MECKLENBURG TRACHTEN BY WOLFGANG "WOLF" BERGENROTH (1893-1942)
Danz up de Deel: Kiekbusch, Swedish Quadrille, Schausterdanz and Windmöllerdanz were the names of the Mecklenburg peasant dances. The almost forgotten dances were revived by the gymnastics teacher Marie Peters and her "Schweriner Mädchentanzgruppe" (Schwerin Girls' Dance Group), who designed a costume based on the traditional dress of the "Stubendirns" - but no one called it a "Dirndl". Nevertheless, the 'Marie-Peters-Tracht' became more and more popular among peasant women and peasants between Lübeck, Ratzeburg and Schwerin and was worn as peasant costume.
As a high school student, Wolfgang Bergenroth, born in Parchim, West Mecklenburg, admired the "Schwerin Girls' Dance Group" in their charming traditional costumes. As an apprentice decorator and painter, he drew traditional costumes from Marie Peters' private collection, especially beautiful the 'Dreistückmütze' - a colorful hood with long ribbons. As an illustrator, he designed colored woodcuts of Mecklenburg peasant dances for Marie Peters. The 'Trachten' never let go of him.
From 1924 Bergenroth lived as a freelance painter and illustrator in Rostock and was a member of the Rostock Artists' Association. His illustrations for the Mecklenburgische Monatshefte were in demand - mostly on the subject: folk costume. He left the narrow ridge on which he walked when in the 1930s he carried out major commissions from the military and army construction office for decorative painting: decorating Mecklenburg barracks and military hospitals with harvest festival and peasant dance scenes. In his head always circled the plan for a "large-scale Mecklenburg costume work."
The Bergenroth volume has been preserved in the Rostock Museum of Cultural History since 1943. As a unique document, it has already served ethnologists to reconstruct lost Mecklenburg costumes. Now this contemporary document is presented for the first time in a special art-historical exhibition with a variety of drawings and woodcuts also to the general public.
Curator: Dr. Susanne Knuth
