Friederich Werthmann

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Friederich Werthmann (born October 16, 1927 in Barmen ; † June 9, 2018 in Düsseldorf-Kaiserswerth ) was a German sculptor and sculptor of informal abstraction . He lived and worked in Düsseldorf-Kaiserswerth.

life and work

Wand-Lung Hamburg (1961), Remanit, on the occasion of the IGA 1963
Wand-Lung Hamburg (1961), rear view

Werthmann, born in Barmen (today Wuppertal) in 1927, attended grammar schools in Barmen and Weimar from 1942 to 1944 , became a soldier and was imprisoned until September 1945. He left the grammar school in Barmen again in 1948 to work exclusively as an artist. From 1948 to 1949 he undertook several hiking and orientation trips through southern Germany, Switzerland and Austria . Numerous encounters took place during this time, which solidified the decision for the artistic path. But he also worked as a bricklayer in Wuppertal in order to be financially independent, and in 1950 passed the journeyman's examination as a bricklayer. At the same time figurative sculptures made of wood and stone were created. Between 1952 and 1956 he created sculptures in the manner of Hans Arp and Constantin Brâncuși , although they were still unknown to him at the time. In 1954 he met Jean-Pierre Wilhelm , through whom he got to know Arp, Brâncuși, Henry Moore and Paul Celan , among others . Through this he recognized that he was walking on paths that had already been trodden in his work. Therefore, from 1955 onwards, Werthmann developed new, abstract, completely unique "themes" at irregular intervals, which he varied in the following years.

In 1956 he married Heide Sauer and lived and worked in Düsseldorf -Kaiserswerth. In 1958 his daughter Friederike was born. In 1959 he was awarded the Cornelius Prize of the City of Düsseldorf, and in the same year the "German Youth Art Prize", which was awarded for the first time. Friederich Werthmann became a full member of the German Association of Artists , in whose annual exhibitions he participated nine times between 1959 (in the Wiesbaden Museum ) and 1966 (in the exhibition halls at Gruga Park in Essen ). He refused several teaching assignments, but in 1962 made an experiment with a semester at the art academy in Kassel , where he built up the metal class, which he left after a short time due to differences with the administration there. His wife and daughter had a fatal accident in 1962. In 1963 he married the photographer Maren Heyne. Reliefs were created as a reversal of the capsule shape, the "segments", "interferences", "demispheres". From 1968 he lived and worked mostly in San Nazzaro in Ticino , but kept his studio in Düsseldorf-Kaiserswerth, and from 1978 onwards again for the most part. In 1979 the Thyssen company , Düsseldorf, gave the chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China , Hua Guofeng , the relief "Split" (WVZ 350), which was renamed "Seam between Culture and Technology" for better understanding. From 1987 after the “dynamizations”, the works “blown up” with explosives, again exclusively welded works, renewed vibrating groupings of rods and knots, the work group “parallelograms”. One day after the vernissage of a joint exhibition with his wife, the photographer Maren Heyne, in the Kaiserswerther Museum, he died at the age of ninety on June 9, 2018. Since January 2019, the artist's property on the Alte Landstrasse in Kaiserswerth has been with the old district court from 1709, the The sculptor's workshop and the large sculpture garden are overseen by the Werthmann-Heyne-Foundation with the aim of making the area with its art accessible to the public and creating a place of lively culture. On June 16, 2019 - a year and a week after Werthmann's death - the artist's sculpture garden was opened to the public for the first time as part of the “Open Garden Gate 2019”.

Werthmann's plastic Wand-Lung Hamburg from 1961 (see picture above right) is located in the city park Planten un Blomen in Hamburg . The stainless steel work was attached to both sides of a brick wall with a passage on the occasion of the IGA 1963.

The catalog of works (sculpture, drawing & graphics) is fully documented on the artist's website.

Exhibitions (selection)

The exhibitions marked with an "E" were solo exhibitions; a catalog was published for the exhibitions marked with an "K".

  • 1955–1959: Gruppe 53 , Kunstverein Düsseldorf
  • 1956: Parnass Gallery , Wuppertal
  • 1959: Kunstverein Freiburg im Breisgau
  • 1961–1963: German Art Council: Oslo , Stockholm , Dublin , Rio de Janeiro , Buenos Aires
  • 1962: arte actual alemán , Buenos Aires, Montevideo, Santiago and Valparaiso
  • 1968: Museum Folkwang , Essen
  • 1982/83: Stadtmuseum Düsseldorf E, K
  • 2001: "Open 2001", Lido di Venezia , International Sculpture Exhibition K
  • 2003: Retrospective I , Von der Heydt Museum , Wuppertal E ; Retrospective II , Sculpture Museum Glaskasten , Marl
  • 2006: Friederich Werthmann - Early Work 1958 - 1962 , Märkisches Museum (Witten) E
  • 2007: Friederich Werthmann - print archive. The graphic work , Märkisches Museum (Witten) E
  • 2009: Friederich Werthmann - sculpture , Stadtsparkasse and Ennepebogen, Gevelsberg (together with Maren Heyne) E
  • 2016: Villa Wessel , Iserlohn E, K
  • 2016: Friederich Werthmann - early sculptures and works on paper , Galerie André Kirbach, Düsseldorf E
  • 2017: steel. Poetry. Dynamics. Friederich Werthmann on his 90th birthday , Märkisches Museum (Witten) E, K
  • 2018: Friederich Werthmann & Maren Heyne: Artist life in Kaiserwerth. Museum Kaiserswerth, Düsseldorf, June 8 to August 19, 2018

Works in public collections (selection)

Literature (selection)

  • Werthmann, Friedrich , in: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General Lexicon of Fine Artists of the XX. Century. Second volume (EJ) , EA Seemann, Leipzig 1999 (study edition). ISBN 3-363-00730-2 (p. 116)
  • Sabine Fehlemann (eds.), Maren Heyne, Hartmut Witte : Friederich Werthmann - sculptures . Catalog raisonné 1957–2002. From the Heydt Museum, Wuppertal, 2003
  • Wolfgang Zemter (ed.), Hartmut Witte: Friederich Werthmann - Early Work 1958–1962 . Märkisches Museum Witten, 2006
  • Hartmut Witte : Friederich Werthmann - print archive . Catalog raisonné. Märkisches Museum Witten, 2007
  • Hartmut Witte: Friederich Werthmann - works from five decades . Maulberger & Becker, Düsseldorf 2012
  • Hartmut Witte: Friederich Werthmann in the Villa Wessel. With a text contribution by Christoph Zusatz . Bad Honnef 2016
  • Hartmut Witte: Friederich Werthmann - steel. Poetry. Dynamism . Bad Honnef 2017

Web links

Commons : Friederich Werthmann  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Friederich Werthmann sculpture. Retrieved June 13, 2018 .
  2. ↑ s. Art report: nineteen hundred three | nineteen ninety-five. An overview of the German Artists Association , special edition Winter 1994/95, Bonn 1995. ISBN 3-929283-08-5 (p. 135)
  3. ↑ Source: Friederich Werthmann - Early Work 1958–1962. Märkisches Museum Witten, 2006–2007.
  4. ↑ kuenstlerbund.de: arte actual alemán 1962. Participants: Werthmann, Friederich ( Memento of the original from March 17, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (accessed April 1, 2017)  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.kuenstlerbund.de
  5. ^ Friederich Werthmann - Sculptures. Catalog raisonné 1957–2002. From the Heydt Museum, Wuppertal, 2003.
personal data
SURNAME Werthmann, Friederich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Werthmann, Friedrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German sculptor and sculptor
DATE OF BIRTH October 16, 1927
PLACE OF BIRTH Barmen
DATE OF DEATH June 9, 2018
Place of death Düsseldorf-Kaiserswerth