Benno Werth

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Benno Werth (born April 4, 1929 in Riesa ; † January 31, 2015 in Aachen ) was a German sculptor , designer and painter as well as a university lecturer at the FH Aachen .

Live and act

After finishing school and shortly after the end of the war, Benno Werth came to the Rhineland with his family , where he studied at the Düsseldorf Peter-Behrens-Werkkunstschule. Private lessons with the then 87-year old master August von Brandis aroused his interest in painting, and he also had private lessons with Zoltan Székessy . At the age of twenty, Werth received his first teaching assignment for youth and adult education in the city of Düsseldorf and until 1957 taught young people and young adults lessons in plastic design with wood and ceramics. At the same time, he was already taking on major private and public commissions as a freelance sculptor and painter. In 1953, Werth attended a workshop for technical workers, again in Düsseldorf, and passed his state examination as a factory teacher in 1955. During this time he particularly benefited from his acquaintances with Erwin Heerich , Hein Minkenberg , Hubert Löneke , Hubert Spierling and Norbert Kricke .

After his exams, Werth first settled in Übach-Palenberg and set up a studio there. In 1958, in the course of the founding of the Remscheid Academy, he was appointed full-time lecturer for the visual arts . During this time he made the acquaintance of Werner Wirsing, among other things, and thereby came up with numerous orders for hospital and church designs.

Just two years later, Werth moved to Aachen , where he was offered a comparable teaching position at the Pädagogische Hochschule Rheinland, which was founded in 1946 as the Pädagogische Akademie Aachen, later renamed the Pädagogische Hochschule Rheinland and in 1980 was incorporated into the RWTH Aachen as the educational faculty . Here he was appointed professor in 1973 and in 1985 he was given a full professorship for fine arts and its didactics. At the same time, he remained as an advisory member of the Remscheid Academy sponsoring association.

Right from the start of his work at the University of Education, Werth was researching a special “negative molding and casting process for metals”, what he called the “subtractive molding process”, which made complicated undercuts technically possible in one cast and without any weld seam. This allowed sculptures with multilayered, delicate interiors to be cast. From 1962 onwards, numerous works were created in Werth's studio using this process.

During this time Werth also got to know members of the international artist group “Polygone 65”, including André Hardy, Alphonse Snoeck, Michel Grégoire, Jean Rocour and Mathieu Schouteden, who accepted him as a German representative in this association. This opened up numerous opportunities for Werth to arrange solo exhibitions across Europe or to send group exhibitions.

In 1968 Benno Werth founded the center for contemporary art - two-way traffic at Theaterstrasse 50 in Aachen, together with the journalist Klaus Honnef and the gallery owner Will Kranenpohl . The good networking with art critics as well as exhibitions covering all current art movements and film screenings, music performances and readings made the "oncoming traffic" an avant-garde meeting place, the importance of which extended far beyond the city limits. This project ended in 1972 when Klaus Honnef left Aachen and a competing site for contemporary art had emerged from 1970 with the Neue Galerie - Sammlung Ludwig . Werth finally dared a second attempt in 1983 when he rented two spacious former factory buildings in Aachen's Ottostraße, in which he established a cultural space for various arts, theater, gallery and painting school. This cultural enterprise was extremely successful for ten years, until it had to be given up due to excessive rental charges.

Also in 1983, Benno Werth helped the city of Aachen to take first place in the state competition "New life under old surroundings" and then third place in the following national competition with his plans and explanations for the design of the district.

In the mid-1980s, it became apparent that the pedagogical faculty dissolved due to the necessary austerity measures and the teacher training the individual specialized departments should be transferred, changed Werth 1986 to the Fachhochschule Aachen, where he in the Department of Design has been adopted as a professor of plastic design and shape design , which he also headed as dean from 1992 to 1994 . After his retirement in 1995, Werth continued to work as a freelance sculptor and painter and from then on he intensified his exhibition activities again, which he had to limit during his teaching activities at the FH for time constraints.

During his entire time in Aachen, Benno Werth remained in constant contact with his hometown Riesa and presented it with a convincing solo exhibition in 1991 and 2008. On the occasion of his 80th birthday in 2009, the “Benno-Werth-Saal” was inaugurated in the Riesa City Museum, where permanent exhibitions, readings, concerts, discussions and other events will take place from now on.

Numerous press reports, interviews and reviews by important art historians and art critics have been published on Benno Werth's artistic work and its significance. As an example, the review by Ernst Günther Grimme gives a comprehensive overview and overview of the characteristics of Werth's entire work.

Benno Werth lived with the FH professor Gisela Engeln-Müllges for the last 20 years . He found his final resting place in Aachen's St. Joseph Church of the Holy Sepulcher .

Exhibitions (selection)

  • 1951: "Ars Sacra", Kaisersaal, Aachen City Hall
  • 1964: Herbert Falken and Benno Werth, Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum , Aachen
  • 1965: German contemporary art, Center Artistique et Culturel d'Avionpuits, Liège
  • 1966: Group “Polygone 65”, Salle de Societe des Beaux Arts, Verviers and Center Culturel de Bruxelles
  • 1967: Exhibition Group East-West, Helsingborg, Sweden and Copenhagen, Denmark
  • 1967: Drawings, Paintings, Sculpture, Jewelery, Gallery Ingeborg Elz, Washington DC
  • 1968: Maison des Jeunes et de la Culture, Paris
  • 1968: International Monetary Fund , Washington DC
  • 1969: Klaus Endrikat and Benno Werth, Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum, Aachen
  • 1971: Sculptures and graphics, Brucker Galerie, Fürstenfeldbruck near Munich
  • 1971: Sculptures, pictures, graphics, Leopold Hoesch Museum , Düren
  • 1975: Sculptures / Dessins, La Galerie Club, Grasse / South of France
  • 1978: Pictures and sculptures 1950–1978, District Home Museum of the City of Attendorn
  • 1980: Pictures and spaces, graphics, painting and sculpture, Kunstverein Hattingen
  • 1991: Kulturpalast Dresden
  • 1991: Pictures - sculptures - city projects, local history museum of the city of Riesa
  • 1996: Technoid bronze and iron casting, foundry institute of the RWTH Aachen
  • 1998: "Color, Form, Spatial Sound", Düsseldorf Chamber of Crafts
  • 1999: Pictures and Sculptures, Academy of Sciences and Literature , Mainz
  • 1999: "Hope Principle", paintings and sculptures, Alsdorf town hall
  • 2001: “Small Pictures and Sculptures”, kunstraumno. 10, Mönchengladbach
  • 2002: Pictures and sculptures in "INDUSTRION", Kerkrade / Netherlands
  • 2003: “Metaphors of Light” in the press house of the Mußbach manor , Neustadt / Weinstrasse
  • 2004: "Dialogue of colors and forms", painting and sculptures in the monastery in Monschau
  • 2004: “Symphony of Light”, painting and sculptures in the “ De Kopermolen ” museum in Vaals, NL
  • 2005: "Impressions", painting and sculptures in the gallery IPOMAL, Landgraaf, NL
  • 2005: "Colors and Shapes in Dialog", painting and sculptures, new gallery in the Bad Nauheim drinking cure facility
  • 2006: "Sculptures and Painting", Ballhaus in Düsseldorf's Nordpark

Works (selection)

Deliusviertel fountain complex, Aachen
  • Arched frieze in the Haldenpark Carl-Alexander , Baesweiler
  • Attendorn Town Hall : Entire interior design, antique glass windows, lamp towers
  • Time tower: 20 m high relief with time and thermometer machines, clocks, glockenspiel and mosaic dial with 3 m diameter in Düsseldorf- Kaiserswerth , (architect: Walter Brune ), 1986
  • Church furnishings in Aachen, Altena, Berlin, Bredenscheid , Dortmund, Hattingen, Neviges-Siepen, Roetgen, Vollmarstein, among others
  • Street and square designs as well as fountains in Aachen, Aldenhoven, Alsdorf, Attendorn, Eschweiler, Düsseldorf, Riesa
  • Hospital designs in Altena, Attendorn, Berlin-Spandau, Dortmund, Fröndenberg, Hattingen, Olpe, Schwerte, Wiesbaden, among others

Literature and Sources

  • Judith Dahmen-Beumers: An exemplary study of regionalism in art - the Aachen sculptor and painter Benno Werth ; Books on Demand GmbH, Norderstedt, 2005, ISBN 3-8334-3014-1 google online

Web links

Commons : Benno Werth  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Aachen artist Benno Werth died at the age of 85
  2. ↑ Brief information about the "Center for Current Art - Two-Way Traffic"
  3. ^ Benno-Werth-Saal with permanent exhibition in the Riesa City Museum
  4. ↑ Review by Ernst Günther Grimme about Benno Werth ( Memento from February 9, 2005 in the Internet Archive )
personal data
SURNAME Werth, Benno
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German sculptor, designer, painter and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH April 4, 1929
PLACE OF BIRTH Riesa
DATE OF DEATH January 31, 2015
Place of death Aachen