Erich Kraemer

Erich Kraemer (born September 26, 1930 in Trier ; † September 27, 1994 in Trier) was a German artist, university professor and founder of the European Art Academy Trier .

life and work

After initial years of apprenticeship (1946–49) at the Werkkunstschule, Trier, during which the artists working there had to endeavor to find the contact with contemporary art that was forbidden and lost in the twelve years of the Nazi era, Kraemer studied in 1949– 51 at the State Academy of Fine Arts Stuttgart . Here Willi Baumeister taught him essential insights into the world of thought, form and color as well as the creative processes of abstract painting. At the same time, Kraemer carried out animal studies with the aim of capturing volumes with scarce resources and identifying organic shape features in nature. The animal drawings he made during these years primarily represent concentration exercises, a search for formal logic and “expressive” phenomena in nature.

In the years 1952–56, Kraemer, in addition to attending the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris, conducted cubist and tachist studies and examined relationships with light and space. The Paris of the 1950s had a decisive influence on Kraemer's attitude to art and the development of his painting. Here it was essentially Fauvism ( Derain , Matisse ), Cubism ( Picasso , Gris ), Orphism ( Delaunay , Académie de la Grande Chaumière), partly the constructivism of a Herbin , the work of Monet and Cézanne , which moved him.

Kraemer's artistic activity was not limited to painting, but printmaking grew into a field in which he distinguished himself. Kraemer's exploration of the technical and creative possibilities of printmaking began in 1950, parallel to his processing of early Cubist painting, in the technique of gravure printing. This occupied him later, especially from 1968 to 1972, in all its playfully handled range of variations, up to and including the use of complex mixed techniques in color etching.

“The outstanding quality of Kraemer's graphic voyages of discovery was officially confirmed by the award of the City of Salzburg Prize, [...] and participation in two graphic exhibitions of supraregional importance, on the one hand in 1970 as part of the Second British International Print Biennale Bradford , Yorkshire, on the other hand in 1971 as an exponent at the international graphic exhibition in the Residenz-Museum Salzburg. "

Furthermore, in the years 1957–70 he created portraits, still lifes, landscapes, abstract and abstract compositions, into which he allowed the abundance of the means worked out to flow. He also dealt with crystallography, light interference and spectral color analysis, among other things, in order to develop knowledge that goes beyond the conventional, naturalistic, perspective space. “It is the first duty of a picture to be a feast for the eyes.” ( Eugène Delacroix ) became his new motto during these years. In the following years, Kraemer sought, among other things, the superimposition of large form, structure, image space from light and dark values ​​and color as a means of expression that determines the depth of space.

It was not only the zeitgeist of modernity that he turned to, he felt a strong need to encounter the art of bygone eras, to experience it and to learn from it. In contrast to the preoccupation with the current modern age, he enjoyed this as purification and stimulation. Lorenz Dittmann commented on the works he created in the Villa Massimo : “In Erich Kraemer's works, the logic of the formal structure permeates and morphs into one another with the freedom and spontaneity of a richly differentiated world of colors. Graphic form and variety of colors support each other and at the same time preserve their special values. With his elementary signs, the artist suggests a foreign script as a trace of a past that has established tradition, but is remote. "

From 1970 to 1973 he was a lecturer at the International Summer Academy for Fine Arts in Salzburg .

In 1974 he took up the professorship at the Trier University of Applied Sciences.

In 1975, Kraemer made more contact with painter friends from home and abroad, whom he valued, in order to win over highly qualified artists for his idea of ​​an academy for fine arts, in which knowledge is to be imparted that is suitable for sensitizing broad sections of the population to sophisticated art , which is supposed to be an exhibition, meeting and discussion forum for artists and art scholars. They include such important painters as Corneille , Arnal , Contreras, Hangen , Storel , Mandeville and others. His idea of ​​an academy became a reality: 1974 in Luxembourg, 1977 in Trier, first in the Martiner Hof, later in the slaughterhouse that had been converted for this purpose.

Erich Kraemer died in September 1994.

Quote

“Painting is an art for the senses.
Whoever feels painting understands it. "

- Erich Kraemer

Awards

• 1964 Art Prize of the City of Trier
• 1969 Honorary Prize from the City of Salzburg
• 1978 Prize for Art and Architecture Rhineland-Palatinate
• 1992 Guest of Honor at Villa Massimo , Rome

Exhibitions (selection)

• Society of Friends of Young Art, Munich.
• Second British International Print Biennale, Bradford
• Contemporary Art Gallery, Salzburg
• Palatine Secession, Palatinate Gallery , Kaiserslautern
• Musee Pescatore, Villa Vaubun, Luxembourg
• Salon Grands et Jeunes d'Aujourd'hui, Grand Palais , Paris
• Salon Comparaisons, d'Art Actuel, Grand Palais , Paris
• Salon du Mai , Grand Palais , Paris
• Early German Informel, Lückeroth Collection, Sindelfingen
• Art Cologne , Cologne
• Villa Massimo , Rome

literature

• Erich Kraemer , Verlag M. Weyand, ISBN 3-924631-66-2

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Erich Kraemer, Das Druckgraphische Werk , Wolfgang Meter (text); M. Weyand Verlag, ISBN 3-924631-66-2
2. ↑ Erich Kraemer, Das Druckgraphische Werk , Wolfgang Meter (text); M. Weyand Verlag, ISBN 3-924631-66-2
3. ↑ Erich Kraemer , Erich Kraemer's “Villa Massimo” series , Lorenz Dittmann (text); M. Weyand Verlag, ISBN 3-924631-66-2
4. ↑ Erich Kraemer , Life and Work , Klaus Schulte (text); M. Weyand Verlag, ISBN 3-924631-66-2

Web links

• Literature by and about Erich Kraemer in the catalog of the German National Library