Gerhard Wittner

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Gerhard Wittner (born September 23, 1926 in Heidelberg ; † October 21, 1998 in Frankfurt am Main ) was a German painter , draftsman and graphic artist .

life and work

Wittner lived in Frankfurt am Main since his youth. From 1947 to 1954 he studied painting with Wilhelm Heise and Albert Burkart at the State Academy of Fine Arts - Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main , and with Franz Xaver Fuhr at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich . In 1976 he received a scholarship at the Cité International des Arts in Paris and from 1984 to 1986 was a visiting professor at the State University of Fine Arts - Städelschule.

Wittner's artistic concept was based on the reduction of painterly means, which led to “intensive field research [...] which focused on the exploration of color and light [...]”. In works from the early 1960s, he emphasized the materiality of color by applying monochrome red and black, delimited or subdivided by horizontal or vertical lines. Since 1962 his pictures were created for the first time, instead of on canvas , on smooth chipboard , the oil paint he mixed with tempera , which intensified the color effect.

In the mid-1960s, the painter reduced his pictures to light, gray tones with geometric, mostly square, flat picture structures. In doing so, he investigated the effect of minimal color or tone value nuances on their surface-forming quality. He created centering or decentering by means of slight color gradients, while the brushstroke completely receded in favor of a fine painting method. An example from this period is the Linoldruck L 68th

In his drawings on paper, executed with a pen in ink or with graphite or colored pencils, Wittner developed his own visual language, at the same time reflecting the development processes of painting. In the works, which have been carried out in black ink since the mid-1980s, the clay surfaces only dissolved into precisely set points and fine lines that form a dense fabric when the viewer approached. In other motifs, the network was thickened by different line widths or it dissolved to the limit of the perceptible.

Exhibitions

literature

  • Michael Semff , Andreas Strobl (eds.): The presence of the line: A selection of recent acquisitions of the 20th and 21st centuries from the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung Munich , Pinakothek der Moderne March 19 to June 21, 2009, Munich 2009, ISBN 978- 3-927803-46-6

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Matthias Haldemann , in: Gerhard Wittner , exhibition catalog Kunsthaus Zug 1994, p. 3 ff
  2. ^ Elisabeth Claus, in: Gerhard Wittner , exhibition catalog Kunsthaus Zug 1994, p. 10
  3. ^ Elisabeth Claus, in: Gerhard Wittner , exhibition catalog Kunsthaus Zug 1994, p. 10 f.
personal data
SURNAME Wittner, Gerhard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter, draftsman and graphic artist
DATE OF BIRTH September 23, 1926
PLACE OF BIRTH Heidelberg
DATE OF DEATH October 21, 1998
Place of death Frankfurt am Main