Thanks to Torsten Steinberg, we now have two civil register entries for Fritz Neumann. These are partly the source for the dates in the main entry .
Marriage certificate
This is the marriage certificate of Franz Robert Fritz Neumann and Anna Hedwig Klinge, married on 2 May 1925. The occupation of both is given as “draughtsman” and “draughtswoman”.
Fritz Neumann’s birthday is given as 6 December 1897 and his address as Lettestraße 1.
Anna Hedwig Neumann was born on 21 September 1895 and lived at Alte Schönhauser Straße 61.
Source: Standesamt Berlin 9 (IX), Heiratsregister, Nr. 131/1925
Witnesses
Torsten Steinberg also adds the witnesses:
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The craftswoman Erna Dombrowski, 30 years old, living in Berlin-Friedenau, Fregestraße 78.
Erna Luise Adele was born on 9.4.1895. On 16.3.1934 she married the senior teacher Otto Wilhelm Alfred Büchner (died 1952). Her profession at the time of marriage was draughtswoman. At the time of her husband’s death, they both lived in Bergmannstraße in Berlin.
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Walter Klotz, 29 years old, a craftsman, lived at Viktoriastrasse 8, Berlin-Lankwitz.
Death certificate
This is the death certificate for Franz Robert Fritz Neumann, painter. The address Gartenfelder Str. 132 h is the one known from the old address books .
He died on 8 June 1984 in Spandau Hospital.
In addition, the date of birth is given as 6 December 1897 and that he was the widower of Anna Hedwig Neumann, née Klinge, to whom he had been married since 2 May 1925 (see above).
Source: Standesamt Spandau von Berlin, Sterberegister, Nr. 1476/1984
After it turned out that Fritz Neumann (1928-2014) is not Ric , Mark Strong has updated the biographies at Meibohm Fine Arts and AskArt.com .
Many thanks to Mark for this!
Hopefully the false attributions on eBay and other auction sites will now be less…
Short description: Sailing boats, known as Ric 05. This one has a unusual location of the signature - within the print.
Notes: Taken from auctionet.com .
Another hint from Wolfgang Barina , an invoice for a Fritz Neumann watercolour painting called “Regatta” dated 20.10.1938.
Short description: A colourised etching of a hereditary farm by Fritz Neumann.
Notes: There is also a print (certainly from a magazine) of this etching on eBay . Keep in mind, that those aren’t woodcuts!
Short description: Sailing boats (Ric 25) and A latern next to a stair (Ric 14)
Notes: Taken from auctionet.com . This post provides better images then the ones in the work list.
The United States Copyright Office (USCO) is a keeper of differend kind of copyright entries. It used to issue a printed catalogue of those registered copyright claims. Since the USA has been a global market already before world war two, there were copyright registrations by J.C. Blumenberg in the thirties. Some of those, especially in Part 4: Works of Art, these also cover works by our Fritz Neumann. This gives us dates for certain works of our Fritz and is an indicator when they started to work with each other.
The printed copyright catalogs have been digitised and are available at the Internet Archive .
1936
Catalog of Copyright Entries, New Series. Part 4: Works of Art 1936: Vol 31 No 1-4, Page 228
1938
Catalog of Copyright Entries, New Series. Part 4: Works of Art 1938: Vol 33 No 1-4, Page 43
Catalog of Copyright Entries, New Series. Part 4: Works of Art 1938: Vol 33 No 1-4, Page 145
1939
Catalog of Copyright Entries, New Series. Part 4: Works of Art 1939: Vol 34 No 1-4, Page 28
Catalog of Copyright Entries, New Series. Part 4: Works of Art 1939: Vol 34 No 1-4, Page 143
Summary
| Work | Date |
|---|---|
| Bestrafte raufbold | September 1936 |
| Sieger | September 1936 |
| Jagdflieger | January 1937 |
| Ferienerinnerungen (from my window) | May 1938 |
| Cup race | December 1938 |
| Dem endkampf entgegen | July 1937 |
| Ran an den wind | March 1936 |
| Hol an die schooten (Taking it cleverly) | July 1936 |
| Mercurius | March 1937 |
Short description: A postcard by Fritz Neumann - “Naysayers”
Notes: Found on AKPool
Even if Fritz Neumann-Hegenberg could be ruled out as “our” Fritz Neumann from the outset. There is further evidence to support this.
Already on 31 August 2021, three years ago, a work by Fritz Neumann-Hegenberg appeared on the TV programme “Bares für Rahres” . Following the programme, a newspaper article about the consequences was also published (behind a paywall).
His works are also represented in various online collections
Since both the address book entries and some of Fritz Neumann’s works (such as this from August 1935 or this from between 1934 and 1951) date from the time of the ‘3rd Reich’, it is relatively likely that he was a member of the Reichskunstkammer . Membership was compulsory at the time…
And indeed, in the Landesarchiv Berlin (state archive Berlin), which administers the files of the “Reichskammer der bildenden Künste”, Landesleitung Berlin, there is a personal file on Fritz Neumann, born on 18 June 1905, under the archive signature A Rep. 243-04 No. 6261 !
In addition, you can see that there is a Finding aid of the collection . This also contains evidence of several auctions in which a ‘Fritz Neumann’ is mentioned…
And there is also at least one Fritz Neumann in the files of the “Reichschrifttumskammer”, kept at the Bundesarchiv, but we’ll ignore it for now…
The finding aid also reveals a date of birth: 18 June 1905!
And with this date there is even more: Fritz Neumann, born on 18 June 1905, was probably a teacher at the Staatsbauschule Berlin-Neukölln. At least there is a corresponding personnel file in the branch of the Federal Archives in Berlin-Lichterfelde. The school merged into today’s Berlin University of Applied Sciences via several intermediate steps .
But is this ‘our’ Fritz?
