Gerhard Elsner

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Gerhard Elsner (born October 30, 1930 in Senftenberg , Niederlausitz; † September 15, 2017 in Munich ) was a German painter and graphic artist .

Life

Gerhard Elsner was born on October 30, 1930 in Senftenberg. From 1952 to 1954 he studied art and history at the University of Freiburg , as well as painting at the Freiburg State Academy of the Arts under Rudolf Dischinger and Heinrich Wittmer. From 1954 to 1956 he was a student of Wilhelm Schnarrenberger , State Academy of Fine Arts Karlsruhe . After taking the state examination for teaching in art (Karlsruhe) and for history (Freiburg), he completed his legal clerkship for art history in Offenbach from 1957 to 1960 . From 1960 to 1970 he worked as an art teacher in Frankfurt am Main , later he moved to Überlingen on Lake Constance as a high school teacher for art . In 1992 he ended his teaching activity to devote himself entirely to painting. In 1997 Gerhard Elsner moved to Munich. From 1972 to 1997 he was a member of the Association of Visual Artists Baden-Württemberg and was a member of the International Bodenseeclub, which with numerous exhibitions contributed to bringing Elsner's work to the public. He died on September 15, 2017 in Munich.

plant

"The development of Elsner's factory takes place in waves and thrusts. One aspect of reality is explored in all directions, its possibilities are tirelessly explored. Then the point is reached where the push off to something new occurs. Such a step takes place in moments of stagnation [...], an inner perplexity in which something new suddenly presents itself, which is passionately grasped and dissolves the stagnation to the momentum of new production. "

The early works from the 1950s still show the influence of the Karlsruhe teacher Wilhelm Schnarrenberger with their still life-like motifs and subdued colors. At the beginning of the 1960s, one of the future-defining motifs appeared: the city. The pictures of this time are laid out flat and emphasize the structural element. The nested structure, divided into small pieces, aims to ornamentalize the city motif. In the 1970s, the solid framework was broken up by a more impulsive line, the contours blurred by a monochrome color scheme. Elsner prefers broken colors in brown, gray and black. He uses the contrast between the non-colors black and white and their transitions. Since the mid-1970s, Elsner has no longer depicted the city in a sketchy long shot, but rather individual streets lined with high facades and in which the viewer's gaze is blocked by nooks and crannies. The streets are populated by figures that are only outlined, as if frozen in a snapshot. Your way on the one street with no alternative seems to be mapped out. The big city becomes the code for the isolation and desolation of modern life.

With the pictures of the 1980s and 1990s Elsner added further symbols: underpasses, subway shafts or escalators are ciphers for the imprisonment of humans in a mechanized, blindly accelerated world. The painter also subliminally thematizes the passage into an underworld populated by shadows. For him, the city is a metaphor for people being locked up in their private and social limbo and for their longing for redemption. The pictures that have been produced since the mid-1990s are characterized by a return to greater color. Often there are representations of pairs or groups of figures. Elsner often comes up with characteristic design solutions by reducing and emphasizing linearity. The surface structure, which is treated with great care by the painter, is also decisive for the overall impression: through the impasto application to the relief effect, it becomes a factor that determines the expression. The return to flatness, a smooth surface and the use of the light-dark contrast are characteristic of the later landscape paintings. They were decisively stimulated by a trip to Norway and Lofoten in 2004 . As a technician, Elsner is an open-minded experimenter. In addition to the paintings in oil, he created numerous mixed media works in which the artist also included non-painting media and image carriers . Elsner's work also includes graphics (mainly etchings and linocuts). In the 1990s, several cycles of the Stations of the Cross for churches were created.

Work classification

Because of his tireless interest in people, Elsner can be seen as a modern realist. For him, however, it is not about the lifelike depiction or a concrete individual being, but about the condition of human existence in modernity itself. According to Elsner, painting should "reproduce and express problems of the time." In everyday situations, passers-by in street canyons, Illuminated shop windows or people hurrying through underground floors, a symbolic, even mythical underground becomes visible. Elsner draws his inspiration, for example, from the Carceri by Piranesi , but also from literary sources such as medieval legends or Hermann Kasack's novel The City Behind the Stream . Especially in the pictures of the 1990s, Elsner goes very far in the dissolution of the material forms, but never crosses the border to pure abstraction.

Solo exhibitions (selection)

Works owned by the following museums and public institutions

literature

  • Christoph Bauer (Ed.): Art Funding of the State of Baden-Württemberg, Catalog of New Acquisitions 1989-1992, Singen 1993
  • Dorothee Bauerle-Willert (Ed.): Art Funding of the State of Baden-Württemberg, Catalog of New Acquisitions 1983, 1984 and 1985, Stuttgart 1986
  • Gerhard Elsner: The Jodok Church in Überlingen , Überlingen 2009 (4th revised edition)
  • Gerhard Elsner (Ill.) / Joe Rippier (text): Against the Stream. Poems, Colin Smythe, Gerrards Cross 1999
  • Gerhard Elsner. Individuality and urbanity. Cross-section through his artistic work. Abercron Gallery, Munich, 2011
  • Hans-Helmut Hofstaetter (Ed.): Art Funding of the State of Baden-Württemberg, Catalog of New Acquisitions 1978, Freiburg 1979
  • Jochen Ludwig (Hrsg.): The art of the early years. Freiburg 1945-1960, Freiburg i. Br. 1992
  • Jochen Ludwig: soundtrack. To the pictures in the collection. Museum of New Art, Freiburg i. Br. 1998
  • List of artists Baden-Württemberg III, Umkirch / Freiburg, 1982
  • Gert K. Nagel: Swabian artist lexicon. From the baroque to the present, Munich 1986

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Kathleen Weser: Gerhard Elsner. In memory of the old friend and artist , in: Lausitzer Rundschau , November 4, 2017.
  2. ↑ Manfred Zander: Introductory lecture for the exhibition “Gerhard Elsner. Painting ”in the municipal gallery“ Fauler Pelz ”in Überlingen on April 26, 1980
  3. ↑ Quoted from: Gabriele Felix: Problems of Time, in: Süddeutsche Zeitung, 22./23. March 2003, no.68
  4. ↑ Gerhard Elsner: "The representations of the legend of the three living and the three dead in Überlingen on Lake Constance", in: "das münster" Volume 3, 43rd year, Munich / Zurich 1990
  5. ↑ Kathleen Weser: Painting and watercolor by a native Senftenberger. In: Lausitzer Rundschau. July 15, 2015, accessed August 4, 2015 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Elsner, Gerhard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter and graphic artist
DATE OF BIRTH October 30, 1930
PLACE OF BIRTH Senftenberg , Lower Lusatia
DATE OF DEATH 15th September 2017
Place of death Munich