Heinz Klein-Arendt

Sitting girl , 1968, small bronze sculpture, private collection

Heinrich "Heinz" Klein-Arendt (born June 23, 1916 in Cologne ; † July 15, 2005 in Bergheim - Oberaussem ) was a German sculptor . In addition to his small sculptures , he was best known in the 1950s and 1960s for various works in public spaces.

Life

Career

Heinrich "Heinz" Klein-Arendt was raised by his older brother, who had to replace his father. He became interested in art, literature and music at an early age and was also active in athletics . In his later artistic work, he often derived figure positions from athletic, especially gymnastic movement sequences.

After graduating from high school, he had to do his compulsory time in the Reich Labor Service and then do his military service , which coincided with the beginning of the Second World War . From 1938 to 1945 he was a soldier in the Wehrmacht . Due to a war wound, he was given study leave in Königsberg , where he studied from 1941 to 1942 at the art academy there with Professor Hans Wissel . In the further course of the war, Klein-Arendt was wounded several times and lost his left eye, which severely impaired spatial vision , which is important for a sculptor .

After the war ended, Klein-Arendt initially trained as a stonemason in Cologne . From 1947 to 1952 he studied sculpture at the State Art Academy in Düsseldorf under Professor Josef "Sepp" Mages . His fellow students in Mages' sculpting class included Günter Grass and Anneliese Langenbach . Grass later fondly remembered Klein-Arendt, who had brought him closer to classical music. In his 2006 autobiography When Skinning the Onion , the Nobel laureate for literature Grass gave a literary memorial to the "war veteran with a glass eye", who had the habit of whistling "day after day themes and motifs from all nine Beethoven symphonies, as well as piano concerts" wrote in summary: "This is how I casually came to musical education".

At Mages, Klein-Arendt created women with archaic severity, which became groundbreaking for his figurative work. The human figure, mostly as a nude , remained the dominant theme for him. Klein-Arendt later said, "Mages made him see".

Act

The four Haimons children , 1969, group of figures made of bronze on a stone plinth (owned by the City of Cologne, installed in front of the Geilenkircher Strasse primary school in Cologne-Braunsfeld)

Since the mid-1950s, Klein-Arendt worked as a freelance sculptor. He received a number of government contracts, for example, as competition prizes for sundials that before schools in Duisburg were set up and Cologne, as well as sculptures and statues to the artistic design of public places.

His outstanding works include, among others, the following works: In front of the government building in Coesfeld, the larger-than-life figure stele Mothers with Children (1962), which Klein-Arendt created as a “symbol of the guardian”; In front of the Geilenkircher Strasse school in Cologne-Braunsfeld, the bronze group of figures Die vier Haimonskinder (1969) with characters from the Carolingian saga, the Haimonskinder saga - the “miracle stallion” Bayard , who carries the four Haimonskids into freedom, saw Klein-Arendt as "Symbol of the school that leads the developing into life"; and on Hubert-Rheinfeld-Platz in Bergheim's inner city the bronze group of figures In Expectation of the Father (1981), in which Klein-Arendt took up the theme of “Mother with Children” again.

Klein-Arendt dealt with the entire range of pictorial possibilities, and the formats of his sculptures and sculptures range from small sculptures in “finger size” to larger than life sizes for figures and groups of figures. Shaped by his traumatic war experiences, he always created harmonizing forms. In addition to “striving for material justice ”, he was primarily looking for “the cohesion of form”.

He first worked with natural stone and since the 1960s he turned more and more to bronze , but also dealt with other materials such as clay, plasticine, plaster of paris and copper. In addition to the creation of sculptures and sculptures, his artistic interest was in writing .

Since he refused the commercial "art business", he occasionally accepted orders for the artistic design of grave steles and gravestone inscriptions in order to secure a living for himself and his family. Gravestones designed by him were exhibited at the Federal Garden Show in Cologne in 1957 and can be found in various cemeteries in Cologne and the surrounding area.

Calligraphic work 2003

In 1971 he and his family moved from Cologne to Bergheim - Oberaussem . In addition to his sculptural work, he was a lecturer at the Anton-Heinen-Haus in Bergheim from 1973 to 1989, giving the courses “Sculpture, Sculpture and Sculpture” and “Artistic Design, Drawing and Painting”. In 1980 he took over the artistic design of seven church windows of the Protestant Church of the Redeemer in Bergheim- Niederaußem , where he designed two windows with the names of the evangelists and a continuous grain motif for five windows . In the last years of his life he occupied himself with calligraphic work.

Heinrich "Heinz" Klein-Arendt died at the age of 89. Klein-Arendt was no longer able to complete his last commission, a bronze plaque with an inscription reminding of earlier stays by his fellow student Günter Grass in the then still independent municipality of Oberaussem. After the Second World War, the writer Günter Grass lived for a short time in Oberaussem with his parents, who had settled there after their expulsion , and later often visited them there. In his world-famous novel Die Blechtrommel , published in 1959, Grass dealt with the impressive view from the Oberaussem cemetery onto the "hissing, always-ready to explode Fortuna Nord power station ". The bronze plaque was completed by another metal sculptor based on Klein-Arendt's design and attached to the cemetery wall in early 2006.

family

Heinrich Klein-Arendt was married and had two sons. His son Reinhard Klein-Arendt (* 1959) teaches as a private lecturer at the Institute for African Studies at the University of Cologne and is co-owner of a science consulting company.

Honors

The memorial plaque inaugurated at the beginning of 2006 to commemorate Günter Grass' previous stays in Bergheim- Oberaussem was provided with the following addition by the initiator, the Oberaussem district forum , and the donor, RWE Power AG Kraftwerke Fortuna / Oberaußem :

"IN MEMORY OF HEINZ KLEIN-ARENDT"

Also, found in his memory in early 2007 in Bergheim- Niederaußem the art exhibition "Heinrich Klein-Arendt. What is man that you think of him? ”Instead. Both in the Catholic Church of St. Paul and in the Protestant Church of the Redeemer, whose church window Klein-Arendt designed in 1980, a number of his small sculptures and other works from different creative periods were exhibited. This was accompanied by several events and guided tours of exhibitions in the two churches.

Quote

“The work of Klein-Arendt is to be seen against the background of this will to the almost universal quality of harmony; because it is not spectacular - but it can be seen. "

- Peter Josef Tange : The sculptor Heinrich Klein-Arendt . Rheinisches Museumamt , Cologne 1980.

Works (selection)

Brigitte , 1979, small bronze sculpture (privately owned)

Tünnes and Schäl , around 1990, group of small sculptures made of bronze (privately owned)

Sculptures and sculptures in public space

• 1955: Sundial , chased copper with marble mosaic, in front of the Duisburg-Wanheim school
• 1957: Sundial , chased copper, in front of the Humboldt Gymnasium in Cologne
• 1962: "Mother with children" , figural stele made of shell limestone, in front of the authorities in Coesfeld
• 1969: "The four Haimons children" , a group of figures made of bronze on a stone plinth, in front of the Geilenkircher Strasse school in Cologne-Braunsfeld
• 1981: "In expectation of the father" , group of figures made of bronze, Hubert-Rheinfeld-Platz in Bergheim

Small-format sculptures and sculptures

• 1951: Kneeling , bronze, 34 cm
• 1952: Three girls , bronze relief, 11 cm
• 1953: Crouching white Carrara marble
• 1955: Melitta , bronze, 47 cm
• 1959: runner , relief
• 1960: girl on the bench , bronze
• 1960: Kneeling (Junta) , bronze, 21 cm
• 1961: Small standing woman , bronze, 24 cm
• 1964: Trude , bronze, 41 cm
• 1965: In the shower , Belgian granite, 85 cm
• 1966: Crouching , diabase, 21 cm
• 1968: Sitting girl , bronze
• 1979: Brigitte , bronze
• Around 1990: Tünnes and Schäl , small sculpture group of figures made of bronze (based on the two legendary figures Tünnes and Schäl from the Hänneschen puppet theater in Cologne)

Artistic tomb designs

• 1956: 2 grave steles , diabase, initially set up at the Cologne-Deutz cemetery during the Federal Garden Show in Cologne in 1957, since then at the Cologne-Ehrenfeld cemetery
• 1966: Row stones with inscriptions , shell limestone, in the Melaten cemetery in Cologne

Church window

• 1980: 2 stained glass windows, with the names of the evangelists , Church of the Redeemer in Niederaussem
• 1980: 5 stained glass windows, with a continuous ear motif , Church of the Redeemer in Niederaussem

Exhibitions (selection)

• 1953: Annual Exhibition of Cologne Artists 1953 , Kölnischer Kunstverein
• 1953: Big 1953 Christmas exhibition of the visual artists of Rhineland and Westphalia , Kunstpalast Düsseldorf
• 1959: Winter exhibition of the visual artists of Rhineland and Westphalia , Kunstpalast Düsseldorf
• 1960: Annual exhibition 1960 , Kölnischer Kunstverein
• 1960/1961: 10th winter exhibition of the visual artists of Rhineland and Westphalia , Kunstpalast Düsseldorf
• 1980: The sculptor Heinrich Klein-Arendt , art exhibition of the city of Bergheim in the Bergheim city hall (accompanying document by Peter J. Tange, Rheinisches Museumamt)

literature

• Karl Baur-Callwey (editor-in-chief): The sculptor Heinz Klein-Arendt . In: Steinmetz + Sculptor . September 1977 edition, 93rd volume, Callwey Verlag , Munich, ISSN  0039-1034 , pp. 614–618.
• Peter J. Tange: The sculptor Heinrich Klein-Arendt . Rheinisches Museumamt, Cologne 1980, without ISBN. (Accompanying booklet to the art exhibition of the city of Bergheim in the Bergheim city hall from August 24 to September 7, 1980)
• Hartmut Kress: Renewal of the seven remaining church windows . In: Evangelical Church Community Bedburg-Niederaußem-Glessen (Hrsg.): All around. 50 years of the Church of the Redeemer in Niederaussem. 1956-2006 . Bedburg 2006, without ISBN, p. 20.
• Christoph Tebbe: The artistically designed windows . In: Evangelical Church Community Bedburg-Niederaußem-Glessen (Hrsg.): All around. 50 years of the Church of the Redeemer in Niederaussem. 1956-2006 . Bedburg 2006, without ISBN, p. 22.
• Heinz Klein-Arendt: "I saw the ears of corn as a symbol of transience". Heinz Klein-Arendt (1916–2005) on his church window in the Erlöserkirche . In: Evangelical Church Community Bedburg-Niederaußem-Glessen (Hrsg.): All around. 50 years of the Church of the Redeemer in Niederaussem. 1956-2006 . Bedburg 2006, without ISBN, pp. 28–31. (Interview by: Christoph Tebbe)

Web links

Commons : Heinz Klein-Arendt  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Information on Heinrich Klein-Arendt ( memento from February 12, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ) at the Oberaussem district forum

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Reinhard Klein-Arendt: Explanations on the biography of Heinrich Klein-Arendt. (No longer available online.) Oberaußem district forum, February 23, 2007, formerly in the original ; accessed on October 18, 2009 (report by son Reinhard Klein-Arendt at an exhibition opening).  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.    
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Peter J. Tange: The sculptor Heinrich Klein-Arendt . Rheinisches Museumamt, Cologne 1980, without ISBN. (Accompanying booklet to the art exhibition of the city of Bergheim in the Bergheim city hall from August 24 to September 7, 1980)
3. ^ ^{A b c d e} Karl Baur-Callwey (Editor-in-Chief): The sculptor Heinz Klein-Arendt . In: Steinmetz + Sculptor . Edition September 1977, Callwey Verlag, Munich, p. 614.
4. ^ Günter Grass: When peeling the onion . 1st edition, Steidl-Verlag, Göttingen 2006, ISBN 3-86521-330-8 , pp. 313-314. (Autobiography)
5. ^ Karl Baur-Callwey (editor-in-chief): The sculptor Heinz Klein-Arendt . In: Steinmetz + Sculptor . Edition September 1977, Callwey Verlag, Munich, pp. 614, 618.
6. ↑ Engelbert Broich: Big anniversary year: 50 years Church of the Redeemer in Bergheim-Niederaußem >> The windows. (No longer available online.) Evangelical Church Association Cologne and Region, July 25, 2006, archived from the original on March 4, 2016 ; Retrieved October 18, 2009 . 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.  
7. ↑ ^{a b} Memory of Günter Grass. (No longer available online.) Oberaussem district forum, October 20, 2005, archived from the original on March 31, 2009 ; Retrieved October 18, 2009 . 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.  
8. ^ Exhibition “Heinrich Klein-Arendt. What is man that you remember? ” (No longer available online.) Catholic Church of St. Paul, Evangelical Church of the Redeemer, Bergheim-Niederaussem, archived from the original on June 8, 2008 ; accessed on October 18, 2009 (art exhibition from February 23 to March 11, 2007). 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.