Representatives of the artists' colonies Ascona, Worpswede and Usedom have been in close contact since they met in Berlin in 1927.
Berlin 1927: ONH and Clara Rilke-Westhoff meet at the painting school of Arthur Segal (1875-1944), whom Otto Niemeyer-Holstein already knows from the artists' colony in Ascona. After their return from Mexico in 1928, Ottilie Reylaender-Böhme met Clara Rilke-Westhoff again, which intensified when Ottilie Reylaender also attended Arthur Segal's painting school. Otto Niemeyer-Holstein, who was several years younger, was impressed by the work of the two artists, who had met thirty years earlier at the Worpswede artists' colony.
Otto Niemeyer-Holstein, who found the center of his life and work in Lüttenort on Usedom in 1933, remained open-minded, curious and interested in getting to know his fellow artists throughout his life. With a sure instinct and judgment, he felt drawn to the reliable cornerstones of modernism, to artists who worked in front of the viewer and were "admirers of the visible world" (Joachim John, 1933-2018).
However, while artists' colonies emerged elsewhere in Europe at the end of the 19th century, the artists Otto Manigk (1902-1972), Herbert Wegehaupt (1905-1959), Karen Schacht (1900-1987) and Otto Niemeyer-Holstein did not settle on Usedom until the early 1930s, forming a living and working community based on a shared world view and a rigorous study of nature. Their deeply humanistic attitude is communicated through motifs from their immediate surroundings and offers silent resistance to official art. Friendly and family contacts and lively artistic exchange inspire artistic self-discovery.
The basic idea of an artists' colony, based on the personal experiences of Otto Niemeyer-Holstein, is received and lived on Usedom.