Hinnerk Scheper


Hinnerk Scheper was a German colour designer, mural painter, architectural colorist, non-fiction author, photographer, monument conservator, restorer, state curator and urban planner.

Life

Gerhard Hermann Heinrich was born on 6 September 1897 as son of Catherine Düne and stepfather master carpenter Hermann Gerhard Heinrich Scheper. His older brother was Hermann Scheper, who was born on 3 April 1842.
At the age of 7 Hinnerk was enrolled in the Protestant Volksschule in Wulften in 1904. After finishing school in 1912, he began an apprenticeship as a painter with Gustav Nehmelmann. With the simultaneous attendance of a further education school in nearby Osnabrück, Hinnerk expanded his knowledge in the subjects drawing and mathematics. In 1915, after successful completion of his journeyman's examination, he found his first job in Quakenbrück with painter Rudolf Engel and in 1916 he worked in the post office in Badbergen, as his master received a military service obligation to a shipyard in Bremen. In the preceding period Hinnerk managed to sell two of his paintings he had painted himself and used the money to buy his first camera. He developed the photos in his self built darkroom.

The time at the Bauhaus

From 1918 to 1919 he attended the School of Arts and Crafts in Düsseldorf and Bremen. From 1919 to 1922 he studied at the Bauhaus in Weimar in the preliminary course of Johannes Itten and Paul Klee as well as mural painting with Itten and Oskar Schlemmer. Hinnerk Scheper passed his master examination as a painter. In the same year he married his fellow student Lou Berkenkamp. From 1922 to 1925 Scheper worked as a mural painter and colour designer, also for buildings in Weimar and Münster. From 1925, Scheper headed the workshop for mural painting at the Bauhaus in Dessau, succeeding Wassily Kandinsky, until the final closure of the Bauhaus by the National Socialists in 1933.

The “Bauhaus Wallpaper”

Under the leadership of director Hannes Meyer, who succeeded Walter Gropius on 1 April 1928, a group was appointed to develop designs for the Bauhaus Wallpaper Collection; they were Hinnerk Scheper, Ludwig Hilberseimer, Josef Albers and Joost Schmidt. Hinnerk organized a design competition for the wallpaper patterns among his students in the mural painting workshop. Through Maria Rasch, sister of Emil Rasch, co-owner of the Wallpaper Factory Gebrüder Rasch in Bramsche, the production of the Bauhaus patterns was stimulated. The collection comprised 14 patterns, each with 5 to 15 colour variations, each with a structured, small-scale design that could be processed free of waste. After initial difficulties, the wallpaper became a complete economic success and through constant modernisation, the patterns also outlasted the Bauhaus closure up to today's Rasch range.

The Time in Moscow

From 1929 to 1931, Scheper was on leave from the Bauhaus to work in Moscow, the Soviet Union capital to set up and manage a state consulting centre for colour design with associated teaching activities for the entire Soviet Union. Mrs Lou accompanied him to Moscow and supported him during this time. In addition, Scheper taught at the School of Design WChUTEIN’. At the same time he created photo series about people and architecture in the Soviet Union. His Russian colleague in the "Advisory Centre for Colour in Architecture and Cityscape" became Boris Ender, a student of Michail Matjuschin. 1930 Erich Borchert followed his teacher and took over the leadership in the planning office Maljarstrojprojekt in 1931, as Hinnerk returned to Germany. In addition, Scheper taught at the School of Design ''WChUTEIN'.

The Time of National Socialism

Together with his wife Scheper worked for various photo agencies in Berlin until 1932. After 1934 he was engaged in freelance artistic work, colour design and restoration work. In 1934 the National Socialists refused Hinnerk the membership in the "Reichsverband der Deutschen Presse". From 1942 to 1945 Scheper did military service in Germany.

After World War II

In 1945, the Berlin magistrate appointed him head of the Office for the Preservation of Monuments and Urban Planning and as State Conservator of Berlin. In the same year, he was one of the rescuers of the Neue Wache in Berlin, as was the architect and curator of monuments Selman Selmanagić in 1949. During the division of Berlin, Scheper protested unsuccessfully against the eviction of the Berlin City Palacees by the German People's Police in October 1948. The hopeless struggle against the demolition of the palace, which was being pursued by the East Berlin magistrate, caused him and the director of the Berlin Palace Department, Margarete Kühn to move their offices to West Berlin. In 1951, Hinnerk attracted attention as an expert witness in an expert commission consisting of Professor Richard Sedlmaier from Kiel, Professor Günther Grundmann and Dr. jur. Günter Scheefe from Hamburg. The commission unmasked the forgeries in the Marienkirche of Lübeck. After the war, the "Bauhaus Wallpaper Collection" was relaunched in 1950/51, still in the same design of the 1930s. Hinnerk, like in the period up to the beginning of the war, remained responsible for its colour scheme. From 1952/53 the Rasch company modernised the collection and oriented itself towards Scandinavian designs. From 1952 Scheper held a teaching position for the preservation of historical monuments at the Technical University Berlin and from 1953 he held the title of Government Director.
Hinnerk Scheper died on May 5, 1957 in Berlin. The couple's grave is in the forest cemetery Zehlendorf.

Family

On December 22, 1922 he married his wife Lou, née Hermine Luise Berkenkamp in the city church St. Peter and Paul in Weimar.
The following children resulted from the marriage:
His daughter-in-law became the wife of son Dirk, Renate Scheper.

Works

Highlights in Scheper's work in Dessau were his colour design and the colour coding system in the Bauhaus building/Dessau and the colour design of the masters' houses as well as that of the Dessau Törten settlement. Among his most important colour designs in Moscow was the Einküchenhaus#Moscow 1928]-Narkomfin building by Ginsburg and Milinis. Scheper carried out restoration measures at the castle Sacrow Kammergericht], the Reich Forestry Office and Prinz-Albrecht-Palais in Berlin. "The reconstruction of Berlin, in particular the rescue and restoration of historical buildings, churches and palaces, remains closely associated with the name Hinnerk Scheper."