Otto Nebel

Otto Nebel (25 December 1892 – 12 September 1973) was a German painter born in Berlin, Germany.

Otto Nebel started his professional career 1909 in the field of building engineering. He took acting classes at the Lessingtheater in Berlin until 1914. His acting teachers were the famous Rudolf Blümner and Friedrich Kayssler. He wanted to give his debut at Stadttheater Haben when the World War I broke out. Nebel spent the years of war at the German east and west front.

1918 during his 14th month war inprisonment in Colsterdale, England, he wrote his expressionistic poem Zuginsfeld condemning the war. 1919 he returned to Berlin and became friend with Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Georg Muche, Kurt Schwitters and their art. He joined the circle around Herwarth Walden and his wife Nell Walden. She initiated his collaboration at the Sturm gallery and the art school Der Sturm

Together with Hilla von Rebay und Rudolf Bauer he founded the artist group Der Krater in 1923. During this time he also worked for the magazine Der Sturm.

Otto Nebel married Hildegard Heitmeyer, the assistant of Gertrud Grunow 1924. He met Hildegard at the Bauhaus in Weimar. They stayed in Weimar until 1925 where painted, wrote poems and acted.

1933 when the National Socialists disparaged his work as degenerated art he left Germany for Switzerland. First in Muntelier later in Bern. Nebel had financial problems because he was not allowed to work in Switzerland. Thanks to the effort of Wassily Kandinsky he could regularly sell some of his paintings to theSolomon R. Guggenheim Foundation between 1936 and 1951. The German Federal Republic awarded Otto Nebel with The Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany 1965