Karl-Heinz Hering

Karl-Heinz Hering (born April 30, 1928 in Neverstaven ; † April 26, 2015 in Ratingen ) was a German art historian, curator and author of contemporary art. From 1955 to 1986 he was director of the art association for the Rhineland and Westphalia in Düsseldorf .

Live and act

Hering, born in 1928 on an estate in Neverstaven (Schleswig-Holstein), studied art history, archeology and journalism at the Free University in Berlin and received his doctorate in 1955 with a thesis on silversmiths vessels on Dutch still lifes of the 17th century . In the same year he started at the art association for the Rhineland and Westphalia under Hildebrand Gurlitt, initially as a "scientific assistant". After Gurlitt's sudden death, he initially managed the affairs of the art association in the building of the old art gallery on Grabbeplatz in Düsseldorf, initially provisionally and later together with Ewald Rathke . After Rathke left the Frankfurter Kunstverein in 1961, Hering became the sole director of the Kunstverein.

In the post-war years, the Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen ( Art Association for the Rhineland and Westphalia ) with its (still small) staff - until the construction of the new Kunsthalle (1967) and the demolition of the old one - actually took over the tasks of the Städtische Kunsthalle in the temporary arrangement of the old Kunsthalle and was as such the sole sponsor of contemporary art exhibitions of high standing in the state capital Düsseldorf.

During this time, exhibitions such as "Dada, Documents of a Movement" (1958), "Ernst Wilhelm Nay" (1959), "Sam Francis" (1959), "Christian Rohlfs" (1960), "Jean Piaubert" (1960), "Pablo Picasso - Graphics" (1960), "Ernst-Ludwig Kirchner" (1960), "Pictures and Sculptures from the Dotremont Collection" (1961) and others. a.

After Rathke left the Frankfurter Kunstverein in 1961, Hering became the sole director of the Kunstverein for the Rhineland and Westphalia, "consolidated the budget and geared the program more consistently to the present". So in another 25 years he put together an exhibition program that reads like a "who is who in art" today: Maurice Estève, Jackson Pollock, Piero Dorazio (still 1961), George Rickey, Kimber Smith, Hans Hartung, Matta, Vasarely , Allen Jones, Francis Bacon, Bernhard Luginbühl, Richard Oelze, Eva Hesse, Johannes Itten, Horst Janssen, Marc Tobey, Fritz Winter, Corneille, Alan Davie, Max Bill, Jesus Raphael Soto, Niki de Saint-Phalle, Arman, Gilbert & George as well as "Light and Movement" and "Science-Fiction" (all in the 1960s).

His not immediate successor Raimund Stecker wrote in the foreword to a book on Karl-Heinz Hering intended as a catalog of works: “This book will be a contribution to remembering what was once possible. As the successor to Karl-Heinz Hering in the Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen in Düsseldorf, I am happy to have such a reference work available in the future so that the future to be designed can be how and what it should be: one from the present in a tomorrow visionary continuation of history under the horizon of the lesson from history ”.

Hering was a member of ICOM and AICA . After leaving the art association, he continued to deal with art on various levels. He lived in Düsseldorf and Ratingen and had been married to the art historian Marie-Luise Otten (curator of the Peter Brüning estate) since 1991.

Fonts

• Friedrich Meckseper: Paintings 1958–1972, selected prints . Art Association for the Rhineland and Westphalia Düsseldorf, 1972

literature

• Karl-Heinz Hering: From Kaisertrutz to Grabbeplatz . In: Marie-Luise Otten (Ed.): From Dada to Beuys , Schwarzbach Presse, Ratingen 1998, pp. 15–140.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Raimund Stecker: A new beginning and an end with a future . In: Marie-Luise Otten (ed.): From Dada to Beuys , Schwarzbach Presse, Ratingen 1998, pp. 11-13