Willi Spiess (artist)

Willi Spiess (born May 4, 1909 in Homburg ; † April 15, 1997 in Altstadt ) was a German visual artist .

biography

Spiess first learned the trade of a businessman before devoting himself entirely to art in 1934. From 1936 to 1938 he studied art at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Karlsruhe with professors Georg Sieberts and Siegfried Cernis. He then continued his studies at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart , including with Hermann Mayrhofer. From 1941 to 1945 he did his military service as a radio operator in the German Wehrmacht . After the end of the war, Spiess moved back to his hometown Homburg.

From 1958 to 1962 Spiess undertook several study trips to Paris and in 1960 spent a whole year there. In 1965 he went on a long study trip to Stuttgart . He then stayed in Italy and Switzerland for study purposes. In 1972 he moved to Altstadt , where he had bought an old farmhouse. He lived there and built it himself into the art gallery "Kunststall". The gallery continues to operate even after his death.

plant

At first, Spiess painted more conventionally. Up until the 1950s he created pictures of almost all styles, from naturalistic-realistic works to modern-abstract, cubist forms. His stay in Paris, which he himself described as his "... artistically most valuable and creative phase ...", was artistically decisive for Spiess. In the further course of his artistic development, Spiess focused entirely on the forms of abstraction.

Spiess mastered many artistic techniques, both painting and etching as well as the half-sculpture with partly monumental metal pictures or the mosaic. Many of his works are in public space , especially in the vicinity of his hometown Homburg.

Exhibitions

Since 1950 Willi Spiess has shown his work in numerous solo exhibitions and participations in exhibitions at home and abroad. Since 1945 he was a member of the Saarland Artists Association. In 1957 he was also a founding member of the “Neue Gruppe Saar” , a Saarland artists' association which, based on the ideas of the Bauhaus , had dedicated itself to concrete, constructive art .

A review took place in Homburg in 2005 and then in 2009, on the occasion of his 100th birthday, a retrospective with over 40 works by Willi Spiess.

literature

• Willi Spiess, retrospective: 4.12.94 - 8.1.95 . Contributions by Alexa Rademacher and others, editor: Saarländisches Künstlerhaus. Saarbrücken: self-rel. d. Künstlerhauses, 1994. 80 pages, ISBN 978-3-937046-39-6 .

Web links

• Literature on Willi Spiess (artist) in the Saarland Bibliography
• CV Willi Spiess on kunststall.de with photos of two pictures
• Retrospective exhibition Willi Spiess at www.homburg.de

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Willi Spiess curriculum vitae  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on the website of the city archive of the city of Homburg  
2. ↑ Website of the gallery "Kunststall"
3. ^ Saarbrücker Zeitung (Culture) of May 2, 2009
4. ^ Institute for contemporary art in Saarland: Saarlouis, Spiess, wall design. Retrieved December 21, 2018 . 
5. ↑ “Retrospectives - Outlooks” in the Saalbau cultural center Exhibition with pictures by Herman Remy and Willi Spiess ( memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on the website of the city of Homburg 
6. ↑ Willi Spiess retrospective exhibition ( Memento of the original from September 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on the web server of the city of Homburg, accessed on November 27, 2009