Philipp Schoepke

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Philipp Schöpke (born December 8, 1921 in Bad Erlach , Austria; † April 10, 1998 in Klosterneuburg , Austria) was an Austrian artist.

From 1981 he lived in what is now the House of Artists in Gugging, currently part of the Art / Brut Center Gugging . Along with Johann Hauser , Oswald Tschirtner , August Walla and others, Schöpke was a member of the group of artists from Gugging .

Schöpke's oeuvre is received primarily under the Art Brut categorization , which is continuously and critically discussed in the art-historical discourse.

Artistic creation

The focus of Philipp Schöpke's complete graphic work is the examination of the human figure. The artist dedicated himself to this topic for decades. The transparency of the body is characteristic of Schöpke's depictions of people. The artist increases the nakedness of his figures through disclosure, he makes internal organs and bones visible. Schöpke also gives special importance to the hair and teeth. Lush and exuberant, they give his characters a wild and resistant aura.

On some sheets Schöpke gives his characters identities by naming them or he places them in a defined relationship to one another on the level of writing. When the artist complements the drawn bodies with systems of signs such as letters and digits, these appear like ciphers of rational systems brought into the picture. They form points of contact for the viewer. Schöpke also devoted himself to the animal and plant world in his drawings. In the case of animals, he also reveals the inside of the body and specifies this on the level of writing.

From the late eighties and in the nineties, color played an increasingly important role in Schöpke's artistic work. Initially, the artist used these more to color or highlight individual picture elements of his monochrome pencil drawings, he later developed them into an autonomous and ultimately picture-defining element. Schöpke kept his original subjects and then overdrawn them with colored pencils, wax crayons or charcoal. Through the two-dimensional reworking, the artist abstracts the original subject or erases it completely. The resulting late work reveals painterly qualities.

Biography and artistic career

Philipp Schöpke was born in Erlach, Lower Austria, in 1921. He spent his youth and school days there with his family, after which he began an apprenticeship until he was drafted into the "Infantry Greater Germany" in 1941. After breaking off his military service several times due to illness, Schöpke was forced to stay in the " Gugging Sanatorium " for the first time in 1943 . In the following years there was a changing series of short stays in psychiatric clinics and attempts to return to previous family and work structures. From 1956 Schöpke spent his life in the clinic in Gugging until his death in 1998.

At the beginning of the sixties was the psychiatrist Leo Navratil , the attending physician of Schöpke. It was during this time that Schöpke made his first drawings.

In 1970 there was the first presentation of works by Schöpke as part of the exhibition “Pareidolien. Print from the Lower Austrian State Hospital for Psychiatry and Neurology Klosterneuburg ”. The location was the gallery next to St. Stephan in Vienna.

Schöpke's work found its first international recognition in the exhibition "Outsiders", which was held in 1979 at the Hayward Gallery , London. His works were also featured in the accompanying publication “Outsiders. An art without precedent or tradition ”, alongside well-known positions from Gugging such as Johann Hauser , Oswald Tschirtner and August Walla as well as works by international artists such as Heinrich Anton Müller , Martin Ramirez and Adolf Wölfli .

In 1981 Navratil had the opportunity, due to the fundamental restructuring of the hospital in Gugging, to found the formerly so-called “Center for Art - Psychoptherapy”, which currently exists as the “House of Artists” and is the core of today's Gugging Art Center . In 1981 Schöpke belonged to the group of patients at the time who moved into the newly opened "Center for Art and Psychotherapy" and thus later became residents of the House of Artists.

In 1983 the artist's first solo exhibition took place in the Heike Curtze Gallery in Vienna.

The year 1983 also marked a concrete change for the structures behind artistic creation in Gugging: Johann Feilacher , currently artistic director of museum gugging and head of the House of Artists , became assistant to Navratil and succeeded him in 1986.

In 2018, Feilacher dedicated a solo exhibition to the draftsman Schöpke in the museum gugging as well as a monograph dedicated to his work.

Solo exhibitions

  • 1983: Philipp Schöpke, Heike Curtze Gallery, Vienna.
  • 2018: philipp schöpke.! , museum gugging , Maria Gugging.

Participation in exhibitions (selection)

Awards

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Daniel Baumann: Art Brut? Outsider Art? Figure of thought and assertion . ( artlog.net [accessed October 11, 2018]).
  2. ^ Maria Höger: Encounter with Philipp Schöpke . In: Johann Feilacher, Maria Höger (Ed.): Philipp Schöpke . Residenz Verlag, Salzburg 2018, ISBN 978-3-7017-3481-8 .
  3. ↑ Johann Feilacher Maria Höger: Philipp Schöpke . Ed .: Johann Feilacher, Maria Höger. 1st edition. Residenz Verlag, Salzburg 2018, ISBN 978-3-7017-3481-8 .
  4. ^ Art brut rediscovery: Philipp Schöpke. In: https://noe.orf.at/ . October 27, 2018, accessed on March 20, 2019 (German).
  5. ^ Roman Gerold: A visit to the artists from Gugging. In: The Standard. August 2, 2018, accessed on March 20, 2019 (German).
personal data
SURNAME Schöpke, Philipp
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian artist
DATE OF BIRTH December 8, 1921
PLACE OF BIRTH Bad Erlach , Austria
DATE OF DEATH April 10, 1998
Place of death Klosterneuburg , Austria