Wilhelm Wessel
Wilhelm Wessel (born May 29, 1904 in Iserlohn ; † June 3, 1971 there ) was a German painter and graphic artist and an important representative of Informel .
Life
Wilhelm Wessel had first contacts with the painters Kurt Schwitters and Wassily Kandinsky in 1923 . After extensive travels through Greece and the Middle East, he began studying in Berlin in 1928 at the Staatliche Hochschule für Kunst (teacher among others Karl Hofer ) and finished this in 1931 with the examination for the artistic teaching profession. In the following years he initially worked as a teacher, creating his own artistic works on the side. In 1934 he married the artist Irmgart Wessel-Zumloh before he was drafted into military service and served as a soldier and war painter. After his discharge from military service, he settled in his hometown of Iserlohn in 1945 and began to work as a freelance artist. In 1954 Wessel received the city of Iserlohn's art prize.
Wilhelm Wessel first became famous in the 1950s for his informal, dark-toned pictures with relief-like, earthy paint application with joints and cracks. Later he increased the emphasis on material in his painting by using scraps of cloth, newspaper tears and the like. In the sixties he created relief-like pictures with a light background and restless, linear structures. They paved the way for Wessel's idiosyncratic typefaces and type collages, which he created from 1967 until his death in 1971.
In 1954, Wilhelm Wessel initiated the first German exhibitions abroad, for example in the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and in collaboration with the French art dealer Rene Drouin a highly acclaimed exhibition in the Cercle Volney in Paris . His work has been shown at numerous large solo exhibitions and at important group exhibitions. In March 1958, the Stadler Gallery in Paris, which has represented him worldwide since 1956, presented a show with works by Wilhelm Wessel and Emil Schumacher . From 1956 Wilhelm Wessel took part in important international exhibitions of the "art autre".
From 1952 to 1957 Wilhelm Wessel was chairman of the West German Artists Association , which he founded together with Herta Hesse, the then director of the Karl Ernst Osthaus Museum in Hagen, and the artist Eberhard Viegener .
Numerous works by Wilhelm Wessel are in public ownership and in private collections.
His home and studio in Gartenstrasse in Iserlohn now houses the Villa Wessel , where the art association “Wilhelm Wessel / Irmgart Wessel-Zumloh e. V. ". The association has set itself the task of processing and maintaining the artistic legacy of the Wessel couple. There are also exhibitions from classical modernism to important contemporary trends, with a focus on early post-war art and thus the artistic environment of the Wessels.
Exhibitions
Solo exhibitions
- Municipal Gustav Lübcke Museum Hamm 1933
- Gallery Springer Berlin 1956
- Galerie Stadler Paris 1958, 1960 and 1963
- Parnass Gallery Wuppertal 1959
- Renate Boukes Gallery Wiesbaden 1959
- Gallery next St. Stephan Vienna 1960
- Free artist community Schanze Münster 1960
- Gallery “L'immagine” Turin 1961
- Gallery Müller Stuttgart 1961
- New gallery in the Künstlerhaus on Lenbachplatz 1961 Munich 1962
- Gallery Emmy Widmann Bremen 1964
- Buchholz Gallery, Munich 1968
- Osthaus Museum Hagen 1969
- Museum Ostwall Dortmund 1965 and 1970
- Bielefeld Art Gallery 1970
- Municipal Suermondt Museum Aachen 1971
- Märkisches Museum Witten 1971
- LWL State Museum for Art and Cultural History Münster 1973 and 2002
- Municipal art gallery Mannheim 1977
- Gallery Nothelfer Berlin 1978
- Gallery Schübbe Düsseldorf 1981
- Gallery Hachmeister Münster 1982 + 1985.
- Villa Wessel in Iserlohn 1991, 1992, 1994, 1996, 1997, 1999, 2010 and 2017
- Otto Dix House Gera 2003.
Group exhibitions
- Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam 1954 + 1956
- Cercle Volney Paris 1955
- IX. Premio Lissone Italy 1955
- XXIX. Venice Biennale 1958
- International Art Festival Osaka, Kyoto and Tokyo 1958
- International art fair Art Basel 1970 and 1973
Wilhelm Wessel took part in other international exhibitions in Madrid, Paris, Barcelona, Turin, Buenos Aires and Peru. Since 1950 there have also been numerous participations in the exhibitions of the West German Artists Association. Wessel also took part as a full member of the German Association of Artists between 1953 (in the Kunsthalle Hamburg ) and 1970 (in the Rheinisches Landesmuseum in Bonn ) in a total of twelve large annual DKB exhibitions.
Individual evidence
- ↑ s. Wessel, Wilhelm , in: Kunstreport: nineteen hundred and three | nineteen hundred and ninety-five. An overview of the German Artists Association , special edition Winter 1994/95, Bonn 1995. ISBN 3-929283-08-5 (p. 135)
literature
- Bibliography Wilhelm Wessel
- Rainer Danne: Wilhelm Wessel (1904–1971). In: Klaus Kösters (ed.): Adaptation - Survival - Resistance: Artists in National Socialism. Aschendorff Verlag, Münster 2012, ISBN 978-3-402-12924-1 , pp. 235-240.
Web links
- Literature by and about Wilhelm Wessel in the catalog of the German National Library
- Internet presence of the Wessel Association including the catalog of works by Wilhelm Wessel and Irmgart Wessel-Zumloh
- Wilhelm Wessel impressions as short film (5:46 minutes) on YouTube
- Biography Wilhelm Wessel on the Art Directory website - the information portal for art and culture.
- Wilhelm Wessel on artnet
personal data | |
---|---|
SURNAME | Wessel, Wilhelm |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German painter and graphic artist |
DATE OF BIRTH | May 29, 1904 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | Iserlohn |
DATE OF DEATH | 3rd June 1971 |
Place of death | Iserlohn |