Helmut Hahn (artist)

Helmut Hahn (born February 4, 1928 in Mönchengladbach ; † February 16, 2017 in Korschenbroich ) was a German painter, graphic artist, photographer, textile artist and university professor. Hahn was appointed professor for life by the Niederrhein University of Applied Sciences in Krefeld in 1982.

Life

In 1945, Helmut Hahn began his training with an internship as an assistant in stage and costume design at the Mönchengladbach-Rheydt municipal theaters. At this time, the first independent designs were already emerging. In 1948 he began his studies at the Düsseldorf Art Academy with Werner Heuser , Walter von Wecus and Otto Coester . On leave of absence from the academy, from 1949 he was taught print design at the textile engineering school in Krefeld by Elisabeth Kadow . A year later he switched to the Werkkunstschule Wuppertal to study writing and typography with Heinrich Wehmeier.

In 1953 he received his first orders from the advertising graphics industry from the Feldhaus company in Neuss. From 1955 he attended the school for arts and crafts in Saarbrücken for a year, where he studied photography with Otto Steinert . After completing his training, many orders for wallpaper designs and wall designs followed. In addition, he worked as a photographer for industry and advertising and pursued free artistic work with a wide variety of expression (photography, drawing or gouache ). Since 1970 he has been teaching as a professor of textile design at the Niederrhein University of Applied Sciences in Krefeld . In order to meet the formal requirements, he resumed studies at the Düsseldorf Art Academy in 1972 , which he successfully completed in 1974 as a master student of Prof. Rolf Sackenheim . In 1982 he was appointed professor for life by the Niederrhein Krefeld University of Applied Sciences . In 1985 he was awarded the State Prize of North Rhine-Westphalia in the field of textiles.

Connected to the Lower Rhine region, Hahn has been living secluded in his house in Korschenbroich in recent years . In all of his works, but especially in his photographs, his personal relationship to the Lower Rhine becomes clear. The region with its special landscape is not only reflected in the motifs of his oeuvre, but also in the wish that his works are also housed in collections after his death to which he had a local and personal connection. Shortly before his death on February 16, 2017, Hahn had bequeathed around 250 works on paper from the years 2013 to 2016 to the Clemens Sels Museum Neuss in his will as a will .

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During his life Hahn showed a wide range of interests in different artistic media and modes of expression. His work groups include graphics (drawings, watercolors, gouaches, etchings), paintings on canvas (acrylic and oil paint), textile works, wall hangings, wallpaper designs, stage sets, commercial graphics, collages and photographs (color and black and white). This testifies to a broad spectrum of aesthetic expressions to which Hahn devoted himself in different phases of his life. Hahn always worked in series in which he developed and tried out different variations.

Although Hahn was able to fall back on a broad repertoire of creative expression possibilities, the mastery and representation of his environment in abstract forms, signs and surfaces took place mainly in the drawing. In his hatching, lines or color contrasts, abstract landscapes, fields, forests or horizons can be guessed at.

Honors and prizes

1985 State Prize of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia in the field of textiles

Solo exhibitions (selection)

1953: Museum of the City of Mönchengladbach (gouaches - photographs)
1963: Museum of the City of Mönchengladbach (gouaches)
1964: Von der Heydt-Museum, Wuppertal (studio) (gouaches - drawings)
1978: Mönchengladbach Municipal Museum - Rheydt Castle (photographs)
1978: District Museum Zons (photographs)
1978: Städtische Galerie Moers - Peschkenhaus (gouaches - drawings - photographs)
1983: Mönchengladbach Municipal Museum - Rheydt Castle (wall hangings - drawings)
1983: Osnabrück Museum of Cultural History (wall hangings - drawings)
1983: District Museum Zons (wall hangings - drawings)
1984: City Gallery Moers - Peschkenhaus (object boxes)
1988: District museum Zons (object branches - drawings - photographs)
1991: Städtische Galerie Meerbusch "Game and Reality - on the 100th birthday of Max Ernst" (object boxes - drawings - photographs - text contributions)
1993: City of Korschenbroich (photographs)
1993: District museum Zons (textile works - drawings)
1998: District Museum Zons (drawings)
2000: Clemens Sels Museum Neuss "Helmut Hahn - Über-Schreiben. Late works from 1989 to 2000 from the property of the Clemens Sels Museum"
2008: District Museum Zons "Greece. Photographs. Selection from the collection of the Museum Folkwang - Essen"
2017: Clemens Sels Museum Neuss "Line - Surface - Color. Helmut Hahn: The unknown late work"
2018: District Museum Zons "Memory runs backwards. Helmut Hahn. From stage designer to textile artist."

Literature (selection)

Helmut Hahn, Stones in Greece, in: "DU" No. 256, June 1962, Zurich 1962, pp. 12-26
Exhibition cat. Helmut Hahn "A matter of opinion - Photographs in the soft image of Rheydt Castle", Rheydt Castle Museum, Mönchengladbach 1978
Exhibition cat. Helmut Hahn, 1978–1982 "Wall hangings", Rheydt Castle City Museum, Mönchengladbach, Osnabrück Cultural History Museum, Zons District Museum 1983, ISBN 392536935X

Exhibition cat. Helmut Hahn, "Wall hangings and drawings", District Museum Zons, Dormagen 1988

Adam C. Oellers, Rolf Sachsse "Structure and gesture: informal painting and subjective photography in the German art of the 50s" Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum Aachen 1988

Exhibition cat. "Photographic portraits and documents on the 100th birthday of Max Ernst", City of Brühl, Cologne 1991, ISBN 3775735097

Exhibition cat. Helmut Hahn, "Play and Reality for Max Ernst's 100th Birthday", Städtische Galerie Meerbusch, Mönchengladbach 1991

Herbert Brinkmann, Dirk Hund "Studio visits. 22 artists in the Neuss district" 1992

Helmut Hahn and Rolf Sachse, "Places of Seeing, Planted Spaces Korschenbroich", ed. v. the city of Korschenbroich, Neuss 1993

Helene Blum-Spicker, Helmut Hahn, "Textile Art - Textile Art", Helmut Hahn Collection, Neuss District - Museum Zons, Catalog raisonné, Stuttgart 1995

Exhibition cat. 7th Quilt Biennale 1997, Textile Museum Max Berk, Heidelberg, Heidelberg 1997

Klaus Honnef, Rolf Sachse and Karin Thomas, "German photography. Power of a medium 1870–1970", Cologne 1997/1999, ISBN 3770126521

Helene Blum-Spicker, "Helmut Hahn - Drawings 1950–1987", Helmut Hahn Collection (selection catalog ), Neuss District - Zons District Museum , Dormagen 1998, ISBN 3926963352

Helmut Hahn, "The ban on images - on our own account - for our 70th birthday", bibliophile edition in 2 vol., Korschenbroich 1998, ISBN 1533585210

Exhibition cat. Helmut Hahn, "Overrides - late works from 1989-2000" from the possession of the Clemens Sels Museum, Neuss 2000

Exhibition cat. "Textile Art-Quilt. 2001, Retrospective - Perspective?", Kleinsassen Art Station, Kassel 2001

Exhibition cat. Helmut Hahn, Series of publications Museum Kurhaus Kleve - Ewald Mataré Collection No. 54, ed. v. Freundeskreis Museum Kurhaus and Koekkoek-Haus Kleve eV, Kleve 2011

Exhibition cat. Helmut Hahn, With a fine line in the room, District Museum Zons, Düsseldorf 2013

Exhibition cat. "Memory runs backwards. Helmut Hahn. From set designer to textile artist", District Museum Zons, Dormagen 2018

Web links

Individual evidence

personal data
SURNAME	Hahn, Helmut
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German painter, graphic artist, photographer, textile artist and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH	February 4, 1928
PLACE OF BIRTH	Mönchengladbach
DATE OF DEATH	16th February 2017
Place of death	Korschenbroich

[1] Helmut Hahn. Textile art. Textile Art.

[2] Niederrhein University of Applied Sciences, chronology of the faculty, lecturers 1971–2004

[3] Museum Kurhaus / Kleve