Hermann Wiehl

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Hermann Wiehl (born November 9, 1900 in Nussbach , † August 9, 1978 in St. Georgen in the Black Forest ) was a German painter .

Life

Hermann Wiehl was born on November 9, 1900 in Nussbach near Triberg in the Black Forest as the son of a watch dealer. He was first mentioned in 1925 in St. Georgen as a manufacturer who could afford painting. He earned his living with small, filled portions of honey that were sold for hotels and restaurants all over Germany . Wiehl was a participant in the First World War and after his return worked as a sales representative until he founded his factory.

education

At the end of the 1920s he attended the art academy in Nuremberg and became a student of Hermann Anselment , then a student of Otto Dix in Dresden, with whom he had a lifelong friendship. From the early phase of his artistic development, from the 1930s and 1940s, there are few surviving landscapes from the Black Forest. Wiehl's style shows elements of expressive compression and abstract stylization. In the 1950s he painted still lifes .

Höri artist

In the mid-1930s I met the Höri artists on Lake Constance . Otto Dix had settled here since 1936. Max Ackermann , the theoretician of abstract and absolute painting, a student of Adolf Hölzel , had been a guest here since 1936, after he was banned from teaching and exhibiting .

Ostracism in the time of National Socialism

Wiehl, who was not allowed to exhibit or sell his work due to a National Socialist ban during the Second World War , had dealt with the new color language of Expressionism and the new form language of Cubism. Equipped with a solid skill in traditional, figurative representation, he develops stylistic versatility. However, this did not lead to arbitrary stylistic pluralism . Many of his works can assert themselves qualitatively next to works of the first generation of Expressionists.

Style extension

There was an intensive preoccupation with Ackermann's idea of ​​absolute painting. This consisted in the fact that art should only have a few shapes and colors as objects. Ackermann started with a few basic shapes such as circles, triangles and rectangles and the basic colors yellow, red and blue. The "musicality of the image" should be in the foreground. Wiehl contrasted it with the “architecture of the image”. Other art impressions came through cubism and constructivism . Encounters with Léger , Picasso , Chagall and Max Bill intensified Wiehl's search for his own expression and his own image.

In the 1950s, Hermann Wiehl traveled through Italy and southern France . He also stayed frequently in Ticino , Paris and Zurich .

philosophy

The motifs of his homeland are of particular importance to Wiehl. Thanks to his friendship with his teacher Otto Dix, who lives on Höri , Wiehl also paints a lot on Lake Constance. Wiehl came to moderate abstraction through his acquaintance with the non-representational painter Max Ackermann.

In addition to the Black Forest and Lake Constance landscapes, southern motifs, still lifes and self-portraits also take up a lot of space . It is now represented in museums and public collections.

The spectrum of engagement with modern painting ranges from genre painters like Hans Thoma to abstract painters like Max Ackermann, from Cézanne to Matisse and from the formal language of Expressionism to Cubism.

Rediscovery

As a modern classic, Hermann Wiehl shared the fate of other artists to be forgotten. In the early 1990s, he was rediscovered by the art dealer and gallery owner Roland Roeder. The gallery owners Roland and Tamara Roeder collected, preserved and looked after the work. With reproductions , on calendars and with a large art book, they kept the memory of Hermann Wiehl alive and finally gave him his breakthrough after several exhibitions.

The reviewers spoke unanimously of a major event in the art scene, and Hermann Wiehl rose to the rank of a modern classic in a short time. Wiehl's pictures are now attracting increasing attention. The first major Wiehl exhibition in the spring of 1995 on Lake Constance on the Höri in the Hermann-Hesse-Haus met with a strong response. The SWF television also reported in detail about it. A comprehensive illustrated book edited by Roeder has already appeared in its second expanded edition. Wiehl motifs can be found on the covers of several classic CDs at EMI .

Works (excerpts)

The oeuvre includes more than 1,600 oil paintings and drawings.

  • 1950s: self-portrait. Oil on painting board, 60 × 50 cm.
  • 1950s: sailing boat on the Untersee. Mixed media on painting board, 50 × 60 cm.
  • 1950s: Stern house on a sunny day. Oil on painting board, 60 × 73 cm.

Collections

  • Works by him have been in the Dieter and Anna Grässlin collection since 1967, who devoted themselves to informal art in the 1970s and, due to their acquaintance with the artist, opened up to painting.
  • The partly lost complete works of Wiehl have been brought together again since the beginning of the 90s thanks to the intensive efforts of the gallery owner Roeder. Since 1995 there have been some cultural exhibitions from their Wiehl collection.

Exhibitions

He participated in group and solo exhibitions. There were group exhibitions with Otto Dix, Max Bill, Max Ackermann, HAP Grieshaber and Horst Antes .

  • 1948 Villinger World Show
  • 1952 Christmas exhibition of Baden artists in Freiburg im Breisgau
  • From 1955 autumn exhibition of the Villingen Art Association
  • 1958 Badischer Kunstverein Karlsruhe
  • 1959 art exhibition in Donaueschingen
  • 1961 art exhibition in St. Georgen (Volksbildungswerk)
  • 1965 art exhibition in St. Georgen (retrospective)
  • 1977 Exhibition in Saint-Raphaël (France)
  • 1995 Exhibition in the Hermann-Hesse-Höri-Museum , Gaienhofen
  • 1995 Special exhibition in Friedrichshafen
  • 1996 Exhibition in St. Georgen
  • 1997 Some of Wiehl's paintings appear on the covers of classical music CDs (EMI)
  • 1998 Memorial exhibition in St. Georgen on the 20th anniversary of his death
  • 1998 Exhibition at the Akademie Schloss Seeheim in Konstanz
  • 1999 Exhibition in the Konstanz cultural center
  • 2000 Exhibition in the Museum Waldshut - Bonndorf Castle on the occasion of Wiehl's 100th birthday
  • 2001 Exhibition in the Hans-Thoma-Museum Bernau
  • 2004 Exhibition in the new Museum Schloss Salem
  • 2008 Exhibition in St. Georgen on the 30th anniversary of his death
  • 2012 Exhibition at MUZEUM MIEJSKIE , Breslau (Poland)
  • 2012 Exhibition in the Wangen Museum "In the Badstube"
  • 2013 Exhibition in Balingen in the Rathausgalerie
  • 2017 Exhibition in Singen, MAC Museum Art & Cars
  • 2017 Exhibition in Salem, Schloss Salem "A Classic of Modernism"

literature

  • Art book: Hermann Wiehl, A Modern Classic
  • Art book: Hermann Wiehl, Dix pupil and friend of the rediscovered painter
  • Vollmer general artist lexicon Volume 5
  • Gera Chronicle

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Biographical information , accessed on July 16, 2013
  2. ↑ a b Veit Loers (2001): Bollenhut and Avantgarde - The Grässlin Collector Family (accessed on July 22, 2013)
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h Prof. Helmut Bachmaier: Hermann Wiehl - A Classic of Modernism. ( Memento of July 14, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ) In: CityWeb St.-Georgen , (accessed on July 22, 2013).
  4. ↑ südkurier.de: Wiehl exhibition is well attended , August 15, 2012, accessed on July 22, 2013.
  5. ↑ Ulrich Klingler (2013): The »Holderlin of Painting« . In: Rotary magazine for Germany and Austria. 6/2013, Rotary Verlags GmbH Hamburg. (accessed on July 22, 2013)
  6. ^ Hohenzollerische Zeitung: Hermann Wiehl: Ein Klassiker der Moderne , July 2, 2013, accessed on July 22, 2013.
  7. ↑ Rathausgalerie Balingen: Hermann Wiehl 1900 - 1978. Exhibition brochure, Balingen 2013.
personal data
SURNAME Wiehl, Hermann
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter
DATE OF BIRTH November 9, 1900
PLACE OF BIRTH Nussbach near Triberg in the Black Forest
DATE OF DEATH August 9, 1978
Place of death St. Georgen in the Black Forest