Bernhard Sprute
Bernhard Sprute (born December 15, 1949 in Detmold ) is a German visual artist .
Life
Bernhard Sprute grew up on a farm near Detmold. From 1969 to 1971 he studied art and craft education at the University of Paderborn . From 1974 to 1978 he studied art and art history at the State Art Academy - here as a master student of Timm Ulrichs - and at the Westphalian Wilhelms University in Münster .
He has been teaching art at the Immanuel-Kant-Gymnasium Bad Oeynhausen since 1979 and has also been the head of the study seminar in Minden since 1980. He also held teaching positions at the State Art Academy in Münster and at the Ostwestfalen-Lippe University of Applied Sciences .
Since 1983 he has been married to the philosophy and German teacher and art historian Rosemarie Sprute, who is also an artist. The couple have two grown daughters.
Artistic expression, (painting) technique and motif circles
Bernhard Sprute has been working in his own studio in Bad Oeynhausen since 1982 . While in the first years of his artistic career he mainly made drawings and artistic photographs and linked them together in what he called display boards , the focus of his work since the late 1980s has been on painting . He painted on cloth as well as canvas and cardboard. Occasionally Sprute also creates sculptures and installations .
In his pictures, Bernhard Sprute works with materials that are actually incompatible with one another and repel one another. He combines oil paints , which he applies directly with the tube, with liquid stain , emulsion paints, and colored and graphite pencils. However, these color materials arrange themselves after a certain time. For this reason, Sprute's works are not created on an easel , but on the floor or another flat surface. In order to find a more direct painterly expression, Sprute usually paints directly with the paint tube, but also uses his hands to distribute the paint. On the other hand, he largely avoids the brush and uses it almost exclusively to carefully distribute the stain. He also uses paints and assembly adhesives, and experiments with sand , salts and mortar .
A special feature of Sprute's pictures is that they are often made up of different, overlapping individual images. New impressions are superimposed on the old ones, a shape is partially covered by a new layer of paint or disappears completely under it. Sometimes the painter applies up to 15 different layers for this. The result is only apparently chaotic, the artist provides comprehensible principles of order in his pictures, even if it doesn't look like it at first glance. In the finished picture, it is then up to the viewer to find the individual segments and to interpret them in relation to one another.
Due to his style of painting and the nature of the materials used, which require extensive drying times after application, Bernhard Sprute often works for a long time on one picture and then on up to ten works at the same time. In this way, entire series of pictures are created on a topic complex. For example, in 2008 the artist dealt intensively with the subject of " sleep ". In 2003/2004 several pictures with the title Return of the Roaring Deer were created , and also in 2004 several wasp portraits . A wide variety of insects - namely bees , beetles and hover flies - are regularly the subject of his pictures, as are all kinds of birds and mountains, for example the Matterhorn . In 2013 and 2014 Sprute created several picture cycles with spider motifs - also to artistically counteract the widespread arachnophobia .
Natural phenomena form a special focus in Sprute's work. In his pictures he processes his profound childhood experiences in nature and relativizes them with his adult experiences. The artist simplifies the shapes of the animals and plants shown. With his abstraction of forms Sprute wants to open up levels of association. In spite of all the abstraction, however, he expressly attaches importance in many pictures to the fact that the genus or species represented in each case remains exactly recognizable. Another design element that is typical for him is that he mostly only reproduces details in his pictures. The viewer can mentally continue these to all sides. Sprute himself describes his pictures as “painterly investigations”. He wants to show structural relationships. His work is about recognizing systems, communication , especially the correspondence between humans and nature. He himself interprets his cycle of pictures Restless Animals , created from the beginning of the 2010s , as an example of being human, as a seismograph of busy people. By visualizing sequences of seemingly opposites, such as day and night or calm and restlessness, he wants to convey the principle of the harmony of opposites. In this context, the concept of the social system is important to him.
In addition to nature, Sprute is also repeatedly inspired by important works of art history and deals with them artistically. Since 2008 he has created several Madonna pictures as interpretations of the works of Giovanni Bellini . Further works were created based on models by Lucas Cranach the Elder , Peter Paul Rubens and, above all, in the artistic engagement with Jacob van Ruisdael . Starting in 2010, he reinterpreted the innovator of Dutch landscape painting with several pictures. He has also dealt with Leonardo da Vinci and Vincent van Gogh several times.
Awards and memberships
Bernhard Sprute received, among other things, the advancement award of the Westphalian Art Association , the cultural award for fine arts of the district of Minden-Lübbecke as well as the sculpture award of the Stadtwerke Minden. He shared the sculpture award with Ulrich Kügler.
Sprute is a member of the Federal Association of Visual Artists (BBK) , the Association for Current Art in the Minden-Lübbecke district and the West German Artists Association in Bochum . He was also a member of the Free Artists' Association Schanze in Münster for many years.
Works (selection)
Bernhard Sprute's oeuvre is extraordinarily extensive and includes well over 2000 works (as of 2018). In 2016, the artist self-published a fairly comprehensive catalog of his paintings and drawings. The following table shows works put under free license by Sprute, which represent a representative cross-section of his work since 1990.
| image | title | When originated | Size, material | Exhibition / collection / owner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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Outwards | 1990 | 140 × 140 cm, oil, dispersion, stain, varnish on canvas | University Medicine Mannheim, Mannheim |
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Abundance (fruit bowl and peacock) | 1992 | 200 × 200 cm, oil, stain, varnish on canvas | Heart and Diabetes Center North Rhine-Westphalia (HDZ NRW) , Bad Oeynhausen |
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System (at the round table) | 2000 | 120 × 200 cm, oil, dispersion, stain on canvas | Institute for Work and Technology, Gelsenkirchen Science Park , Gelsenkirchen |
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Cloud image (pattern seeker) | 2005 | 120 × 200 cm, oil, dispersion, stain on canvas | Radiological Care Center (RVZ) Ostwestfalen, Minden |
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Many animals (sample search engine) | 2006 | 200 × 200 cm, oil, dispersion, stain on canvas | Ronald McDonald House, Bad Oeynhausen |
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Sleeping | 2007 | 140 × 140 cm, oil, dispersion, stain on canvas | Minden Sleep Medicine Center, Minden |
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Meeting picture (left and right) | 2009 | 140 × 140 cm, oil, dispersion, stain on canvas | Bunse and Lüke Lawyers and Notaries, Manfred Lüke Collection, Detmold |
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In height and abundance (building blocks) | 2010 | 30 × 30 cm to 90 × 90 cm, oil, dispersion, stain on canvas on wood, installation | Heart and Diabetes Center North Rhine-Westphalia (HDZ NRW) , Bad Oeynhausen |
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Bee image | 2010 | 60 × 90 cm, oil, dispersion, stain / cardboard on canvas | Private collection, Minden |
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Bird portrait with branch | 2010 | 200 × 200 cm, oil, dispersion on canvas | Heart and Diabetes Center North Rhine-Westphalia (HDZ NRW) , Bad Oeynhausen |
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plants | 2012 | Picture wall, 480 × 300 cm, oil, dispersion, stain, varnish on canvas | Heart and Diabetes Center North Rhine-Westphalia (HDZ NRW), Bad Oeynhausen |
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Landscape after Ruisdael | 2013 | 200 × 200 cm, oil, dispersion, stain, assembly adhesive, finis on canvas | owned by the artist |
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Bee picture (gray) | 2013 | 60 × 60 cm, oil, dispersion, stain / cardboard on canvas | Lothar Maier collection, Recklinghausen |
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Sleeping wasps | 2013 | 100 × 100 cm, oil on canvas | owned by the artist |
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Bird picture (hoopoe) | 2014 | 100 × 100 cm, oil, stain, varnish on photo canvas | Institute for Work and Technology, Gelsenkirchen Science Park , Gelsenkirchen |
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Restless animals (gray) | 2014 | 100 × 80 cm, oil on canvas | owned by the artist |
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The twelve vultures (vulture picture) | 2015 | 200 × 200 cm, oil, dispersion, stain, assembly adhesive, finis on canvas | owned by the artist |
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The seven ravens (based on a fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm) | 2016 | seven individual pictures, each 40 × 30 cm, oil, dispersion, stain on canvas | German Fairy Tale and Weser Legends Museum / City of Bad Oeynhausen, Bad Oeynhausen |
| Bird picture | 2017 | 200 × 200 cm, oil, assembly glue, varnish on canvas | owned by the artist | |
 |
Bird talk (what's true?) | 2017 | 100 × 100 cm, oil on canvas | owned by the artist |
Other works
Numerous works by Bernhard Sprute can also be found in Bad Oeynhausen, where he lives. The city of Bad Oeynhausen has acquired several pictures by the artist, including for the German Fairy Tale and Weser saga museum . There is a special relationship with the Heart and Diabetes Center North Rhine-Westphalia (HDZ NRW) , which has an extensive art collection. After the first exhibition in 1993, others followed in 1999, 2010 and 2015, always documented in a catalog book ( A large amount , all in all , little things , Anton Fuchs / Bernhard Sprute ). In 1993, the fixed die column was written for the HDZ fullness , 2012, 5 x 3 meter mural installation plant abundance . The museum's collection also includes ten additional works by Sprute, some of them large-format. Otherwise, most of Bernhard Sprute's works are privately owned, but many have also been bought by public institutions and companies. The following list offers a selection:
- Flug , 1976, 63 × 45 cm, hand-colored screen print (edition of 30), Kunstmuseum Celle
- Chameleons , 1983, 126 × 119 cm, linocut from six parts, Kunsthalle Recklinghausen
- Behind it, Sleeping Beauty , 1985, 250 × 300 cm, Theater im Park, Bad Oeynhausen
- Thinking of Flowers , 1986, 120 × 120 cm, Landesmuseum Hannover
- Horse hunting , 1986, 90 × 90 cm, Landesmuseum Hannover
- Night picture (plants) , 1987, 120 × 120 cm, Landesmuseum Hannover
- White head , 1988, 90 × 90 cm, Landesmuseum Hannover
- Roter Kopf , 1989, 90 × 90 cm, collection of the city of Tuttlingen
- Schwanensturz , 1990, 120 × 120 cm, Stadtsparkasse Bad Oeynhausen
- Nachtwanderer , 1990, 140 × 140 cm, Artemed-Fachklinik, Bad Oeynhausen
- Veneziarot , 1990/1991, 140 × 140 cm, Heart and Diabetes Center NRW, Bad Oeynhausen
- Abundance (air, earth, water) , 1993, 42 × 29.5 cm, City of Löhne
- Abundance - Sprute column , 1993, installation, six-part, 300 × 50 × 50 cm, Heart and Diabetes Center NRW, Bad Oeynhausen
- Rotkäppchens Käppchen , 1993, 129 × 72 × 1.5 cm, German Fairy Tale and Weser Legends Museum / City of Bad Oeynhausen, Bad Oeynhausen
- Abundance (children's portrait Rosina and Rosanne) , 1994, four pictures, each 50 × 40 cm, city of Rheda-Wiedenbrück
- Two horse portraits (after Peter Paul Rubens) , 1994, each 50 × 40 cm, Siegerland Museum , Siegen
- Double picture wall talk (butterfly) , 1995, 200 × 240 cm, German Fairy Tale and Weser Legends Museum / City of Bad Oeynhausen, Bad Oeynhausen
- Festival of the Gods , 1995, 100 × 200 cm, Stadtsparkasse Bad Oeynhausen
- White head (double image) , 1997/1998, 200 × 100 cm, Theater im Park, Bad Oeynhausen
- Vase double (inside and outside) , 1999, each 110 × 80 cm, German Fairy Tale and Weser Legends Museum / City of Bad Oeynhausen, Bad Oeynhausen
- Flower fragment (all in all) , 1999, approx. 60 × 55 cm, Theater im Park, Bad Oeynhausen
- Wunderblume , 1999, approx. 100 × 100 × 1.5 cm, German Fairy Tale and Weser Legends Museum / City of Bad Oeynhausen, Bad Oeynhausen
- Venice I , 2000, 100 × 100 cm, Artemed specialist clinic, Bad Oeynhausen
- Venice II , 2000, 100 × 100 cm, Artemed-Fachklinik, Bad Oeynhausen
- System , 2000, two images of this title, each 120 × 200 cm, Artemed-Fachklinik, Bad Oeynhausen
- System , 2001, two images of this title, each 120 × 200 cm, Artemed-Fachklinik, Bad Oeynhausen
- All in all , 2001, 40 × 29.5 cm, City of Rheda-Wiedenbrück
- Grundtöne ( Christian Grabbe ) , 2001, eight works, each 50 × 40 cm, city of Detmold
- Worker (Yellow Bee) , 2002, 50 × 40 cm, City of Rheda-Wiedenbrück
- Red Fish , 2002, 100 × 100 cm, Museo de Artes Visuales, Buenos Aires
- Käfer etc. , 2005, 70 × 70 cm, Ronald McDonald House, Bad Oeynhausen
- Meeting picture - light blue meets Madonna with child, bee and branch , 2007, 80 × 60 cm, Heart and Diabetes Center NRW, Bad Oeynhausen
- Meeting picture - pink with red meets Adam and Eve with deer and doe , 2007, 80 × 60 cm, Heart and Diabetes Center NRW, Bad Oeynhausen
- Sleepers (after Cranach) , 2008, 40 × 30 cm, Minden Sleep Medicine Center, Minden
- Chrysanthemum sleeps , 2008, 60 × 90 cm, Minden Sleep Medicine Center, Minden
- Tulip sleeps , 2008, 60 × 90 cm, Minden Sleep Medicine Center, Minden
- Sleep picture (Hypnos) , 2008, 70 × 100 cm, Moorland Clinic, Bad Senkelteich
- Bird portrait with beetle , 2010, 100 × 100 cm, Institute for Work and Technology in the Gelsenkirchen Science Park
- The bird with the golden branch , 2015, 200 × 200 cm, German Fairy Tale and Weser Legends Museum / City of Bad Oeynhausen, Bad Oeynhausen
- Fischwiese , 2015, sculpture installation, sculpture competition during the LandArt Festival at Benkhausen Castle
Compilations of his works (selection)
- Drawings . Galerie Goeken, Münster 1975.
- Random work . Detmold 1976-78.
- Display boards - works on paper, cloths, cut sheets / hand-made sheets, photos . Art Association Freiburg 1978.
- Sprute display boards . Detmold 1978.
- Associative photos . Bad Oeynhausen 1982.
- Display boards - painting, drawing, photos . Art Association Unna 1982.
- Night and day - painting and drawing . Galerie pro arte, Freiburg 1987.
- Inside and outside . Galerie Tantius, Lübbecke 1990.
- Kügler / Sprute - willingness to approach, pictures, objects, installations . Bad Oeynhausen 1993 ff.
- A great abundance - pictures . Kerber, Bielefeld 1995.
- All in all - painting . S. Rehberg, Lemgo 1999.
- Pattern Finder - Painting . Kunstforum Stadtwerke Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf 2008.
- Little things - painting . HBZ NRW University Clinic Bochum, Bielefeld 2009.
- Anton Fuchs & Bernhard Sprute . HDZ NRW, Bad Oeynhausen, Bad Oeynhausen 2015.
- All in all - painting and drawing 2016–1974 . Self-published by Bernhard Sprute, Bad Oeynhausen 2016.
- Animal, plant, human . Self-published by Bernhard Sprute, Bad Oeynhausen 2016.
Exhibitions (selection)
Bernhard Sprute has been actively participating in art exhibitions at home and abroad since the mid-1970s . So far (as of 2018) his works have been shown in around 450 solo and group exhibitions.
- 1976: Emschertal Museum , Herne : image and concept (with Rolf Nickel)
- 1978: Kunstverein Freiburg im Breisgau : rotation
- 1979: Kunstverein Rastatt : Concept analysis - concept development (E)
- 1981: Kunstverein Unna : The 26 letters of the alphabet (E)
- 1985: Galerie Keim, Stuttgart : Associative Images (E)
- 1986: Gallery at Savignypiatz, Berlin : day and night pictures (E)
- 1988: Kunsthaus der Stadt Sofia : From studios of the Federal Republic of Germany
- 1989: Galerie pro arte, Freiburg im Breisgau: Nature (E)
- 1990/1995: Galerie Tantius, Lübbecke : Think of flowers , double images - a great abundance (E)
- 1991: Galerie arte coppo, Verviers : paradisiaque (E)
- 1992: Städtische Galerie, Kunstkreis Tuttlingen : natura naturans (E)
- 1992: Lippische Gesellschaft für Kunst, Detmold : Abundance (E)
- 1993: Galeria 0-Tres, Las Palmas : La exuberancia en la naturaleza (E)
- 1993/1999/2010: Kunstforum HDZ NRW , Bad Oeynhausen : Abundance , all in all , little things (E)
- 1996: Siegerland Museum , Siegen: willingness to approach (with Ulrich Kügler)
- 1997: Kulturgeschichtliches Museum Osnabrück : willingness to approach (with Ulrich Kügler)
- 1998: Gallery in the WDR regional studio in Bielefeld : goat, fish etc. - also Amatheia (with Maike Hölscher)
- 2002: Kunstverein Lübbecke: bees, goats, fish (E)
- 2003: Kunstverein Rinteln / Museum Eulenburg , Rinteln : goat yellow, fish green, bee blue (E)
- 2003: Flottmann-Hallen , Herne: In Figura
- 2004: Inowrocław Palace of Culture : Plastyka
- 2005: Villa Marta, Herford : sample search engine (E)
- 2006: National Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis Art Museum , Kaunas : Unsupportable Reality
- 2007: Inowrocław City Gallery: Madonnas and Restless Animals (E)
- 2007: Kopfermann-Fuhrmann-Stiftung, Düsseldorf : Bird on its head (E)
- 2008: Orangery Rheda , Rheda-Wiedenbrück : Portrait - Eight contemporary positions
- 2008: Kunstforum Stadtwerke Düsseldorf AG: Pattern seeker (E)
- 2010: Orangery Rheda, Rheda Wiedenbrück: Detail and Wholeness (E)
- 2012: Municipal Gallery Petershagen : Animals, Plants, Humans (with Wolfgang Brenner)
- 2012: Galerie im Forum, Leverkusen : Artists discover Europe
- 2013: Cultural Areas University Medicine Mannheim: Plants, Animals, People (E)
- 2013: Mettingen Art Store : Patterns of Abundance (E)
- 2014: Berlin Capital Club, Berlin: Plants (E)
- 2015: Museum am Schölerberg , Osnabrück: Spiders are beautiful (E)
- 2015: Galerie Kunst & Leben, Bielefeld : Experience spaces (E)
- 2016: The Crypt Gallery, St Pancras Church, London : 100 x Madonna
- 2016: Galerie Gut Geissel , Langenberg : Summer Edition
- 2017: Art Pavilion, Mile End Park , London: Traditions
- 2017: IAT in the Science Park Gelsenkirchen : System - Animal Plant Human (E)
- 2017: Evangelical Academy Villigst , Schwerte: Landscape
- 2018: Müller-Held-Kunst, Bad Oeynhausen: With wings (E)
Web links
- Literature by and about Bernhard Sprute in the catalog of the German National Library
- Bernhard Sprute's website
- Vita at www.kunstnetznrw.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i Ordered chaos , interview by Heinz Hohenbrink with Bernhard Sprute. In: Moments , Volume 6, Issue 3/2009, Pages 26/27
- ↑ a b c information at www.kunstnetznrw.de ; accessed on April 1, 2018
- ↑ a b c d Biographical information on the website of Bernhard Sprute; accessed on April 2, 2018
- ↑ Vita of Rosemarie Sprute ; accessed on April 1, 2018
- ↑ a b c Marion Pokorra-Brock Schmidt: Only seemingly chaotic. Bernhard Sprute shows "Detail and Wholeness - A Floor Work" in the Orangery. In: Neue Westfälische , No. 11/2010 of January 14, 2010
- ↑ a b Maria Frickenstein (-maf-): Straight from the tube. Bernhard Sprute exhibits his pictures in the gallery "Art and Life". In: Neue Westfälische , No. 40/2015 of February 17, 2015
- ↑ Gerhard H. Kock: When the hands become clouds. Bernhard Sprute reinterprets van Ruisdael . In: Westfälische Nachrichten , online version of July 30, 2013 ; accessed on April 2, 2018
- ↑ All in all - painting and drawing 2016–1974 . Self-published by Bernhard Sprute, Bad Oeynhausen 2016.
- ↑ Solo exhibition
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Sprute, Bernhard |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German visual artist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | December 15, 1949 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Detmold |