Gerhart Hein

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Gerhart Hein (born February 18, 1910 in Breslau ; † April 17, 1998 in Rummelsberg near Nuremberg ) was a German painter .

Self-portrait around 1952, watercolor

Life

With the original professional goal of master builder, Gerhart Hein studied after the journeyman's examination in bricklaying from 1928 at the Wroclaw School of Applied Arts, but soon with a focus on painting with Peter Kowalski . Here he was discovered by Otto Mueller and accepted into the Breslau Art Academy without the otherwise obligatory preliminary class , where he continued his studies with Otto Mueller, Alexander Kanoldt , Oskar Moll , Carlo Mense , Oskar Schlemmer and Johannes Molzahn until the academy closed in 1932. The lessons were then continued in master workshops for a year. Gerhart Hein attended classes in Johannes Molzahn's master workshop until the spring of 1933. Then he left Wroclaw and lived in the Giant Mountains.

From 1933 to 1940 the political situation in Germany, as with many young artists of his generation, prevented an artistic establishment. In 1937, a work by Heins bought by the Silesian Museum of Fine Arts in 1930 was classified as "degenerate" by the National Socialists. From 1940 Gerhart Hein had to do military service, in 1945 he was taken prisoner by the English.

An existential new beginning with his wife Elisabeth, who had fled to the West (who comes from the important scholarly Harnack family and the Baltic German noble family von Oettingen ) and three children, was attempted in the district of Nuremberg in 1947, where Hein then worked as a graphic artist for the American military administration from 1950 to 1956 . After his post was closed, Gerhart Hein refused to be taken over by the newly created Bundeswehr for political and moral reasons and worked as a bricklayer foreman on large construction sites in Nuremberg to secure his family's livelihood until 1973.

The period from 1956 to 1964 can be regarded as Gerhart Hein's most important creative period, who, in addition to his "bread-and-butter" job of building craftsman, devoted himself entirely to his artistic inclinations. Hein lived out his creativity only in private space, refusing to go public with any work. After the death of his wife Elisabeth in 1968, Gerhart Hein gave up all active artistic activity and henceforth limited himself to diverse art theoretical studies.

An extensive retrospective of Gerhart Hein's work planned by Werner Timm , the then director of the Museum Ostdeutsche Galerie in Regensburg , did not materialize because the artist refused to “make his work public” during his lifetime. In 1998 Gerhart Hein died in Rummelsberg near Nuremberg.

plant

Works from the period from 1950 to 1968 have been preserved. The more representational watercolors created up to around 1954 show landscapes, flower pictures and portraits that are related to the French Matisse School, with which Hein through his Wroclaw academy teachers (especially Oskar Moll ) got close contact. From 1955 the figuration dissolves in favor of a completely independent form-finding inspired by Cubism , which ultimately leads to completely abstract structures made of geometrical meshwork of lines with further differentiated colored areas delimited by this. Gerhart Hein calls these constructs "imaginary substance". What is unmistakable in Hein's oeuvre is the intensive examination of the contemporary art movements of Informel and Concrete Art . His life as an artist is a prime example of the art of the so-called lost generation .

Solo exhibitions

literature

  • General Artist Lexicon , Vol. 71 (2013 in preparation).
  • Gerhart Hein - The imaginary substance . Catalog book published in 2006 by Almuth Hein on the occasion of the exhibitions at the Art Museum in Bayreuth and Solingen, ISBN 3-00-018406-6 .
  • Hans Peetz: Tear into the future . In: With the eyes of faith II. Theological thoughts on art . Bayreuth 2008, pp. 40-53.
  • Hela Baudis: From Otto Müller to Oskar Schlemmer. Artist of the Wroclaw Academy . Schwerin 2002, pp. 195-196.
  • Andrea Brandl: "... how delicious the new impressions". Franconia in focus Fine artists in the first half of the 20th century . Reprint Schweinfurter Historische Forschungen 2004, pp. 314–316.

Web links

http://gerharthein.de/

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Petra Hölscher: Gerhart Hein in Breslau. Bricklayer and painting apprentice. In: Gerhart Hein - The imaginary substance pp. 9-19, for classification as "degenerate" cf. here also p. 19: List of works confiscated from the city of Wroclaw's art collections
  2. ↑ Ines Hein: The man and painter Gerhart Hein - a biographical memory. In: Gerhart Hein - The imaginary substance pp. 24–31
  3. ↑ The correspondence with Dr. Werner Timm can be found in Hein's written estate.
  4. ↑ Gerhart Hein: Newly created matter and uncontrolled nature. In: Ders. - The Imaginary Substance pp. 20–23
personal data
SURNAME Hein, Gerhart
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter
DATE OF BIRTH February 18, 1910
PLACE OF BIRTH Wroclaw
DATE OF DEATH April 17, 1998
Place of death Rummelsberg