Beringer Altmann

Beringer Hermann Hans Joachim Altmann (born April 5, 1939 in Lingen (Ems) , † December 19, 2010 in Meppen ) was a German painter and graphic artist . His extensive oeuvre of paintings, drawings, graphics, and prints is primarily concerned with the relationship between man and nature and the increasingly widespread alienation in it.

biography

Beringer Altmann was born in Lingen (Ems) in 1939 and came to art only indirectly. After attending the Georgianum grammar school in Lingen, he completed an apprenticeship as a banker from 1950 to 1958 and practiced this profession for a long time, although the focus of his life was increasingly on artistic creation. As early as 1962 he began with free drawings, in 1973 he began to deal with painting. Altmann was absolutely self-taught, he never attended an art college or similar institution. Around the middle of the eighties he found his own style and attracted public attention through several local exhibitions, acquisitions of his works by galleries and a first breakthrough as an artist followed. In 1987 Altmann became a member of the Association of Visual Artists Osnabrück-Emsland, and since 1990 he has been involved in the group "Freie Künstlergemeinschaft Grenzenlos eV", which he had already left in the mid-90s. Since 1994 he has been a member of the jury in the admissions process of the Association of Visual Artists for Lower Saxony (BBK). After he had finally given up his banking profession, he devoted himself only to art. In addition to his artistic activities, he founded a foundation for the promotion of art that bears his name. The foundation is dedicated to the promotion of autodidactically learning up-and-coming artists - an education that Altmann saw as being on par with the art schools. Beringer Altmann died on December 19, 2010 in Meppen , where he had spent the last years of his life.

plant

The art historian Reinhild Mackowiak writes in the foreword of the catalog "Aus dem Moor" that it is difficult to "assign Beringer Altmann to certain tendencies or styles within contemporary art. Regardless of fashion trends, he represents his own artistic position". Dietmar Gotzheim characterizes this position as an expressive painting style, a form of realism that primarily focuses on the representation of people in everyday situations.

In spite of his free style, motifs can be made out that kept Altmann busy. In addition to everyday scenes, the moors in his home region of Emsland are a recurring theme. The untouched nature of the moor, its quiet danger, its existential loneliness - all of these are aspects that have always fascinated Altmann. The moors in the Emsland, which more and more disappeared through drainage, were more to him than untouched nature, but according to Mackowiak also "metaphors for the human condition at the end of the 20th century", a symbol not only for the disappearing nature, but also for the threat to the People themselves through the "mechanization and urbanization of the landscape" and the resulting alienation from nature. Altmann used new artistic techniques for his bog pictures, which were mainly created in the 1990s: for the brown tones of the pictures he used peat moss, which he applied to canvas in a process he had developed himself, for woodcuts on the same subject he used found wooden planks as printing blocks. As the remains of a "moorland track" from peat extraction, these planks, just like Altmann's pictures, were a synthesis of nature and culture, of human activity and organic processes.

In addition to the moor and everyday scenes, Altmann also took up social issues. As early as 1990 he produced a series of pictures in mixed media on wrapping paper with the title "War in Afghanistan and refugees in the 'Golden West'". Media reports had inspired Altmann to write this series long before the Taliban came to power . He himself wrote in a catalog: "The war in Afghanistan, which is supposed to stand for all wars and persecutions, I was only able to depict in a precise drawing, without make-up or cover-up. Other pictures show the people from Afghanistan who are in the 'Golden West' and what to expect here. These people have fled here because of the freedom. Here they are confronted with prosperity, which also creates new problems. "

Web links

• Beringer Altmann Foundation

Individual evidence

1. ^ Georgianum, main directory for pupils VI (Archive Gymn. Georgianum Lingen, E 25-6)
2. ↑ see catalog "Beringer Altmann - an exhibition of the Meppener Kunstkreis eV", Meppen 1990.
3. ↑ see catalog "Aus dem Moor", Lingen 1995.
4. ↑ Catalog "From the Moor", Lingen 1995.
5. ^ Beringer Altmann Foundation
6. ↑ Catalog "From the Moor", Lingen 1995.
7. ↑ see catalog "Beringer Altmann - an exhibition of the Meppener Kunstkreis eV", Meppen 1990.
8. ↑ Catalog "From the Moor", Lingen 1995.
9. ↑ Catalog "Aus dem Moor", Lingen 1995, p. 15.