artists were at last able to exhibit again. Louise Stomps takes part in the 3rd exhibition in October/November "Sculpture and Sculpture Drawings", together with Paul Dierkes, Karl Hartung, Gottfried Kappen, Gustav Seitz, Renée Sintenis, Christian Theunert, Hans Uhlmann.
She now has her studio at Schillerstraße 21 in Berlin-Charlottenburg and her apartment from 1946 at Giesebrechtstraße 9.

[Grief, 1947, height 83 cm, oak | private collection]

1946

Participation in the 1st German Art Exhibition in the Zeughaus Unter den Linden in Berlin.
Participation in the exhibition at the Rosen Gallery in August.
In the graphic portfolio "Grafik 1946" of the Rosen Gallery, she is the only female sculptor represented with one of the 12 original graphics.

[Crouching woman, 1946, height 95 cm, wood | private collection]

Foto Zeughaus: Miguel Hermoso Cuesta, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

1947

Participation in the traveling exhibition of the Rosen Gallery in Berlin, Hamburg and Stuttgart. In August, exhibition at the Rosen Gallery: "Louise Sophie Stomps - Sculptures" (alongside oil paintings and watercolors by Hans Kuhn). In winter participation in the annual show of the Rosen Gallery. Represented in the "Almanach 1947" of the Rosen Gallery.

1947/48

The Magistrate of Berlin purchases the oak sculpture The Couple, which now is in the National Gallery in Berlin.

[The pair, 1938, height 120 cm, oak]

1949

Exhibition at Gallery Franck in Frankfurt am Main.
Apartment and studio in the souterrain flat of her house Teichstraße 10, Berlin-Zehlendorf.

[Small standing woman, 1948, height 48,5 cm, wood]

1950

Participates in the constitutive meeting of the Berufsverband Bildender Künstler Berlin (Professional Association of Visual Artists of Berlin). She receives membership card No. 3. Other female artists include: Hannah Höch, Renée Sintenis, Augusta von Zitzewitz.

1951

Louise Stomps receives the Art Award of the City of Berlin.

[Mourning figure, 1951, height 20 cm, alder | private collection]

1952

Competition "The Unknown Political Prisoner" organised by the Institute of Contemporary Art, London; Louise Stomps is shortlisted with the proposal "The Admonisher" and receives an "honorable citation" in 1953 and a prize of 25 Pound Sterling.

[The Admonisher, 1952, height 52 cm, plaster | The Admonisher is also made in a version made of marble: 1952, height 36 cm and there are two graphic drafts of the conception and size of the planned monument]

1955

Visit of the 1st Documenta in Kassel.

[Pair, 1950's, height 71 cm, wood, coloured]

ab 1955

Numerous solo exhibitions and participation in exhibitions also outside Berlin, including Frankfurter Kunstkabinett, Galerie Günther Franke, Haus der Kunst Munich.

1958

Participation in the competition "International Monument" in Auschwitz.
Purchase of a used BMW police motorcycle with sidecar.

1960

Move to Rechtmehring near Wasserburg am Inn. She moves into the Kupfmühle, an old water mill, where she lives very secluded until the end of her life.
She restores the long-neglected house with her own hands and sets up a studio that is open over two floors and thus also suitable for tall sculptures.

[Aquarell Inge Becker-Schrader, um 1961, Kumpfmühle vor der Renovierung]

Ende 1960er Jahre

Louise Stomps lives very secluded in her water mill. She does, however, make several trips to Italy on her motorcycle, mostly with her daughter Inge. The longest trip takes her as far as Paestum, south of Naples.
She can meet her daughter Annemarie, who lived on the outskirts of Berlin in the GDR, only now and then at that time when she visited Berlin.

[Small involvement, about 1965, height 30 cm, wood]

Foto Poseidontempel: Norbert Nagel - Eigenes Werk, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=29359236

1979

The Galerie der Künstler at Maximilianstrasse 42 in Munich is showing an extensive solo exhibition by Louise Stomps. Nearly 150 works are on display, including her tallest sculpture, The Call, 1977, 4.3 meters high, which was installed in front of the gallery (here a photo with the artist).

[Galaxis, 1979, 260 cm, mountain acacia | could also be seen in this exhibition]

1984

New motorcycle: Yamaha XS 650 with sidecar.

[Consent, 1984, height 92 cm, marble | private collection]

1988

On April 22, Louise Stomps dies as a result of an accident with her motorcycle. Her last work is called the drop-out.

[The dropout, 1988, height 143 cm, cherry tree]