Wilhelm Heiner

Wilhelm Heiner in the Bielefeld studio in 1958

Wilhelm Heiner (Willy) (born September 1, 1902 in Enger , Westphalia, † April 26, 1965 in Bielefeld ) was a German sculptor, painter and graphic artist.

Life

Wilhelm Heiner was born in Enger in 1902 as the first son of the cigar manufacturer and later publisher Anton Heiner. He grew up in a music and theater enthusiastic family that moved to Bielefeld in 1907. In 1919 Wilhelm Heiner prematurely ended his school days at the Ratsgymnasium at his own request and began an apprenticeship in stone and wood carving. In evening classes he attended the crafts and arts school in Bielefeld . His teachers were the sculptor Franz Guntermann and the glass painter Karl Muggly . The apprenticeship was followed by an apprenticeship in Münster / West. It was here that his first expressive crib figures were created .

In 1922 he began his studies at the Essen School of Applied Arts, later the Folkwang University , under Joseph Enseling (sculpture) and Josef Urbach (painting). From the winter semester 1923/24 he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich with the sculptor Bernhard Bleeker . At the same time he attended anatomy lectures at Munich University. In Munich he met Mary Wigman's expressive dance theater, which led him beyond sculpture to an intensified engagement with ballet, theater and music. In 1925 Heiner moved to Berlin to the Prussian Academy of the Arts . From 1925 to 1929 he was a master student of Hugo Lederer . The sculptor Hans Mettel , who later became the director of the Städelschule in Frankfurt / M., The sculptor Hermann Blumenthal and the painter Felix Nussbaum worked in his close environment . In 1929 he moved into a studio in the Berlin Atelierhaus at Kaiserplatz 17.

As early as 1926 he took part in exhibitions and received public contracts. In cooperation with the Düsseldorf painter Hubert Schöllgen and the writer Ignaz Gentges , he directed the Mainz theater exhibition of the Bühnenvolksbund (BVB). He became the artistic advisory board of the Prussian State Theater and Deutsche Grammophon , worked for the UFA Berlin (stage sets, figurines, exhibitions); In 1927 he was an artistic assistant at the German Theater Exhibition in Magdeburg.

In 1927 he traveled to Italy to study, and in 1928 to Paris with the painter Kurt Weinhold .

In the spring of 1930 he married Anna Müller. The couple had five children. The political situation made his artistic career difficult. Heiner left Germany, studied in Paris at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière and later lived in Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer , where he mainly devoted himself to painting. Family problems brought him back to Germany. He was denied public commissions and exhibition opportunities because he refused membership in the Reichskunstkammer and NSDAP . He fell into a deep crisis, like many artists of his generation (the " lost generation ") who lost the best years of their work during the Nazi era. In 1934 he founded the Zweimann graphics studio in his hometown of Bielefeld with his fellow Essen student Herbert Viseneber. The following 12 years were life-threatening for Heiner's existence. Nevertheless, he went on study trips to Italy and Yugoslavia in 1935 and 1936.

From 1942 to 1945 Wilhelm Heiner was a soldier in the interpreting company in Münster / Westf. In 1944 his studio in Bielefeld was destroyed by a bomb attack and with it a large part of his early work. He did not become a prisoner of war and was able to work and exhibit again as a freelance artist as early as 1945. The first solo exhibition took place in January 1946 in the Bielefeld art salon Otto Fischer in the Blue House , curated by Paul Herzogenrath, the father of Wulf Herzogenrath . He was also committed to the cultural and political reconstruction of the city of Bielefeld. The British city commander Mc Olive appointed him to the culture committee, he became chairman of the Bielefeld Artists' Association, co-founder of the Association of Theater and Concert Friends. His house was a lively meeting place for many musicians, painters, theater people and writers, such as the painters Erwin Wendt, Kurt Weinhold, Otto Pankok, Hubert Berke, the musicians Hans Werner Henze, Ludwig Hoelscher, Tiny Wirtz, Sandor Konya and the writer Stefan Andres. In 1950 he received a teaching post for free painting and drawing at the Werkkunstschule Bielefeld, which he held until his death.

In addition to painting, which clearly shows his love for the French Impressionists, he created numerous drawings on the subject of music, dance and circus, stage sets, glass windows, mosaics and sculptures. The bundle of drawings by well-known interpreters of classical music, most of which were created between 1945 and 1960 during the concerts in the Rudolf-Oetker-Halle , is outstanding .

On study trips through France (1950 and 1953), around the Mediterranean (1957) and to Spain (1960), he recorded his impressions in oil paintings and watercolors.

Wilhelm Heiner died on April 26, 1965 in Bielefeld.

Awards

• 1957 Culture Prize of the City of Bielefeld.

Works

• 1926 Larger-than-life sculpture for the BVB exhibition in Mainz "Call of the Young", depicting an actor who declaims (lost)
• 1928 Monumental cross with corpus (granite) on the south cemetery in Hamm / Westf.
• 1928 Ludgerus fountain for the cath. Parish of St. Ludgerus in Gelsenkirchen-Buer in the schoolyard of the former Ludgerischule.
• 1945 to 1960 approx. 300 portraits of musicians and drawings, a. a. by Sergiu Celibidache, Bernhard Conz, Edwin Fischer, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Monique Haas, Conrad Hansen, Hans Werner Henze, Paul Hindemith, Ludwig Hoelscher, Eugen and Georg Ludwig Jochum, Joseph Keilberth, Wilhelm Kempff, Hans Knappertsbusch, Yehudi Menuhin, Elly Ney, David Oistrach, Margot Pinter, Kurt Redel, Hans Richter-Haaser, Hermann Scherchen, Wilhelm Stross, Tibor Varga, Günter Wand, Hans Herbert Winkel, Tiny Wirtz
• 1947 to 1960 stage design and equipment at the Bielefeld City Theater for ballet and opera

1950 to 1965 glass windows, mosaics, sculptures, etc. a. for the churches:

• St. Jodokus and St. Pius, Bielefeld,
• St. Josef, Oelde,
• Christ the King, Kerpen / Horrem,
• St. Pantaleon, Jüchen / Hochneukirch,
• 1960 Redesign of the Leineweber fountain in Bielefeld
• 1962 St. Michael fountain on the cathedral square in Münster / Westf.

literature

• Lisa Tetzner, "Through Germany in a Blue Car" BVB Verlag, Berlin (ed.) 1926
• Wilhelm Karl Gerst, "Wille und Werk" Bühnenvolksbund manual, BVB Verlag, Berlin (ed.) 1928
• New acquisitions in recent years, directory of the State Museum for Art and Cultural History Münster / Westf., 1946
• Catalog for the exhibition "Book and Advertising Art - German Book Creation", Bielefeld 1947 with a contribution by Wernher Siebert about Wilhelm Heiner, Verlag C. Bertelsmann, Gütersloh
• Fritz Nemitz, "German Painting of the Present", R. Piper & Co Verlag, Munich (ed.) 1948
• Egon Vietta, "Musician portraits, Willi Heiner, hand drawings", Kunstverlag Bentrup & Becker, Bielefeld, 1948
• Exhibition catalog "Ostwestfälische Künstler 1949" Regional President Drake, Detmold (ed.), 1949
• Exhibition catalog "Art and Theater", painting, sculpture, drawing, Städtisches Kunsthaus Bielefeld 1954
• Wolf v. Niebelschütz, "Indication in Color - Wilhelm Heiner and the ASTA", Asta-Werke AG, Brackwede / Westf. (Ed.), 1958
• "Rhenish picture book - 100 years of Rhenish glass painting" Landesbildstelle Rheinland (ed.) 1959
• Wulf Schäfer, "Das Tor", August Hörmann u. Sohn KG, Steinhagen / Westf. (Ed.), 1960 ("Book of the Year", awarded by the Gutenberg Museum, Mainz)
• Exhibition catalog "Glasbild", Kunstverein Darmstadt 1964
• Exhibition catalog "WILHELM HEINER 1902-1965", Städtisches Kunsthaus, Bielefeld 1966, authors: Hanna Böllhoff-Becker, Heinrich Becker
• Catalog of the paintings, Kunsthalle der Stadt Bielefeld, 1968
• Exhibition catalog "The 1st Generation after 1945, Artists from Ostwestfalen-Lippe", District Association of Visual Artists Ostwestfalen-Lippe, Bielefeld, 1986
• Andreas Bootz "Culture in Bielefeld 1945-1960" City Archives and Regional History, Library, Bielefeld (ed.), 1993
• "Art life 1945-1960, Wendt, Heiner, Kraft and the Bielefeld art scene", Cornelia Foerster, Gerhard Renda, Bielefeld Historical Museum (ed.), 2001
• "Everything sound and vibration, Wilhelm Heiner", Gudrun Pamme-Vogelsang, Johanna and Matthias Heiner (eds.), Kerber Verlag, Bielefeld, 2002
• "Wilhelm Heiner - Dance is the origin of all arts", Ulrich Schmidt, Stadttheater Bielefeld (ed.), 2007
• "Werkkunst - Art and Design in Bielefeld 1907-2007", Andreas Beaugrand, Gerhard Renda, Historisches Museum Bielefeld (ed.), 2007
• "Discovered Modernism - Works from the Schneider Collection", Gerhard Schneider, Rolf Jessewitsch (eds.), Kettler Verlag, Bönen / Westf. 2008
• Exhibition catalog Wilhelm Heiner, sculptor, painter, draftsman of the Museum Peter August Böckstiegel, Werther and the Herford Art Association, Herford 1918/19, HG: Johanna and Matthias Heiner, David Riedel for the Peter August Böckstiegel Foundation, Werther, authors: David Riedel, Johanna Heiner, Josephine Gabler, Gerhard Renda, Ulrich Schmidt, Wulf Herzogenrath

Web links

• Literature about Wilhelm Heiner in the catalog of the German National Library
• Biography and bibliography on ( http://www.wilhelm-heiner.com )
• Stiftung Forschungsstelle Glasmalerei d. 20th century eV, Mönchengladbach, 2005, Wilhelm Heiner, St. Pantaleon, Jüchen-Hochneukirch ( http://www.glasmalerei-ev.de )

Individual evidence

1. ^ Wilhelm Heiner 1946
2. ↑ Festschrift 50 Years Herford Art Association , Wulf Herzogenrath: Page 30/31 ( Memento of the original from February 23, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.