Benno Huth

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Benno Huth (2014)

Benno Huth (born July 26, 1937 in Sigmaringen , † April 22, 2020 in Karlsruhe ) was a German painter , graphic artist and draftsman from Karlsruhe who was critical of society .

After graduating from high school, he began studying at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Karlsruhe . He studied with Karl Hubbuch and Herbert Kitzel from 1956 to 1959 . He studied classical philology in Hamburg and Freiburg from 1960 to 1964. After a few years in school as an art and Latin teacher, Benno Huth decided in 1970 to work as a freelance artist. Since 1971 he has been shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Baden-Württemberg and across the region. Benno Huth lived in Karlsruhe .

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Benno Huth was a time-critical painter, in whose work the influence of his teacher Karl Hubbuch can be seen. He took up social issues and processed them with a keen eye in his pictures. Contrary to the zeitgeist of the time, he painted figuratively from the start.

By overdrawing and alienating, Huth wanted to encourage an examination of reality. “Grasp reality in its deeper meaning, reveal to the viewer the decadence of reality through a socially critical concept.” (Benno Huth)

In his architecture and landscape pictures, the people are only accessories, appear small and lost. Quite different, however, in his genre pictures, true custom paintings of the 20th century. These pictures show people of dominant physicality, often with strongly modeled body parts. His portraits - archetypes of characters - work through stylization.

Central themes in Benno Huth's work are the isolation of people and their isolation through technology.

He had devoted several cycles to the various subjects: In his early allegorical pictures he denounced greed for money. In the America cycle he shed light on the darker side of the “American Dream” - violence, alcoholism and drugs. In the sport and leisure cycle, he showed how people optically and acoustically isolate themselves from each other through the use of technical equipment (headphones, helmets, sunglasses). He dedicated another cycle to the circus. Again and again he took up the topic of " Man in his different ages " and demonstrated that strength and beauty only make up a short period of time in human life.

On the occasion of the 300th birthday of Karlsruhe in 2015, a cycle of 35 fountain pictures was created for an exhibition on the history of Karlsruhe's drinking water supply. Here, too, Benno Huth identified himself as a critical observer of what is happening in the city. His characteristic figures show a "cross section of the Karlsruhe population: mothers with prams, children playing, skaters, dog handlers, cyclists, lovers, students, workers and the homeless." (Dr. Matthias Maier) Benno Huth bequeathed 23 of these pictures to the water in December 2016 - and fountain museum in the Durlacher Wald waterworks.

In his graphic work he sat a. a. deals with contemporary subjects (Money cycle) as well as with classical subjects of antiquity (book illustrations). A cycle of 30 reproduced drawings on Ovid's Metamorphoses , which contains two illustrations for each of the 15 books, one in portrait and one in landscape format, was published without a year in a small edition of 20 numbered and signed sheets by Edition Curt Visel in Memmingen . A cycle of five lithographs on the Carmina of the neoteric Properz was pulled from the stone and appeared in 2002 in a small edition of 20 numbered and signed original lithographs, also in the Curt Visel edition in Memmingen. A bilingual edition of Ovids Liebeskunst was published in 1997 by the same publisher in an edition of 300 copies, of which the numbers 1-60 contain an original etching signed by the artist as a special edition. Linocuts for the Carmina des Catullus appeared in Illustration 63. Zeitschrift für Buchillustration 1969, issue 2, supplement. Linocuts for the fables of Phaedrus appeared as a supplement to Illustration 63. Journal for Book Illustration 1974 and 1981. Linocuts for Properz in the same journal 1985.

Recent exhibitions (selection)

  • 1991 Art Association Bretten
  • 2001 Ettlingen Museum Society
  • 2004 Classical Philology Congress Cologne
  • 2007 Baden-Baden Regional Court
  • 2008 Zehnthaus Jockgrim
  • 2010 Art Association Bretten
  • 2012 Heidelberg City Library
  • 2013 Provençale rope factory, Karlsruhe
  • 2015 special exhibition "fountain pictures" in the regional council of Karlsruhe
  • 2016 group exhibition "European Biennale of Realistic and Visionary Art", Rheinhausen
  • 2017 Gallery Schindel, Freiburg

Prices (selection)

  • City of Frankenthal Art Prize 1973
  • Art Prize Art Association Bretten 1991
  • First prize of the European Well Society (EBG) 2009

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  1. ^ Badische Latest News (BNN) of October 22, 1991, article by Elisabeth Sieverding
  2. ↑ https://www.stadtwerke-karlsruhe.de/swk/presse/mektiven/2016/20161220.php

literature

  • Susanne Himmelträger: Benno Huth. Painting and graphics. In: Exhibition catalog Kunstverein Bretten 1991

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Huth, Benno
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German artist
DATE OF BIRTH July 26, 1937
PLACE OF BIRTH Sigmaringen