Friedrich Vordemberge (1897 - 1981)

Friedrich Vordemberge

Friedrich Vordemberge, also known as Friedel Vordemberge, was a German painter, scenographer and teacher.

Friedrich studied painting at the Weimar Art Academy, the Berlin Art Academy and the Düsseldorf Art Academy, with breaks to participate in the First World War. He was friends with Erich Maria Remarque and in 1915 belonged to the Romantic circle that Remarque depicted in his youthful novel Traumbude. In 1921 Vordemberge became stage designer and deputy director of the Rheinische Land Theater in Düren, and in 1923 in Worpswede and Bremen. Later he settled in Cologne and founded the Cologne Artists' Exhibition Association (Ausstellungsgemeinschaft Kölner Maler), became a member of the German Artists' Association and took part in its big annual exhibition in 1929 with an oil painting "Notre Dame de Paris".

Vordemberge became known for his intensely colored oil paintings, mostly representational or somewhat reduced to basic geometric forms; he also became a master of atmospheric watercolors and drawings. His main artistic themes are city, landscape, sea, and still life.

Returning to Cologne after the war, he organized the Rhenish artists' community "Cologne 1945". In 1947 he was appointed to the newly opened Cologne School of Art, and in 1959 he became its director. For many years he continued to teach painting at the Cologne School of Art and Design.