Walter Behrens (painter)
Walter Behrens (born October 25, 1911 in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria , † August 11, 1999 in Vienna ) was a German-Austrian painter and graphic artist .
Life
Walter Behrens was born as the fourth child of the German consul in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria , Christian Behrens and his wife Dorothea Behrens, née Petersen. After his father's sudden death in 1915, his family returned to northern Germany, where he grew up in Braunschweig and Hamburg . He was trained as a graphic artist at the Hanseatic Art School. He had a strong affinity for literature and music and was a pianist himself, but mainly worked as a graphic artist. In 1939 he was drafted into the Wehrmacht , but was able to leave the front due to a war injury. In 1944 he had himself transferred to Vienna because he saw himself and the situation around him as doomed to die. Sick of tuberculosis , he preferred to die in Vienna. Here he met his wife, Ernie Giegl, teacher and writer, which gave his survival meaning again. Walter Behrens was a member of the KPÖ until the 1950 coup . Two works come from this period: The Human Being , Vienna Museum and Mind and Feeling (originally Time and Eternity ), Austrian Gallery Belvedere .
He worked as an illustrator for magazines and in advertising in the 1950s to help keep the family going. From 1964 to 1977 he worked as a teacher for printmaking at the Academy of Applied Arts in Vienna, which gave him freedom for independent graphic and artistic design. Works of changeable styles shaped this creative period. Humorous, bizarre representations, "vertical human heads", "statement images", surreal circus scenes, playful and cheerful works and pictorial implementations of the "war diary", in which he describes the horrors and injustices of his experiences with "pen and fantasy" in a pocket Notebook, shaped his work during this time. He also used drypoint etching, six-color lithography and linocut.
Work and style
In addition to working as an illustrator, including for Zsolnay Verlag , Wiener Verlag for example Taras Bulba by Nikolaj Gogol, The Elixirs of the Devil by ETA Hoffmann, Time of Demons by Alexander Sacher Masoch, he studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts. He is one of the lesser-known founders of the Viennese Fantastic Realism and remained connected with Ernst Fuchs in mutual respect throughout his life .
He further developed the techniques of the old masters in the dark pictures, as well as the prima painting as a "romantic realist", as he later called himself. He further developed the genre of “paradisiacal landscapes” with partly dramatic light and color compositions, fantastic landscapes with houseboats, partly with iconic female heads and ethereally depicted bodies.
After improper criticism at the beginning of 1970 on the occasion of an exhibition in the Vienna “Galerie Basilisk”, in which he saw himself destroyed, he began to withdraw from the public in disappointment. Smaller exhibitions followed.
He died on August 11, 1999 in his studio in Vienna- Rodaun . His grave is at the Atzgersdorfer Friedhof (number 7).
Awards
- 1982: Silver Medal of Honor from the Federal Capital Vienna
literature
- Claudia Behrens: Journeys through hell and journeys in paradise - life and work of the painter and graphic artist Walter Behrens. Novum-Verlag, Horitschon / Vienna / Munich 2006, ISBN 978-3-902536-54-9 .
Web links
- Literature by and about Walter Behrens in the catalog of the German National Library
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Behrens, Walter |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German-Austrian painter and graphic artist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 25, 1911 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Las Palmas de Gran Canaria |
| DATE OF DEATH | August 11, 1999 |
| Place of death | Vienna |