Ludwig Meidner, Young Man with Blue Tie, 1965
Ludwig Meidner, Young Man with Blue Tie, 1965
In the first place we young people were happy to have another Bohemian in the area, someone special who was not interested in bourgeois rules and, what’s more, for whom they seemed not to apply.
Eva Demski, Ludwig Meidner, in: Jugend und Alter. Ludwig Meidners Porträts aus den 1950er und 1960er Jahren (exhibition catalog Stadtmuseum Hofheim am Taunus), Hofheim am Taunus 2016, pp. 67-73, p. 67
It is conspicuous that following his return to Germany Meidner painted portraits predominantly of young people. This may have been because they had more time to model for the painter than adults engaged in the workforce or because working with young people did not raise the unspoken question if they had been involved in the events during the Nazi period. Or it may have been because they had fewer reservations than older people when it came to dealing with a Jew. Whatever the case, many young people were keen to make the acquaintance of the painter, who was now over 70 and who for them represented Bohemianism and cosmopolitanism in equal measure.
Many accounts from the time report that, unlike many other adults, Meidner treated young people as equals and obviously enjoyed conversing with them. The aging Meidner seems to have delighted in the openness, vivacity and enthusiasm of these young people, perhaps sensing in them an echo of the pioneering spirit of his own youth.
Further reading:
Jugend und Alter. Ludwig Meidners Porträts aus den 1950er und 1960er Jahren (exhibition catalog Stadtmuseum Hofheim am Taunus), Hofheim am Taunus 2016.
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