Hans Uhlmann (sculptor)

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Hans Uhlmann in a photo by Fritz Eschen , around 1960.

Hans Uhlmann (born November 27, 1900 in Berlin ; † October 28, 1975 there ) was a German draftsman and sculptor . He is considered the founder of metal sculpture in Germany. His work includes 242 sculptures and more than 1125 drawings. Since the early 1950s he has received numerous commissions for sculptures in public spaces and has participated in international exhibitions such as documenta , the São Paulo Biennale and the Venice Biennale .

Life

Training and first artistic activity (1900–1933)

Hans Uhlmann grew up in Berlin-Steglitz . As a student he was drawn to music and received violin lessons. After graduating from high school in 1918, Uhlmann began studying at the Technical University of Berlin, specializing in "mathematical and technical-constructive problems". At the same time he worked at the "Collegium Musicum" at the Friedrich Wilhelms University . After his exams in 1924, he worked as a qualified engineer at Neufeldt & Kuhnke in Kiel. His first sculptures were created at that time, but they have not been preserved. In 1926 he returned to the Technical University of Berlin as a permanent assistant to Professor Max Kloss . In parallel he pursued his artistic studies, about which little is known. In 1930 he exhibited plaster sculptures in the Fritz Gurlitt Gallery in Berlin. A trip to Moscow in 1932 is documented.

Imprisonment and internal emigration (1933–1945)

After the NSDAP's election victory in 1932, by spring 1933 at the latest, Uhlmann lost his job at the Technical University of Berlin . The exact time and the exact circumstances are not known. On October 26, 1933, he was arrested during a leaflet campaign and, after several weeks of pre-trial detention, sentenced to one and a half years in prison for preparation for high treason in the Tegel prison. He described his experiences in his diary, which was kept in French. In his spare time he made portrait sketches of his fellow prisoners and the first sketches for wire sculptures. After his dismissal, he was initially employed as a technical draftsman, and from 1937 as a designer at National-Krupp Registrierkassen GmbH in Berlin. At the same time he created his first sculptures out of iron wire and zinc sheet. In 1941 he married Hildegard Rohmann. The following year the son Hans Joachim was born. In the war years from 1942 to 1945 no sculptures and only very few drawings were made.

New beginning: exhibiting and teaching (1945–1952)

Shortly after the end of the war, in May 1945, Uhlmann was employed as a specialist in painting and sculpture at the Berlin-Steglitz public education office in the American sector . In this function, he organized exhibitions for the artists who had been banned from working a short time before. He also showed his own for the first time; sculptures and drawings have been created over the past twelve years. In the summer of 1946 he moved to the Gerd Rosen Gallery , Kurfürstendamm 215, as exhibition director , which became the meeting place for those artists who were looking for a new beginning after 1945. Artists of the gallery were u. a. Heinz Trökes , Werner Heldt , Jeanne Mammen , Hans Thiemann , Hannah Höch , Louise Stomps , Theodor Werner and Mac Zimmermann . After two years he gave up this job. In 1950 Uhlmann was offered a professorship at the Berlin School of Fine Arts , where he initially led the basic course for two years. In 1951 Uhlmann was awarded the prize for drawing at the São Paulo Biennale. In 1952 he was appointed full professor. In the following year the artist founded the first class for metal sculpture nationwide.

Commissioned work and retrospective (1952–1975)

With the spacious service studio in the university, Uhlmann opened up new technical and creative possibilities, which were also reflected in his work. His drawings, which continuously accompanied his sculptural work, were created both in his studio and in his private apartment. In 1956 he was accepted as a full member of the Academy of Arts . Honors, participation in exhibitions and commissions for sculptures in public spaces increased. In 1968 Uhlmann retired. In the same year, a retrospective at the Akademie der Künste (on Hanseatenweg) showed a cross-section of his work. In 1972 he realized his last major commission, the “Tower with all-round charisma” for the Eberhardt-Karls-Universität Tübingen. Hans Uhlmann lived secluded in a terraced house designed by the architect Wassili Luckhardt on Schorlemerallee, Berlin. In the post-war period he was one of the central figures of the Berlin art scene and was one of the most important sculptors in Germany. After his death on October 28, 1975, Hans Uhlmann was buried in the forest cemetery in Berlin-Zehlendorf. Hans Uhlmann was a member of the German Association of Artists .

plant

sculpture

The sculptural work by Hans Uhlmann was published in the oeuvre catalog published by the Akademie der Künste Berlin in 1975 (edited by Ursula Lehmann-Brockhaus, text: Werner Haftmann); abbreviated LB. It presents all of the artist's plastic works in black and white images, some in large format in color. Among them are a few plaster sculptures, the majority are welded room sculptures made of iron and steel, in some cases brass castings.

Heads (1930–1945)

Uhlmann began his sculptural work by modeling heads in clay and plaster. The first known works date from the years 1930 to 1932. The female heads are not portraits, but simplified abstractions based on the characteristics of the head shape. "The characteristic penetrates the general," commented Werner Haftmann. (Haftmann, p. 21) After his release from prison in 1935, Uhlmann began to make heads made of metal wire. He used sturdy iron wire or galvanized sheet iron for his constructions. In some variants he combined wire and sheet metal. During this time he created the first constructive metal sculptures (LB 8, 12, 15, 25).

Space rulings (1946–1952)

The metal heads made during the "inner emigration" appear rigid and hermetic. Uhlmann's spatial sculptures made from bent iron wire, on the other hand, stand for movement, dynamics and rhythm. The titles "insects", "birds" and "horses" suggest figurative associations, but for the artist these names are only a pretext for moving, swinging forms. Haftmann speaks of "space swings jumping off the plinth" (Haftmann, p. 38), "spatial lines" and "figurative (n) signs" (Haftmann, p. 39). Uhlmann defined his "direct steel sculpture" in contrast to volume sculptures that are cast in bronze. The increasingly abstract sculptures have names such as "Andante con moto "(LB 71) or" Spherical Sculpture "(LB 78). Uhlmann's dynamic forms solidified in the 1950s. He now cut elements from steel plates and bent them into organically connotated spatial signs that were more decisive than the weightless wire sculptures as figures and space signs symbolize movement in combination with movement.

Spiral, carousel, fetish (1953-1960)

Hans-Uhlmann-Plastik at Hansaplatz in Berlin

In the 1950s, Uhlmann's formal vocabulary expanded steadily. In addition to the upward or in all directions striving spatial signs, there was the motif of the swinging spiral and - as a representative of the centrifugal force - a highly abstracted shape of a carousel. Commissioned work often inspired the sculptor to come up with new solutions. In 1954 he created "Concerto" (LB 110) a sculpture for the Berlin Conservatory that combined aspiring, dance-like moments with the spiral motif and rhythmically staggered lines. According to Haftmann, the artist associated "the rustling of sounds" (Haftmann, p. 45) with the interwoven forms. Not only the context, but also the spatial situation given in art-in-architecture projects challenged Uhlmann to find solutions that correspond to the architecture. He called his spatial sculpture for the library building of the University of Freiburg (WVZ 138) hanging in a staircase "floating sculpture". It also symbolizes movement, but not directed, but circling in itself. Using rods and circular disks, Uhlmann constructed a constellation of rhythmic vibrations that seem to spread through space. In 1958/59 a series of black-colored steel sculptures with the title "Fetish" (LB 161, 163, 172, 176, 177) followed.

Folding and Unfolding, Towers and Columns (1954–1972)

Deutsche Oper Berlin, street front Bismarckstrasse

Uhlmann took up many of the motifs developed over the decades, such as the fetish (sculpture for the Beethovenhalle Bonn (LB 183)). The motif of folding and unfolding (sculpture for the Deutsche Oper Berlin, LB 191) also accompanied the artist into his later work. (Note: Roters, p. 7) At the end of the 1950s, the shape of the tower and a structured core, a “tower chamber” (Haftmann) were added. In the mid-1960s, Uhlmann experimented with pyramid shapes (e.g. "Large Triangle", Museum Ludwig, Cologne). Its towers look outwards (tower with all-round radiation, LB 241), its columns inwards (square column / LB 235, pentagonal column, LB 239). Uhlmann extended the core zone of the columns, which had been built since 1970, to the entire height of the sculpture, so that it was completely visible, but nevertheless hid itself through the labyrinthine structure. Eberhard Roters: "It becomes obvious what the artist is about, the sculptural counter-image of the correspondence that is the basic constant of all human experience, the interplay between inside and outside, embodied in the contrasting tensions between shell and core." (Roters, p . 10)

drawing

In 1990 the Berlinische Galerie - Museum for Modern Art, Photography and Architecture together with the Wilhelm-Lehmbruck-Museum Duisburg published the catalog raisonné (WVZ) of the drawings by Hans Uhlmann. It comprises 1125 pencil and ink drawings, watercolors and large-format chalk drawings. Hans Uhlmann on his drawings: "For me they are a second, equal means of expression, and they constantly accompany my sculptural work." "(Quoted from: Brockhaus / Merkert, p. 6)

Heads, landscapes, draft drawings for sculptures (1929–1945)

In 1929 Uhlmann drew u. a. Motifs from Paris, Brittany and Marseille (CR 1–9). The execution of the sheets is characterized by a firm, quick and expressive style. This was followed by larger chest pieces and head studies. During his imprisonment in Tegel from 1934–1935, he made portrait sketches of fellow inmates and drafts for wire sculptures. In 1937 a geometrically-constructive series of sculpture designs followed (WVZ 84–89).

Dance, stage, metamorphosis (1945–1950)

Individual drawings from 1945–1950 can be directly associated with sculptures. Mostly, however, it is a matter of free design of a topic. For Uhlmann, a drawing had to have "the quality of what is written on it". (Hans Uhlmann: About my drawing, quoted from: Brockhaus / Merkert, p. 53) The numerous ink drawings and watercolors of the late 1940s often show highly abstract, dancing figures - mostly implemented as a compact, moving form on a stage-like level. Since 1950 he began to work more and more with synthetic chalk, and the paper formats he used became larger.

Constructive drawings, oscillograms (1957–1964)

At the end of the 1950s, Uhlmann broke away from the figure in his drawings. His non-representational sheets, mostly executed in black chalk, are made up of dynamic, geometric shapes (WVZ 822). Reduced to lines and surfaces, his drawings seem to correspond to constantly changing fields of force. This also applies to his "oscillograms", intersecting line swings that appear to be anchored by black areas on the sheet surface.

Crystalline and organic forms (1960–1967)

Uhlmann's late work is characterized by crystalline and organic forms. The artist continued to work with black chalk on paper in modified DIN A1 formats. The subject of transformation now sounds at the level of organic matter. Occasionally, fetish ciphers, schematized buds or leaf shapes mix with the non-representational structures and become part of tense pictorial spaces (WVZ 889, 995, 1115).

reception

After the artist's death in 1975, the Wilhelm-Lehmbruck-Museum Duisburg (1977) and the Berlinische Galerie (1988) each set up a room with works by Uhlmann to commemorate the artist's work. However, this could not be maintained when the institutes were realigned.

Exhibitions (selection)

Solo exhibitions

  • 1930 Fritz Gurlitt Gallery, Berlin
  • 1945 Gerd Rosen Gallery, Berlin
  • 1948 drawings and gouaches, Galerie Schüler, Berlin
  • 1950 Galerie Franz, Berlin
  • 1950 Galerie Franke, Munich
  • 1951 Hans Uhlmann - drawings and sculptures, Galerie Bremer, Berlin
  • 1955 Galerie Bremer, Berlin
  • 1959 Galerie Springer , Berlin and Graphisches Kabinett, Dr. Hanna Griesebach, Heidelberg
  • 1960 Kunsthalle Bremen
  • 1960 Art and Museum Association Wuppertal
  • 1965 Galerie Franke, Munich
  • 1965 Galerie Schüler , Berlin
  • 1966 Wolfsburg cultural center
  • 1967 Strecker Gallery, Berlin
  • 1968 Hans Uhlmann, retrospective, Akademie der Künste (Berlin)
  • 1978 Brusberg Gallery , Hanover
  • 1990 Construction and rhythm, watercolors and drawings by Hans Uhlmann (1900–1975), Wilhelm-Lehmbruck-Museum and Berlinische Galerie
  • 1998 Galerie Brusberg, Berlin (with EW Nay)
  • 2003 Gallery Brusberg, Berlin (with W. Heldt)
  • 2013 Sculptures and Drawings, Haas Gallery, Berlin
  • 2017 Galerie Brusberg, Berlin (with his son Hans-Joachim Uhlmann)

Group exhibitions

  • 1945 After 12 years - anti-fascist painters and sculptors exhibit, Volksbildungsamt Steglitz, Kamillenstraße 4
  • 1945 Sculptures and sculptural drawings, Gerd Rosen Gallery , Berlin
  • 1946 Fantastenausstellung (among others with Hannah Höch ), Galerie Gerd Rosen, Berlin
  • 1946 Sculpture and sculptural drawings of our time, Galerie Franz, Berlin
  • 1948 Zone 5, Karl Hartung , Jeanne Mammen , Hans Thiemann , Heinz Trökes , Hans Uhlmann, Mac Zimmermann , Galerie Franz, Berlin
  • 1949 artist of the Berliner Neue Gruppe, Galerie Springer, Berlin
  • 1950 Berliner Neue Gruppe 1950, Charlottenburg Palace, followed by a traveling exhibition through West Germany
  • 1951 São Paulo Biennial , Brazil
  • 1952 Georg Meistermann , EW Nay , Hans Uhlmann, Galerie Ferdinand Möller, Cologne
  • 1953 Hans Uhlmann, Theodor Werner , Woty Werner , Kestner Society, Hanover
  • 1954 27th Venice Biennale
  • 1954 Milan Triennial
  • 1954 Duitse Kunst na 1945, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam
  • 1955 The New Decade, 22 European Painters and Sculptors. The Museum of Modern Art, New York
  • 1955 documenta 1 , Kassel
  • 1957 German Art of the 20th Century, The Museum of Modern Art, New York
  • 1958 Openluchtmuseum Middelheim, Antwerp
  • 1959 documenta II ., Kassel
  • 1964 documenta III ., Kassel
  • 1967 20th Century Art in Berlin, The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
  • 1969 The First International Exhibition of Modern Sculpture. The Hakone Open Air Museum, Tokyo
  • 1977 documenta 6 , Kassel
  • 1977 Sculpture in Münster, Westphalian State Museum, Münster
  • 1981 Western art. German art since 1939. An exhibition by the Cologne museums, Cologne
  • 1985 German Art in the 20th Century, Royal Academy of Arts, London
  • 1989 time signal. Fine arts in North Rhine-Westphalia, an exhibition by the state government of North Rhine-Westphalia, Bonn, Leipzig, Duisburg
  • 1996 Nay - Uhlmann - Antes - Stöhrer , Orangery Reinz, Cologne
  • 2010 "Figur Traumzeichen", new acquisitions and selected works by
  • Artists from the inventory, Galerie Brusberg, Berlin
  • 2014 The early years: British and German art after 1945, Sprengel Museum Hannover
  • 2015–2017 Portrait Berlin: Artistic Positions of Post-War Modernism in Berlin 1945–1955, Kunsthaus Dahlem, Berlin
  • 2015/16 The Black Years, Stories from a Collection. 1933-1945. Hamburger Bahnhof, Museum of the Present, Berlin

Works

Hans Uhlmann: untitled (1959) - Bonn , Beethovenhalle
Tower with all-round appearance , in front of the University of Tübingen

Sculptures

Sculptures in public space (selection)

Sculptures in museums (selection)

  • Kopf (1935), National Gallery, State Museums of Prussian Cultural Heritage, Berlin, LB 4
  • Vogel (1947), Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe, LB 53
  • Steel sculpture (1953), Will Grohmann Archive, Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, LB 105
  • Rising (1954), Kaiser Wilhelm Museum Krefeld, LB 117
  • Fetish (1955), Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf, LB 125
  • Floating sculpture (1956), National Gallery, State Museums of Prussian Cultural Heritage, Berlin, LB 132
  • Draft for the sculpture in front of the Technical Inspection Office in Frankfurt / Main (1957), Kunsthalle Bremen, LB 145
  • Large Rondo (1958/59), Hamburger Kunsthalle, LB 168
  • Small Tower (1st version), (1959), Israel Museum, Jerusalem, LB 171
  • Fetish (1959), Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Munich
  • Great Tower (1960), National Gallery, State Museums of Prussian Cultural Heritage, Berlin, LB 189
  • Large triangle (1964), Walraff-Richartz-Museum, Cologne, LB 213

drawing

  • Portfolio "heads, plaits and brushes made of wire designed by Hans Uhlmann"; Tegel 1934-35 (25 sheets), Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin; Further drawings by Uhlmann from all creative phases are in the holdings of the Kupferstichkabinett.
  • Untitled (blue figure), (1947), WVZ 192, Von der Heydt-Museum, Wuppertal
  • Untitled (1947), WVZ 226, Städtisches Kunstmuseum Bonn
  • Untitled (1950), WVZ 494, Graphic Collection of the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart
  • Untitled (1951), WVZ534, Folkwang Museum Essen
  • Untitled (masks), unmarked, WVZ 557, Museum des 20. Jahrhundert Wien
  • Untitled (1954), WVZ 622, Openluchtmuseum for Beeldhouwkunst Middelheim
  • Untitled (1958), WZZ 845, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Kassel
  • Untitled (1958), WVZ 850, State Graphic Collection Munich

Prices

student

literature

Catalog raisonnés

  • Hans Uhlmann, life and work, text by Werner Haftmann, oeuvre catalog of the sculptures by Ursula Lehmann-Brockhaus, series of publications by the Academy of Arts, Vol. 11, Gebr. Mann Verlag, Berlin 1975
  • Hans Uhlmann, watercolors and drawings (ed. Christoph Brockhaus, Jörn Merkert) with catalog raisonné, edited by Carmela Thiele, 1990, Berlinische Galerie; Texts by Christoph Brockhaus, Jörn Merkert, Christian Schneegass, Carmela Thiele

Exhibition catalogs and articles (selection)

  • Hans Uhlmann, Art and Museum Association Wuppertal, 1960, text: Seiler
  • Geiger, Pfahler, Uhlmann, Westfälischer Kunstverein Münster, 1965 (Texts: Carl Bänfer, Dieter Honisch)
  • Uhlmann room, Wilhelm Lehmbruck Museum Duisburg, 1977, texts by Siegfried Salzmann, Hans Uhlmann
  • Werner Heldt - Hans Uhlmann, 20 years Brusberg Berlin, 2003, texts: Ulrike Nürnberger, Jörn Merkert exhibition catalog (PDF, 50 pages, 7.3 MB). Berliner Dialoge , Galerie Brusberg, Berlin, January 25 to March 29, 2005.
  • Hans Uhlmann, "Engineer of plastic form", Galerie Haas AG, Zurich, 2012, texts: Erika Költzsch, Hans Uhlmann
  • Hans Uhlmann, sculptures and drawings, Galerie Michael Haas, 1913, text: Erika Költzsch
  • Hans Uhlmann, drawings, National Gallery Berlin, State Museums of Prussian Cultural Heritage, texts: Dieter Honisch, Angela Schneider
  • Will Grohmann, The Constructive and the Imaginary. On the steel sculptures and drawings by Hans Uhlmann, in: Quadrum19, Brussels 1956
  • Eberhard Roters, Hans Uhlmann - "The visible space of the crowd", in: Artists, Critical Lexicon of Contemporary Art, Issue 6, 1989

Web links

Commons : Hans Uhlmann  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Fritz Eschen . ( deutschefotothek.de [accessed January 15, 2020]).
  2. Deutschlandfunk.de , Das Feature , April 21, 2015, Carmela Thiele: In the cage. Hans Uhlmann's notes during his imprisonment in 1934/35
  3. brusbergfineart.com: Vita Hans Uhlmann (p. 11) (PDF file; accessed on January 8, 2016)
  4. kuenstlerbund.de: Full members of the Deutscher Künstlerbund since it was founded in 1903 / Uhlmann, Hans ( Memento of the original from March 4, 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 on January 8, 2016)  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.kuenstlerbund.de
  5. Akademie der Künste , Series Volume 11
  6. ^ Attempto series of publications of the University of Tübingen, Volume 61/62 of 1 977
  7. clio-online.de: Abstract art as an instrument of the Cold War of Cultures (accessed on January 8, 2016)
  8. ^ Cornelius Prize 1960: Prof. Günter Grote (painter), Düsseldorf; Prof. Hans Uhlmann (sculptor), Berlin , in the administrative report of the state capital Düsseldorf from April 1, 1959 to December 31, 1960, p. 154
  9. ^ Catalog for the exhibition Hans Uhlmann, Galerie Michael Haas, Berlin 2013