Klaus Matthäi

Klaus Matthäi (born March 18, 1935 in Zwickau ; † April 13, 1986 in Wilkau-Haßlau ) was a German graphic artist .

life and work

Matthäi attended elementary school in Zwickau and an apprenticeship as a color lithographer. From 1952 to 1954 he took private lessons from Carl Michel , professor at the Zwickau School of Painting and Drawing. He then went to the Workers and Farmers Faculty for Fine Arts in Dresden and studied at the University of Graphic and Book Art in Leipzig with Werner Tübke and Heinz Wagner . He initially worked as a freelance graphic designer in Leipzig for a few years before settling in Wilkau-Haßlau in 1963. Karl-Marx-Stadt was a member of the district assembly for the SED .

The first secretary of the SED district leadership Zwickau-Land, Hans Patz, paid tribute to Matthäi in 1976: “Comrade Klaus Matthäi is one of the most prominent artists in the Zwickau-Land district. His artistic work, the focus of which is the human being in our socialist society, is shaped by Lenin's principles of partiality and loyalty to the people, determined by the ideas of socialist patriotism and internationalism. "

Honors (selection)

• 1959 and 1961 Max Pechstein Prize of the City of Zwickau
• Culture Prize of the Council of the Karl-Marx-Stadt District

literature

• Matthai, Klaus . In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General Lexicon of Fine Artists of the XX. Century. tape 6 , supplements H-Z . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1962, p. 257 .
• Dietmar Eisold (Ed.): Lexicon artists in the GDR . New Life, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-355-01761-9 , pp. 576 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Friedhelm Leichsenring: Consistent and partisan. Visiting graduate graphic designer Klaus Matthäi. In: Der Heimatfreund für das Erzgebirge 21 (1976) H. 10, S. 217-220.