Wilhelm Tegtmeyer

Wilhelm Tegtmeier (January 9, 1895, in Barmen, now Wuppertal – November 6, 1968, in Nethen) was a German painter. He spent part of his youth in Leer, where he attended high school, and was deeply influenced by his experiences with the Wandervogel youth movement. After completing his Abitur at the Ratsgymnasium in Osnabrück in 1913, Tegtmeier worked as a cabin boy and sailor, rounding Cape Horn twice. During World War I, he served on the Eastern and Western Fronts. From 1918, he studied under Julius Wohlers and Ewald Dülberg at the Hamburg School of Arts and Crafts, while also taking ancient Greek at the University of Hamburg.

Introduced by Franz Radziwill, he befriended art historians Rosa Schapire and Wilhelm Niemeyer, who published his woodcuts in Kündung, an influential expressionist journal. In 1923/24, he briefly worked as an art teacher but soon became a full-time artist, shifting his focus to New Objectivity and German Renaissance styles.

Tegtmeier joined the NSDAP and was appointed to the Nordic Art Academy in Bremen in 1936. In the 1937 Nazi “Degenerate Art” purge, his expressionist woodcuts were confiscated and destroyed. In 1941, he denounced Carl Horn, director of the art school, which led to Tegtmeier receiving the title of professor. During the war, he lost much of his work in a bombing. Post-war, he lived in poverty on his in-laws’ farm and worked on fishing vessels before resuming art in 1950, creating Sgraffito and mosaics and a series of large-format woodcuts with maritime themes.

Tegtmeier is recognized alongside Franz Radziwill as a leading realist painter from the Oldenburg region.