Hans Walter Kivelitz

Hans Walter Kivelitz (born March 9, 1927 in Munich ) is a German painter. He is a member of the artists ' association “Malkasten Düsseldorf” and the West German Werkbund.

Life

Hans Walter Kivelitz was born in Munich to parents from the Rhineland. His father, whom he describes as strict and loving, worked as a musician and music teacher in the Ruhr area. Kivelitz grew up there. After graduating from high school in 1946, he initially took up work as a mine and unskilled worker. From 1948 to 1953 Kivelitz studied first at the Werkkunstschule in Cologne, then at the Düsseldorf Art Academy and finally at the University of Cologne. Hans Walter Kivelitz has lived and worked in Düsseldorf since 1951. In 1953 he began teaching and worked at the Humboldt Gymnasium in Düsseldorf until 1989 .

As a formative element in his youth, Kivelitz names school and his parents' house as well as the Hitler Youth, to which everyone in his year was exposed. He attributes the self-described special quality of 'to resist', among other things, to the unconditional obedience of the Hitler Youth. He has continued to dislike that others could tell him something to this day. He also attributes painting to his own way, excluding superficial influences, to the fact that authorities - such as teachers, professors, etc. - provoke contradictions in him. He saw the academy as a pure teaching facility. He looked for his role models himself and mentions Albrecht Dürer, Michelangelo and Caspar David Friedrich for the youth and Max Beckmann, Paul Cézanne and Francisco Goya as those who joined later.

The distance to all forms of the art business meant that Kivelitz never joined a group and had to earn his living by teaching. However, he attaches great importance to his independence and considers himself a truly free painter.

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The painter Hans Walter Kivelitz predominantly prefers classic oil painting on large formats. His pictures show landscapes, groups of people, large portraits and flowers. In addition, his work also deals with the transience of life: slaughtered animals, skulls and dead fish. Drawing is very important to Kivelitz. The precise recording of the things you learn is very important to him. Etching is a technique that he takes up again and again. Though he doesn't see himself as a great technician. He regards etching as a prerequisite and not an end in itself.

The subjects of his painting are not shaped by the spectacular, current, fashionable or avant-garde, but everything he paints is based on sensual encounters and impressions that touch him very personally. There is nothing allegorical or mythical in Kivelitz's pictures. Rather, they are intensive discussions with its environment, nature and people. A translation of reality into the laws of painting and drawing.

The themes of his painting can be roughly classified into three main categories. First of all, there are the pictures with people, which can be divided into two groups: First, the individual portraits, which tend to depict personalities, and second, the group of people pictures, which tend to show types. The second large area, the landscape pictures, is characterized by the experience of perception that is transferred to the viewer. First and foremost, Mediterranean landscapes can be found here. The third large field are pictures of slaughtered and dead animals. They do not satisfy voyeurism, but are sober references to the eternal cycle of life and death. The starting point of his work is always eye-to-eye meetings. The painter Kivelitz uses his “painter's diary” for this. These are sketchbooks in which he records what he encounters and touches, which later might become a picture. In all the pictures the colors are rather muted and calm. There are no effects, nothing that could distract from the essence of things. However, Kivelitz rejects the accusation of the 'colored coward'. Since he uses what he has seen as the starting point for his painting, there would naturally be a certain scarcity or sparse color.

Exhibitions (selection)

• August 17 - October 17, 2002 - Painter's diary, drawings and sketches. Museum waiting room, Lützkampen.
• January 16 - April 22, 2007 - Hans Walter Kivelitz, Malkasten Artists' Association , Düsseldorf.
• March 11, 2007 - "Vernissage HW Kivelitz"; for his 80th birthday, Düsseldorf-Derendorf.

literature

• Hans Walter Kivelitz: Hans Walter Kivelitz, pictures 1967 - 2002 . Self-published catalog, Düsseldorf.

Web links

• Opening exhibition of the waiting room museum and art in the valley with Kivelitz's painter's diary 2002
• The 2007 exhibition at the Malkasten Artists' Association, Düsseldorf, at www.malkasten.org
• The catalog Hans Walter Kivelitz, pictures 1967 - 2002 with contributions by Dr. Tobias Kaufhold, Jeannette Petersen and Kivelitz themselves
• The 2007 exhibition at the Malkasten Artists' Association, Düsseldorf
• Brief portrait of the painter's diary exhibition in 2002 in the Museum wArtehalle