Jochen Seidel

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Jochen Seidel (born April 1, 1924 in Bitterfeld , † May 1971 in New York ) was a German painter and graphic artist.

Live and act

Seidel was born in an industrial town in Central Germany as the son of an engineer. The early death of his father strongly determined his attitude to life. He comes from a family from which several artists sprang up in the same generation, such as his cousin, the painter and graphic artist Hannes H. Wagner and his cousin, the designer and later professor Sigrid Kupetz , née. Wagner. In 1941 he was drafted into the Wehrmacht, where he was appointed an artist due to his talent for painting and was able to paint portraits of officers until the end of the war. Then he came into British captivity.

After his release he went to the Burg Giebichenstein art school in Halle (Saale) to study painting with Charles Crodel . In order to earn a living, he painted large propaganda murals alongside his studies. He belonged to a circle of friends around the painter Hermann Bachmann , which also included Otto Müller , Karl-Erich Müller and Willi Sitte . Artistically and ideologically, he saw no other way than to move to West Berlin, where he followed Hermann Bachmann in 1953. There he was supported by the Rudolf Springer Gallery, he developed a non-representational style of painting. Successful work followed and many exhibitions, for example in West Berlin, Kassel, Vienna, Stockholm, Oslo, Helsinki, Caracas, Lima, Buenos Aires, Montevideo. In 1961 and 1964 he exhibited at the Carnegie International Exhibition in Pittsburgh / USA.

In 1962 he became a teacher at Fairleigh Dickinson University . A year earlier he separated from his first wife, the painter and Crodel student Irmtraud Deisenroth. They had a son with whom he never got in contact again. His new wife became the Swiss artist Mireille Wunderly in 1963. First they lived in Switzerland , since 1964 in New York City, Broadway 812. He also taught at the Pratt Institute. Many exhibitions followed, including at the Carnegie International Exhibition, New Jersey State Museum, in the Goethe Institute . Seidel was a tireless painter who experimented a lot. He often mixed text and color fields. He switched from photo realism to total abstraction when painting. In 1968, after a trip to Europe, the young family broke up. Mireille Wunderly went back to Switzerland with the two young children. Wunderly was the granddaughter of Nanny Wunderly- Volkart who supported Rainer Maria Rilke financially during his stay in Switzerland and who remained closely connected to him until his death.

Seidel returned to New York alone. The separation took away his courage to live. He worked self-reflective of this situation. He lived in the heated New York scene, not only reflecting his own breakdown, but the political unrest around him as well. His wife and good friends, like the painter Dieter Masuhr , wanted him to return to Europe, where he had enjoyed success as a painter. The point of repentance had passed, its failure was too advanced. He wanted to return to Europe as a successful artist, not in this state. So he fell victim to alcohol, marijuana, and depression. Despite therapy, he probably committed suicide in late May 1971. His ashes were thrown into the sea on Cape Cod by his artist friends Mel and Joe Roman.

Today his works are often exhibited under the title "... failure of an artist ... at the wrong time in the wrong place ...". It was only after his death that many museums bought his work. In Germany there was a major retrospective in 1992 at the Staatliche Kunsthalle Berlin , at the Hallescher Kunstverein and in Cologne .

Working in collections

  • Museum of Modern Art, New York,
  • Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
  • National Museum of American Art, Washington DC
  • Kupferstichkabinett SMPK Berlin
  • State Gallery Moritzburg Halle (Saale)
  • San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco
  • Brooklyn Museum, New York
  • Princetown Art Museum, Princetown
  • Denver Art Museum, Denver, Colorado
  • Museum of Art Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh
  • Pratt Institute, New York
  • Fogg Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge
  • Goethe House New York
  • Neuberger Museum, Purchase
  • Fairleigh Dickinson University, Madison, New Jersey
  • Allentown Art Museum, Allentown
  • Kunstmuseum Kloster Unser Lieben Frauen Magdeburg

Prices

  • 1949: Graphics Prize of the State of Saxony-Anhalt
  • 1959: Baden-Baden Youth Art Prize
  • 1961: Young West Art Prize , Recklinghausen

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Peter Arlt: But the art conditions, they are not like that. Difficulties with art at the beginning of the GDR and after its end.  ( 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. Meeting reports of the Leibniz Society of Sciences in Berlin. 102, 2009, pp. 61–68 (PDF file; 134 kB)@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www2.hu-berlin.de  
  2. ^ Sikart: Wunderly, Mireille (* 1935). Retrieved May 2, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Seidel, Jochen
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter and graphic artist
DATE OF BIRTH April 1, 1924
PLACE OF BIRTH Bitterfeld
DATE OF DEATH May 1971
Place of death New York City , USA