Emil Maetzel

* 1877, Cuxhaven 1955, Hamburg

Biography

* 1877, Cuxhaven, 1955, Hamburg

Emil Maetzel belongs among the central personalities of the cultural life in Hamburg during the 1920s. He was an architect, a painter, a graphic artist, and sculptor. In addition Maetzel was a co-founder of the “Hamburg Secession”. From 1900 he studied architecture in Hannover, Dresden and Paris. From 1907 until 1933 he ran the Hamburg department of urban development and was in part responsible for the construction of the Hamburg central station. In 1922 he became a member of the Hamburg guild of masons. Maetzel was co-founder of the “Hamburg Secession”, and was its chairman from 1928 until 1933. The annual exhibition of the Secession in March 1933 was the first to be closed by order of the National Socialists following their seizure of power. In 1933 Maetzel was forced into retirement. Later, in 1937, five of his wood cuts were removed from the collection of the Hamburger Kunsthalle, following their classification as “degenerate”. After the war, in 1945, Maetzel was appointed Director of Construction with retroactive effect. From 1948 he was elected as second chairperson of the reformed “Hamburg Secession”. After his dead the street ‚Maetzelweg‘ was been named after him in the Volksdorf area of the city.

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