Arno Waldschmidt
Arno Waldschmidt (* 1936 in Kassel ; † March 2, 2017 ) was a German draftsman and graphic artist .
Life
Waldschmidt was born in Kassel in 1936 as the son of a tax advisor and a housewife. He completed an apprenticeship as a window dresser at Karstadt and studied commercial graphics at the Kassel Werkkunstschule. In 1961 he founded the artist group "situations 60" together with Christian Chruxin , Dieter Lübeck , Albert Schindehütte and Fridjof Werner . The group opened a gallery, but it was closed again after a day. Waldschmidt later went to Berlin , where in 1963 he teamed up with Günter Bruno Fuchs , Uwe Bremer , Johannes Vennekamp and Albert Schindehütte to form the Rixdorfer Drucke workshop . The Rixdorfer caused a sensation in the following years, both with their trend-setting typographic work and their provocative appearances. In addition, Waldschmidt continued to pursue his own artistic projects. Since 1972 Waldschmidt lived in Gifkendorf near Lüneburg in summer and in Berlin in winter. Arno Waldschmidt died on March 2, 2017.
Works
At the beginning of Arno Waldschmidt's artistic career there were monochrome embossed prints, which he had been producing since 1959. At first he used a laundry ironer and stamped on simple blotting paper. Later he used a large etching press and expensive laid paper.
From 1969 he concentrated on working with wood. By laying preformed wooden panels on top of each other, white wooden figures were created, which were given spatial depth from this reversal of the relief technique.
In the early 1970s, Waldschmidt switched to almost exclusively making pencil drawings. In the process, his style developed from open lines that emphasize the outlines of what is depicted to detailed portraits based on arranged photographs. Waldschmidt avoided any form of hatching, blurring or shading of gray. Instead, he carefully put lines next to each other, starting with a hard pencil and then with pencils that became softer and softer. The drawings created in this way have some characteristic features. On the one hand, backgrounds are rarely found in the pictures; Waldschmidt focused his attention on faces, bodies, objects. In addition, the emphasis on facial wrinkles is striking; Waldschmidt often even added creases to the original. A particular fascination of the pictures lies in the meticulous elaboration of the head and beard hair. As an additional creative means, Waldschmidt liked to divide his pictures into several parts and frame them separately. Thus his drawings seem to exist beyond the frame. After all, the picture titles play a role in Waldschmidt's work that should not be underestimated. These form an additional commentary on what is drawn, on the line between tragic comedy and self-irony. For example, a picture with the portraits of 22 close friends of Waldschmidt is headed with a sentence from Heimito von Doderer's “Repertorium”: “I consider everyone to be fully entitled to the current state of the world brought about by the faces of engineers and business scientists To respond to alcoholism. "
For the Rixdorfer Drucke workshop he also made numerous woodcuts and, in collaboration with Bremer, Schindehütte and Vennekamp, typographic prints that testify to the anarchist wit of the group. For the VO Stomps exhibition in the university library of the Justus Liebig University Giessen, he created a woodcut portrait of Stomps for the exhibition poster for the Hendrik Liersch collection .
In 2013 Waldschmidt co-designed the major retrospectives for the 50th anniversary of the Rixdorfer Drucke workshop in Hamburg and Berlin. In this context, new woodcuts by Waldschmidt were also presented.
Book publications (selection)
- monochrome pairings Stierstadt: Eremiten-Presse 1961.
- Die Neger , screen prints (with A. Schindehütte) for the play by Jean Genet. Merlin Verlag , Gifkendorf 1965.
- Written on the body , four leporellos (with A. Schindehütte) four women written on the body. Merlin Verlag, Gifkendorf 1967/68.
- D as girls and the button , photo book with Ulricke Bock. Merlin Verlag, Gifkendorf 1969.
- Bourgeois poems , 32 drawings to the poems of Karol Kröpke. Merlin Verlag, Gifkendorf 1970.
- Pantalon Ouvert , Dramatic Conversations. With Johannes Grützke and Jan Peter Tripp . Merlin Verlag, Gifkendorf 1978, ISBN 3-87536-117-2 .
- Everything is good that is good! Pencil drawings from 7 years. Merlin Verlag, Gifkendorf 1986, ISBN 3-87536-192-X .
- The murder of the Mona Lisa (with Helmut Eisendle), Merlin Verlag, Gifkendorf, ISBN 978-3-926112-03-3 .
- Guntram Vesper , Stomps in Giessen, with a portrait drawing of VO Stomps by Arno Waldschmidt, Corvinus Presse , 2008.
- Herr Gott, Frau Engel and the man with the hat , an art fairy tale (about C. Mühlenhaupt), Corvinus Presse, 2008.
- Merrymaking , woodcuts and poems, Corvinus Presse, 2009.
Book publications with the Rixdorfer Drucke workshop (selection)
- 1. Rixdorf laboratory for the creation of literary and artistic simultaneous tricks in the specialist workshop Rixdorfer Drucke at Gümse Castle from July 8th - 18th, 1975. Merlin Verlag , Gifkendorf 1975, ISBN 3-87536-102-4 .
- 30 years of Rixdorfer Drucke workshop. Merlin Verlag, Gifkendorf 1993, ISBN 3-926112-36-0 .
- Reinhard Lettau's renovated Rixdorfer Rübezahl. Merlin Verlag , Gifkendorf 1996, ISBN 3-926112-65-4 .
- Everyone is talking about us. We also. 40 years of Rixdorfer Drucke workshop. Merlin Verlag, Gifkendorf 2003, ISBN 3-87536-212-8 .
- The poets' printing workshop: Rixdorfer word and picture arches The other library, 2012, ISBN 9783847700111 .
Solo exhibitions (selection)
- 1961 Galerie im center, Göttingen
- 1961 Die zinke gallery, Berlin
- 1967 Gallery mum, Solingen
- 1972 Siebrasse Gallery, Cologne
- 1973 Neubauer-Wohlang Gallery, Hamburg
- 1972 Voigt Gallery, Nuremberg (with A. Schindehütte)
- 1978 Hilger Gallery, Vienna
- 1979, 83, 86 Galerie Apex, Göttingen
- 1979 Lilo Schmidt Gallery, Schneverdingen
- 1979 Center Culturel Allemand, Paris
- 1982, 83, 86, 92, 98 Galerie Gering (-Kulenkampff), Frankfurt
- 1984 Worpsweder Kunsthalle - Friedrich Netzel
- 1985, 89 Galerie Marlies Rosenzweig, Bonn
- 1986, 89, 96 Galerie Merlin Verlag, Gifkendorf
- 1986 Kunstverein Celle
- 1988 Gallery in the Liebweinturm, Burghausen (with J. Grützke & JP Tripp)
- 1991 Galerie Tafelski, Berlin
- 1994, 98 Brandtstätter Gallery, Öhningen
- 1995 Gruber Gallery, Tübingen
- 1996 Schnake Gallery, Münster
- 1996 Culture store in the castle, Oldenburg
- 2001 Carlos Hulsch Gallery, Berlin
- 2002 Rose Gallery , Hamburg
- 2004 FINEARTS CON.TRA., Berlin
Awards
- 2005 Victor Otto Stomps Prize of the State Capital Mainz
Web links
- Literature by and about Arno Waldschmidt in the catalog of the German National Library
- On the occasion of the 50th anniversary, the Hamburger Abendblatt reports on the Rixdorfer Drucke workshop
Individual evidence
- ↑ Obituary from March 12, 2017, Der Tagesspiegel
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Waldschmidt, Arno |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German draftsman and graphic artist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1936 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | kassel |
| DATE OF DEATH | 2nd March 2017 |