Botho Gamp

Botho Freiherr von Gamp-Massaunen (4 May 1894, Berlin7 August 1977, Stockach), known professionally as Botho von Gamp was a German painter and graphic artist.

Life and work

Early life and background Botho von Gamp was a son of a senior government official , landowner of Massaunen (now Masuny in Poland), and his wife Clara Bayer, daughter of the founder of Bayer-Farbenwerke, Friedrich Bayer. Botho grew up in Berlin. He had two sisters, Ilse and Hildegard, who, even before their father's death, were appointed as heirs to subsidiary estates of the as well as Worienen with Glomsienen (now Woryny in Poland). Both women married commoners.

Since 1918, as heir to his father's estate, Botho von Gamp owned the Massaunen estate in the East Prussia. Around 1932, after the Great Depression, the Massaunen manor comprised 1054 hectares, of which 425 hectares were forest. The administrator Kahsnitz served as his estate manager. Around the same time, Gamp lived on Fasanenstrasse in Berlin.

Art career He initially moved to Munich in 1913 to study painting, and in 1922 to Paris. There he formed a close friendship with Max Pechstein and Henri Matisse, which led to his embrace of Impressionism.

From at least 1928 to 1943, his position was documented in the in Prussia, certainly explainable by the actions and extensive wealth of his father

In 1930, he was honored with a major solo exhibition at the Fritz Gurlitt Gallery in Berlin, and in 1932, he was featured in a special exhibition at the Great Berlin Art Exhibition. and his transfeminine lover Ossi/Ossy Gades were arrested for being "spies in disguise" (both were out wearing women's clothing). After that Gamp fled to France, and Gades was later sent to a concentration camp and arrested before committing suicide in 1937. Upon learning of this death, Gamp moved from idyllic landscapes to prison sketches depicting Gades and persecution of LGBTQ people in Nazi Germany.

Literature Gothaisches Genealogisches Taschenbuch der Freiherrlichen Häuser. Zugleich Adelsmatrikel der Deutschen Adelsgenossenschaft . Teil B (Briefadel). 1941. Jg. 91. Justus Perthes, Gotha 1940, S. 128. Rainer Zimmermann: Expressiver Realismus: Malerei der verschollenen Generation. Hirmer, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-7774-6420-1, S. 374. Hans-Christof Kraus, Historische Kommission b. d. Bayrischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (Hrsg.): Neue Deutsche Biographie (NDB) 2010. Band 24, 4. Auflage, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-428-11205-0, S. 781.