The special charm of this landscape began attracting numerous artists to the area by the second half of the 19th century.

What made the Darß so attractive in addition to its pristine nature and simple village life was the variety of landscapes, the fascinating light conditions between the sea and the lagoons, the vastness of the sky, the atmospheric interplay of seasonal and daily changes, as well as the original and sometimes bizarre motifs to be found in nature and in the villages.

The “Eschenhaus”
Theodor Schultze-Jasmer (1888–1975)
Grüne Straße 8 (private residence)

The Eschhaus is one of the oldest surviving houses in Prerow. This fisherman‘s cottage was built in 1779 and is a typical Darß home of its era with a simple thatched roof, wood-clad façade, mullioned windows, and a wonderfully ornate front door.

In 1921, painter and graphic artist Theodor Schultze-Jasmer bought the house and lived here until his death in 1975. He captured the idyllic countryside and village scenery in numerous etchings and oil paintings. It was he who also coined the term “Windflüchter” (wind escapees) for the trees on the western beach that were bent and shorn of their leaves by the western wind. His studio was in an adjacent building torn down in 2014.

Schultze-Jasmer opened an art gallery at the main beach access in 1929; it remained open until 1989.

The Schaefer-Ast-Haus
Albert Schaefer-Ast (1890–1951)
Schaefer-Ast-Weg 8 (residence)

When artists Albert Schaefer-Ast purchased the old fisherman’s cottage in the south-western part of Prerow in 1939, it was still surrounded by extensive meadows. This is where the Berlin-based artist spent his summers, meeting friends and later bringing his art students here.

After his Berlin home was destroyed in an air raid in 1943, the house in Prerow became his refuge, where he scratched out barely enough to live from the garden and the nearby forest. He documented his life in Prerow with drawings, published in the volume “Ablauf des Jahres” by Kiepenheuer in 1948.

As the war came to an end in 1945, so many refugees came to Prerow that lodgers were quartered in Ast’s summer house, leaving him with just one room to himself. That same year he was appointed professor at the University of Architecture and Fine Arts in Weimar, where he directed the graphics and drawing seminar until his early death in September 1951.