Her husband's republican leanings led to constant changes of employment and of places of residence. Alois worked as an editor for various newspapers, often also in the capacity of a journalist, in Hanover, Trier, Neunkirchen and Paderborn, among other locations. In each place Clara became part of the available literary and artistic circles, for instance in Hanover as part of the group around Kurt Schwitters, the central figure of "Hanover Dadaism", and in Paderborn as part of the group of poets that formed around her husband, sharing the legacy of :de:Peter.Hille|Peter Hille. In 1926 her husband was offered a position in Trier, where Clara Vogedes joined the Trier circle of painters. Her first solo exhibition took place in Trier in 1935. In Neunkirchen she painted watercolours of the working world: men at blast furnaces, in rolling mills and wire-drawing shops. In her husband's portrait and in her self-portrait "The Painter" can be seen to the full her mastery of watercolour painting technique, "which requires great concentration and skill, as once the colour has been applied, amendments are hardly possible." Shortly before the end of the war the family moved to Paderborn, where the city in ruins and the cathedral became her main topics. In the winter Vogedes devoted herself to batik, which she enriched with her knowledge of the colour gradation of watercolour painting. She often turned to religious themes and painted many Nativity scenes for Christmas exhibitions in the surrounding cities. Watercolours of flower still lifes in dull pale colours seemed to forecast her husband's death in 1956. Deeply struck by her personal loss, she then stopped painting. Her youngest daughter brought her to her home in Lünen and set her up in her own studio, where at the age of 65 she turned to painting once more and began a new creative period. She regularly took part in summer courses. In the late 1960s and early 1970s she enrolled in the "Internationale Sommerakademie für Bildende Kunst" in Salzburg, founded in 1953 by Oskar Kokoschka, attending the classes of Emilio Vedova in abstract painting, Zao Wou-Ki and Jože Ciuha in nude and portrait painting. After some abstract compositions she returned to her own style. In 1969 and 1970 Clara Vogedes spent the summer months in the "Atelier artistique international" in Séguret, where the painter Arthur Langlet arranged gatherings of artists from many countries practising all genres: painters, draughtsmen, graphic artists, photographers and sculptors. She painted "watercolour series facing landscape or sunsets, studying thunderstorms, the light and mood of the Camargue. Clara's watercolours vibrate: the light, air, atmosphere play into them, setting a strong lyrical accent. She is not concerned with exact rendering, but with the dimension of experience while lingering, e.g. in the landscape, painting as a 'message of existence'." Vogedes travelled a great deal: to Greece, to Andalusia, France, to Prague and the Czech Republic, England, Norway, Denmark and even at the age of 85 to Egypt. She returned from her travelling with many drawings and landscape watercolours "which sometimes seem quite abstract like colour and light studies." In 1977 she was hit by her first stroke, followed by a second in 1979. She then moved to Heilbronn to join her eldest daughter, a medical doctor, and died there in 1983.
Legacy
In 1992, on her 100th anniversary, the city of Lünen dedicated a large retrospective to her work. The exhibition's opening: "Rainy day in Lünen. A city wraps itself in grey-brown colours. Silhouettes blur before the eye of the beholder, appear washed out and dull. The November mood so aptly depicted by Clara Vogedes, immortalised as a watercolour many years ago, hardly differs from the cloudy grey tones of yesterday's weather". In 1999 a street in Lünen was named after Clara Vogedes.
Influence
Young artists remain interested in Clara Vogedes' work. The 2005 exhibition "Pictures from the Backpack - Pictures without Sketches", held at Studio Group Lünen in Heinz Cymontkowski's studio contrasted Clara Vogedes’ pictures with his own creations from 2000 onwards. Two of her granddaughters have followed in her footsteps: Kristine Oßwald, draughtswoman and video artist, and Dr. Cornelia Oßwald-Hoffmann, art historian and freelance curator for contemporary art.
