Sarah Haffner

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Sarah Haffner, 2014

Sarah Haffner (born February 27, 1940 in Cambridge ; † March 11, 2018 in Dresden ) was a German - British painter and author .

Life

Sarah Haffner was born in Cambridge, England, in 1940, where her parents Sebastian Haffner and his wife Erika emigrated in 1938. In 1954 she moved with her family from London, where Sarah Haffner grew up, to Germany. Interrupted by stays abroad in Paris and London , Sarah Haffner lived and worked since then in what was then West Berlin , where her family settled. After attending the master school for arts and crafts in Berlin for a year , she began studying art at the Hochschule der Künste (HdK) at the age of 17 . After completing her basic apprenticeship, she went to Ernst Schumacher's painting class . From 1960 to 1962 she was married to the painter Andreas Brandt . Because of the birth of their son, Sarah Haffner interrupted her studies and from then on worked as a freelance artist. She made up her degree at the art college in 1973.

In addition to her work as a visual artist and author, Sarah Haffner worked as a lecturer at various universities from 1969 to 1986. In 1969 Sarah Haffner decided to move back to England, not least to get some distance from the dogmatic student movement. She taught color at the Watford School of Art . The stay in London lasted 15 months, then Sarah Haffner returned to Berlin with her son. Shortly after her return in 1971, her experience in teaching helped her to get a job at the 1st State College for Educators . She taught there until 1981 the subject “Children's Play and Work”. Sarah Haffner taught at the HdK from 1980 to 1986 .

Sarah Haffner's grave in the Heerstrasse cemetery in Berlin-Westend

In 1975 Sarah Haffner worked on a television documentary about abuse of women and English women's shelters, after unsuccessful attempts to help an affected neighbor through the police and public authorities. The documentation resulted in the financing of the nationwide first women's refuge in Berlin, in which Sarah Haffner volunteered for six months.

Sarah Haffner lived and worked in the Berlin district of Charlottenburg until the 2010s . She died on March 11, 2018 at the age of 78 in Dresden, where her son David Brandt lives and works as a photographer. The funeral service for Sarah Haffner and the burial of her urn took place on April 6, 2018 at the state-owned cemetery Heerstraße in Berlin-Westend .

plant

Selbst , 2002, 1.20 m × 1.00 m, mixed media on canvas

painter

Sarah Haffner's thematic spectrum included portraits, still lifes, landscapes and cityscapes. Since 1985, her representational, figurative style of painting has developed from an additive, strongly object-oriented style to an increasingly abstract type of representation. Her tectonically built and strictly composed images as well as the reduced imagery make shapes appear as areas of color. In apparent contrast to the strict formal language is the intense color of her work. She did not use color naturalistic, but expressive and at the same time spatial. She had a particular tendency towards blue and green hues. Not infrequently, the color scheme intensified the mood of isolation and melancholy that emanates from the often very calm scenes and views.

Sarah Haffner used the figurative, representational style of painting to reflect the mood and atmosphere. The moments that seem very personal at first glance are often reflections of general experiences with which Sarah Haffner exposed social realities without appearing agitating.

Since 2004 Sarah Haffner has been working with a self-developed mixed technique: tempera and pastel. In addition to large-format canvases and larger-than-life illustrations, she also worked with smaller paper formats (especially for abstract landscapes) and printed graphics ( screen prints and lithographs ).

Reflections on gender relations, the women's movement and the 68 movement

Haffner observed the production conditions of women artists and the divided self-image of women painters in a self-reflective and critical manner - already as a seventeen-year-old student at the Berlin University of the Arts . From an interview with Cäcilia (Cillie) Rentmeister :

“When I was seventeen I went to art college and I felt terribly uncomfortable, and although I couldn't put it into words at the time, I was subconsciously aware that I was seen as a woman and not as a painter and that I was also a woman am interesting. It was expressed in such a way that if I went to school in my pants I knew that I would paint that day. And when I went in a skirt, I knew that I would stand around somewhere in the hall and wait for people to speak to me ... I knew exactly that there were two different moods - that was basically a kind of split, if you will ... I was very ambitious and it was also very clear to me that you can only achieve something if you work all the time - but not only me, but all the girls in school were somehow not taken seriously. I certainly suffered from it - once, because I took myself fully, asked a lot of myself, and was somehow disappointed that my image of myself and that of others so diverged ... "

Like other artists, Haffner suffered from the ambitious full-time demands on herself as an artist, in an "artist marriage" and the demands of motherhood :

“My husband just painted stripes (laughs). And yet, as a painter, he was simply more important ... I have always seen relationships as a disruption to independence, I was able to paint very badly ... I was in an artist marriage, it was terrible. Because in the end there was a kind of competition ... and when my son was born my husband had a studio at school and I said I wanted to paint again now and he had to take care of the child. But it was absolutely clear to him that I would only do the housekeeping ... Bringing motherhood together with painting was an eternal hitch. "

Sarah Haffner questioned gender stereotypes , whether they came from a male or a female side. She reacted indignantly when the artist group selected for the exhibition “Artists International 1877–1977” in Berlin in 1977 did not allow the painters Maina-Miriam Munsky and Natascha Ungeheuer to participate. Haffner withdrew her works from the exhibition and published a protest statement:

“For hundreds of years, what women paint has been kept secret, hushed up or attributed to men ... Now, for the first time, a large women's exhibition is taking place in West Berlin. Woman painting, one would think, is what women paint ... Natascha Ungeheuer and Maina-Miriam Munsky were not invited to participate in the exhibition . Her images are supposedly sexist or not feminine . Who this time determines what is female and what is not, is a self-appointed elite group of women who have not even bothered ... to introduce themselves to the participants, let alone the feminist line they represent or the criteria by which choose them ... The women's movement must be open to all women or it will break down. But it is far too important for that. I am not taking part in this exhibition out of protest. "

How Haffner experienced the 1968 movement and the beginnings of the women's movement as a painter and young mother , she also reported in 2002 in the interview book by Ute Kätzel Die 68erinnen , under the title The art as a path to oneself - “Women were the revolutionary part of it something revolutionary movement ”. From the spring of 1968 she went to the meetings of the Action Council for the Liberation of Women :

“I remember twelve or fifteen women all talking about themselves ... Up until now, I'd always thought something was wrong with me, and now I found out that we'd all had the same experience ... it was Perhaps one of the liveliest times of my life ... I identified myself most of all with the Action Council ... this process of becoming aware that we went through, which then turned into awareness of their own oppression among women. I even think that women were the most revolutionary part of this somewhat revolutionary movement because they really questioned their own situation. "

Writer

Sarah Haffner was the editor and author of the book Violence in Marriage and What Women Do About It as well as the maker of the film Screaming is No Use. Brutality in Marriage . She published numerous catalogs containing both pictures and prose. In 1982 her volume of poems Graue Tage was published. Green days and in 2001 Another color with autobiographical stories. Sarah Haffner wrote articles for anthologies and catalogs, magazines and newspapers.

Solo exhibitions (selection)

  • 1965: Galerie Benjamin Katz, Berlin (catalog)
  • 1969: Modern Art Gallery, Berlin (catalog)
  • 1970: Watford School of Art, London
  • 1980: Gallery at Savignyplatz, Berlin
  • 1981: Gallery at Chamissoplatz, Berlin (with Glienke and Quandt)
  • 1981: Styrian Gallery in “Styrian Autumn”, Graz
  • 1984: Galerie Rose, Hamburg
  • 1985: Apex Gallery, Göttingen
  • 1986: House on Lützowplatz , cultural center support group, Berlin (catalog)
  • 1987: Municipal gallery, Weserburg, Bremen
  • 1987: Galerie Rose, Hamburg (oil paintings and screen prints)
  • 1987: Galerie Rose, Hamburg (mixed media images on cardboard)
  • 1988: "Inside and Outside", Gallery at Chamissoplatz, Berlin (catalog)
  • 1988: Gallery of the Mansfeld Combine, Eisleben , GDR
  • 1988: 20 years of Mayakovsky Gallery, Berlin (with Alexandra Korsakowa)
  • 1988: Gallery in the Synthesewerk, Schwarzheide, GDR
  • 1988: House of Young Talents, Berlin, GDR
  • 1989 Municipal Gallery, Oberhausen Castle (with Munsky and Seefried-Matejkowa)
  • 1989: Gallery in the Schillerhaus, Bremerhaven
  • 1989: Kunstverein Freiburg (catalog)
  • 1990: Berlin State Representation, Bonn
  • 1990: BAWAG Foundation, Vienna
  • 1991/92: Biuro Wystaw Artystycznych, Castle of the Pomeranian Princes, Szczecin (catalog)
  • 1992: Galerie am Pariser Platz, Akademie der Künste, Berlin
  • 1993: “Behind Reality”, foyer of the Berliner Zeitung, Berlin
  • 1994/95: “Who am I, who are you?”, Kunstraum St. Virgil, Salzburg
  • 1995: Gallery at the New Palace, Potsdam
  • 1996: Galerie Zunge, Berlin
  • 2000: "In the blue room", Sarah Haffner on her 60th birthday, Gallery Poll, Berlin,

and “In der Stille”, Poll Art Foundation, Berlin

  • 2001: Galerie am Neuen Palais, Potsdam
  • 2002: “Morning, Noon, Evening, Night”, Literature Forum in the Brechthaus, Berlin
  • 2003: “Heads, Places, Silence” for the 20th Literary Week, Bremerhaven
  • 2004: "Self-pictures, window pictures", Gallery Forum Amalienpark, Berlin
  • 2005: “Morning, noon, evening, night”, Einstein Forum, Potsdam
  • 2005/06: "Window pictures and quotations", Literaturhaus, Berlin
  • 2007: "Zwie Frauen", literature forum in the Brechthaus, Berlin
  • 2010: "Blaulicht", Sarah Haffner on her 70th birthday, Galerie Tammen, Berlin (catalog)
  • 2015: "New Works", gallery in the Poll Art Foundation, Berlin (catalog)
  • 2015: Museum Pankow, Berlin (catalog)

Public collections (selection)

  • Artothek of the new Berlin art association
  • Art library of the Freiburg Art Association
  • BASF Schwarzheide
  • BAWAG Foundation, Vienna
  • Berlinische Galerie
  • Berlin newspaper
  • Biuro Wystaw Artystycznych, Szczecin
  • AM Museum, Denver, Colorado
  • German Bundestag
  • German Historical Museum, Berlin
  • Graphothek Berlin-Reinickendorf
  • Humboldt Clinic, Berlin
  • Jewish Museum, Berlin
  • Kreuzberg Museum, Berlin
  • Bayer-Schering Art Association, Berlin
  • Mansfeld Gallery, Eisleben
  • BauArt Collection, Heidelberg Cement
  • Senate of Berlin
  • City of Bremerhaven
  • City Museum Foundation, Berlin

Works in private collections in Germany, England, France, Holland, Ireland, Italy, Switzerland, USA.

Literature (selection)

  • Haffner, Sarah: Violence in marriage and what women do about it. Wagenbach, 1976.
  • Haffner, Sarah: Gray days. Green days. Poems, screen prints. Edition Mariannenpresse , 1982.
  • Haffner, Sarah: pictures and texts. Elefanten Press, 1986.
  • Haffner, Sarah: Inside and outside. Gallery at Chamissoplatz, 1988.
  • Haffner, Sarah: Pictures 1979–1989. Art Association Freiburg, 1989.
  • Haffner, Sarah: On the way. Images and texts. Elefanten Press, 1995.
  • Haffner, Sarah: In the blue room. Pictures and stories. : Transit, 2000.
  • Haffner, Sarah: Another color. Stories from my life. : Transit, 2001.
  • Haffner, Sarah: Blue light. Pictures, drawings, texts. Alexander Verlag Berlin , 2010.

Web links

Commons : Sarah Haffner  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Dates of death , accessed March 12, 2018
  2. ↑ The painter Sarah Haffner is dead Deutschlandfunk Kultur Kulturnachrichten March 13, 2018
  3. ↑ Obituary notice of the family in the Berlin Tagesspiegel from March 18, 2018. Accessed December 8, 2019.
  4. ↑ Excerpts from Cillie Rentmeister : The Empress's New Clothes? The painter as a divided being in the age of manhood madness, the women's movement and the reproducibility of works of art. Pressure against censorship . Reprint Berlin 1977, conversations with eight female painters - in full text and in connection with its creation with the exhibition "Künstlerinnen International" on the web platform "feministberlin.de" Archived copy ( Memento of the original from March 20, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was used automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ; There is also a direct link to the full text [1] . Retrieved March 20, 2018 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / feministberlin.de
  5. ↑ Rentmeister, p. 6
  6. ↑ Rentmeister, pp. 10-12
  7. ↑ Rentmeister, p. 40, there the complete declaration of protest
  8. ↑ Ute Kätzel: The women of 68. Portrait of a rebellious generation of women , Berlin 2002. (Self-) portrait of Sarah Haffner on pp. 140–159.
  9. ↑ Kätzel, p. 150 f.
  10. ↑ The effect of both productions is described on the web platform www.feministberlin.de [2]
personal data
SURNAME Haffner, Sarah
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-British painter and author
DATE OF BIRTH February 27, 1940
PLACE OF BIRTH Cambridge
DATE OF DEATH March 11, 2018
Place of death Dresden