Christoff Schellenberger

Christoff Schellenberger (born July 11, 1924 in Beerheide ; † May 1, 2011 in Stuttgart ) was a German artist and professor of art education .

Life

After attending the Realgymnasium , Schellenberger was drafted into military service in 1942 and deployed on the Eastern Front, where he was taken prisoner in 1945 . After his return he trained as a carpenter in Wolfspfütz and in 1946 began studying German and philosophy at the Universities of Kiel and Hamburg and at the Hamburg School of Art with Alfred Mahlau .

In 1948 Schellenberger went to Stuttgart and continued his studies at the Stuttgart Art Academy with Karl Hils and Hans Meid . At the same time he studied German in Tübingen and worked as a freelance graphic designer. After the state examination in art education and German studies, he was appointed head of the factory seminar at Esslingen University in 1952 and began studying musical instrument making in Freiburg . From 1953 to 1956 Schellenberger was a trainee lawyer at the Johannes-Kepler-Gymnasium Bad Cannstatt , after which he worked in the school service in Stuttgart.

In 1956 he was appointed professor at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart for the subject of art education, works, teaching and free artistic activity. From 1968 to 1978 he directed the art teacher training there. After his retirement in 1988, Schellenberger worked as a freelance artist in Stuttgart.

Well-known students of Schellenberger are Hans Brög , Wolfgang Kermer , Malte Sartorius , and Sylvia Wanke .

Teaching and work

The promotion of the elementary creative powers and the scenic representation had a high priority at Schellenberger in the context of the art teacher training. In his own sculptural and graphic work, he repeatedly took up the themes of “cladding” and “transformations”. He also dealt with puppet theater , mechanical theater, scenery, toys and moving figures. On the occasion of his 80th birthday, the State Ministry for Culture and Sport of the State of Baden-Württemberg organized an exhibition of his works in the New Palace in Stuttgart .

Schellenberger commented on his artistic self-image as follows:

“I see drawing as further thinking, as further development, in drawing a lot can be represented that is laborious and slow in reality. I call this drawing thinking or further pictorial thinking; it is linked to the constructive way of thinking that I got to know as a carpenter; but it also applies to the design area, e.g. B. to show the expressiveness of a face or the transitions from the cat face to the human face; it's about making developments and changes: slowly peeling out the shape. I have lots of drawings because they are never finished, but develop. "

- Christoff Schellenberger in conversation with Helmut Landwehr (2002)

Publications (selection)

• One to the other . Stuttgart 1948
• Summer garden craft book . Stuttgart 1950.
• Ships made of branch wood . Kassel 1952.
• Changes . Edition Phaistos, Steinheim 2004, ISBN 3-00-014096-4 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Christoff Schellenberger in the catalog of the German National Library