Heinz Tetzner

Heinz Tetzner (* 8. March 1920 in Gersdorf ; † 20th August 2007 ) was a German painter and graphic artist of Expressionism .

Heinz Tetzner, 2006

biography

Heinz Tetzner was born in the community of Gersdorf in Saxony and lived there until his death. After completing his apprenticeship as a draftsman, he began his military service in 1939, but in 1941 he attended the art academy in Königsberg as a guest student with Alfred Particle . The rest he taught self-taught at. He was particularly taken with the French painter Paul Cézanne .

From 1944, Heinz Tetzner was a prisoner of war in southern France . Because of the beautiful landscape there, he was more intensively involved with art; drawings and first watercolors were created . After his release from captivity in 1946, he studied at the University of Construction and Fine Arts in Weimar until 1950 .

During this time he got to know the painters Max Pechstein , Erich Heckel and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff , whose works had a strong influence on him. “That was food for me, because they did something that interested me and confirmed my conception of art - because everyone painted and drew in expressionist realism,” Heinz Tetzner recalled. Even Pablo Picasso has influenced him and his way to look behind the facade. "With a portrait, I always try to look behind the facade, explain the background and pay attention to the psychological." That is why Heinz Tetzner painted expressionistically. To a certain extent, landscapes were also portraits for him.

Tetzner had his first personal exhibition in Weimar in 1949 on the occasion of the Goethe year. From 1950 he was a master student of Professor Otto Herbig. The following year he married Charlotte Decker and first became an assistant and later a lecturer in color design and life drawing at the University of Construction and Fine Arts in Weimar. Since 1954 he has been working as a freelance painter and graphic artist in his home town of Gersdorf.

Just one year later he received the Max Pechstein Prize from the city of Zwickau . He was also accepted into the Association of German Visual Artists. Tetzner received the art award of the Karl-Marx-Stadt district in 1956/57. In 1960 the Gersdorfer was appointed lecturer at the University of Applied Arts in Schneeberg .

In 1976 there was a first comprehensive personal exhibition in the Municipal Museum in Karl-Marx-Stadt. In 1987 he received the Max Pechstein Prize of the city of Zwickau for the second time. A first draft of a partial directory of his works from 1940 to 1987 was carried out from 1988 to 1990 by the District Art Center Karl-Marx-Stadt. In 1990, a retrospective took place in the Chemnitz art collections on the occasion of Heinz Tetzner's 70th birthday .

Again and again the pensioner was drawn to the south of France, especially to Provence , from whose landscapes he made watercolors, oil paintings and drawings. In 1995 his home town of Gersdorf made him an honorary citizen, and one year later he received the graphics prize from the Neue Sächsische Galerie Chemnitz. He exhibited twice between 1996 and 1998 in the “Montserrat” gallery in New York. In 1999 Heinz Tetzner received the Federal Cross of Merit, First Class.

On his 80th birthday in 2000, a big ceremony took place in Gersdorf. Tetzner received the honorary award of South West Saxony and the graphic award "100 selected graphics 2000". In the following year, the Tetzner Museum Gersdorf opened in Gersdorf in the Hessenmühle, which has since shown changing exhibitions of works by the artist. On the occasion of his 85th birthday, a portrait bust of Heinz Tetzner by Konrad Hunger was placed in front of the Tetznermuseum.

Heinz Tetzner was - like his wife Charlotte, who had become a "Bible Researcher" during her imprisonment in Ravensbrück concentration camp in 1941 - a member of Jehovah's Witnesses . In the Kingdom Hall in Gersdorf, the local meeting place for Jehovah's Witnesses, he created a wall painting depicting Jesus Christ . This painting was covered with drywall during renovations in February 2017.

Even at an advanced age, Heinz Tetzner still worked in his studio, albeit differently than before. “Everything is more balanced. I think longer about what I want to paint or draw, but I also need more breaks. You can't put an engine under load from morning to evening, ”says Tetzner, who only painted oil paintings in summer when it was warm in his studio. “The little stove there doesn't warm enough in winter. If I can paint up to 90, then I'm very satisfied. ”That was Heinz Tetzner's goal, but also to paint better and better pictures. The harlequins were a recurring theme . “They are sad, even when they laugh, they always have two or more different faces. I find that very fascinating. "

Heinz Tetzner died on August 20, 2007 in his house in Gersdorf with his family after a long, serious illness.

Honors and prizes

• 1955: Award of the Max Pechstein Prize of the City of Zwickau for his painting Child playing the flute
• 1956: Art Prize of the Council of the Karl-Marx-Stadt District
• 1957: Art Prize of the Council of the Karl-Marx-Stadt District
• 1987: Renewed award of the Max Pechstein Prize of the City of Zwickau
• 1995: Honorary citizenship of the community of Gersdorf
• 1996: Graphic Prize of the Neue Sächsische Galerie Chemnitz on the occasion of the exhibition 100 Saxon Graphics
• 1999: Federal Cross of Merit 1st class for life's work
• 1999: Culture and Art Prize of the Free State of Saxony

Works in collections

• Berlin, New National Gallery
• Bernried, Buchheim Museum of Imagination
• Chemnitz, municipal art collections
• Chemnitz, New Saxon Gallery
• Dresden, New Masters Gallery
• Dresden, Kupferstichkabinett
• Gersdorf, Tetzner Museum
• Glauchau, Museum Schloss Hinterglauchau
• Langenfeld, Museum Frau von Stein
• Leipzig, Museum of Fine Arts Leipzig
• Moscow, Pushkin Museum
• Weimar, art collection
• Zwickau, Municipal Museum

Quotes

• “I have always understood art as art, never as an illustration of ideology, as a means of education or anything like that. They wanted art as an image, I see it as a symbol. "

• "Art is not a skillful copying of things, but a personal interpretation of what is seen and experienced."

literature

• Karl Brix: Heinz Tetzner . Verlag der Kunst, Dresden 1981
• Heinz Tetzner, painting - graphics, publisher: Neue Sächsische Galerie Chemnitz 1995
• Heinz Tetzner, painting and graphics, publisher: Kunstverein Plauen-Vogtland eV / Galerie im Malzhaus 1996
• Heinz Tetzner, drawings, watercolors, woodcuts, edited by Klaus Hebecker and Susanne Kühne, Bilderhaus Krämerbrücke Erfurt 1999
• Heinz Tetzner, drawings and lithographs, editor: Kunstraum Zwickauer Raum in cooperation with the art association of the city of Glauchau "art gluchowe" eV 2000
• Heinz Tetzner, watercolors from 1946 to 2001, published by the Neue Sächsische Galerie Chemnitz in 2002
• Heinz Tetzner, editor: Galerie 89 Munich o. J.
• Heinz Tetzner, I paint how I breathe ..., publisher: Gersdorf municipality with the Tetzner Museum (Siegfried Wagner and Monika Zscheppank) 2004
• Charlotte Tetzner (text) and Heinz Tetzner (illustrations): Frierende , editors: Klartext Verlagsges. 2004, ISBN 3-89861-345-3 ( information on work 1 information on work 2 )
• Heinz Tetzner: Geschrittenes - Das Druckgrafische Werk , edited by Hans Hesse and Elke Purpus 2006, ISBN 3-89861-616-9 ( information about the work )

Movie

• The painter Heinz Tetzner. A film portrait by Fritz Poppenberg , 2007

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Detlev Garbe: Between resistance and martyrdom. The Jehovah's Witnesses in the "Third Reich" , 3rd revised. Ed., Oldenbourg, Munich, 1997, p. 442f.

Web links

• Literature by and about Heinz Tetzner in the catalog of the German National Library
• Tetzner Museum Gersdorf