Wolfgang Huett

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Wolfgang Hütt (born August 18, 1925 in Barmen ; † January 14, 2019 in Halle (Saale) ) was a German art historian and author .

life and work

Wolfgang Hütt grew up in a working-class district of Barmer. He completed an apprenticeship as a bricklayer , then he was drafted into military service. After the Second World War , he supported his parents in their work on a farm near Leipzig, where the family had been evacuated after a heavy air raid on Wuppertal . In 1948 the parents returned to their hometown.

At the same time, Hütt began working as a journalist in Halle (Saale). From 1946 he studied art history , German literature and architecture at the Martin Luther University in Halle-Wittenberg . From 1953 to 1957 an aspiranture followed with a teaching position at the local institute for art history and a doctorate. 1957 to 1959 Hütt took on a teaching position. During these years he worked on his first work Wir und die Kunst , a popularly written introduction to art observation and art history published in 1959, of which several strongly revised and expanded editions were published up to 1988.

Numerous dogmatic objections from critics loyal to the line were directed against the publication. As early as 1956, the Ministry for State Security (MfS), district administration Halle, opened an " operational procedure " because of "softening and decomposition activities within the University of Halle". That is why Hütt followed the call of Rector Professor Johannes Jahn to the Institute for Art History at the University of Leipzig , where he continued his academic work from 1959 to 1961 as senior assistant. But also in Leipzig the observation by the MfS, district administration Leipzig, continued and culminated in the suspicion of the organization of a "subversive group formation".

Because of his art theoretical views - the leadership of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) regarded them as “ revisionist ” - he was increasingly defamed by the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED). After his public criticism of the construction of the Berlin Wall and his resistance to initial plans to sacrifice the Pauline Church in the context of urban redevelopment, he was expelled from the SED in 1961 and dismissed from the University of Leipzig.

Nevertheless, Hütt did not leave the GDR, but continued to work as a freelance journalist in Halle. An attempt to gain a foothold as director of the “Staatliche Galerie Moritzburg Halle ” (1969–1971) failed. After his work for Otto Möhwald, who was decried as a “ formalist ”, and his resistance to the sale of works of art from the gallery's depot for foreign exchange, Hütt had to give up this position in 1971. As a result, an extensive journalistic work was created. Especially because of his conflicts with the dogmatists in the GDR, Hütt contributed to an objective examination of the art history of the GDR.

As a member of the advisory board of the art publishers of the GDR, as a member of the advisory board of the magazine "Bildende Kunst" and the artists' associations, Hütt was valued as a contentious discussion partner. Wolfgang Hütt never accepted the prescribed separation from his family and his hometown Wuppertal and, despite all the sanctions, never let the contact break. He dealt with this life conflict in the report Heimfahrt in die Gegenwart (1925 to 1949) published in 1982 and the autobiography Schattenlicht - a life in divided Germany , published in 1999 .

After the fall of the Wall , Hütt conducted extensive research for years in the posthumous archives of the SED, the Ministry for State Security and the Saxony-Anhalt State Archives . On this basis he created the extensive book Funded. Supervised. Reform pressure by visual artists of the GDR - The example of Halle.

Wolfgang Hütt campaigned for the next generation of scientists well into old age. After a serious illness, he had to finish his journalistic work in 2015 and handed over extensive material to the Akademie der Künste. He died in January 2019 at the age of 93 in a nursing home in Halle- Kröllwitz .

Awards

In 1986 he was awarded the Handel Prize of the Halle district .

Publications as author (selection)

  • We and art . Henschelverlag Berlin, 1959 (fundamentally revised new editions 1973 and 1988)
  • Adolph Menzel . EA Seemann, Leipzig, 1964 (3rd edition), 2008 (license in Munich and Vienna)
  • German painting and graphics in the 20th century . Henschelverlag Berlin, 1968
  • Mathis Gothard Neithardt, called Grünewald . Life and work in the mirror of research, EA Seemann, Leipzig, 1968
  • What pictures tell . Children's book publisher Berlin, 1969
  • German painting and graphics of the early bourgeois revolution . Leipzig, 1973
  • Small colorful world . Kinderbuchverlag Berlin, 1973 (also English, Spanish, Hungarian editions)
  • We - our time - artists of the GDR in their self-portraits . Henschel Verlag Berlin, 1974
  • Work in art . EA Seemann Leipzig, 1974
  • Plastic, graphic, painting . (= My little lexicon ) Children's book publisher Berlin, 1974
  • Willi Sitte . Verlag der Kunst, Dresden, 1976
  • What cities and houses tell . Children's book publisher Berlin, 1977
  • Artist in Halle . Henschelverlag, Berlin, 1977
  • Carl Marx . Verlag der Kunst, Dresden, 1978
  • Graphics in the GDR. Verlag der Kunst, Dresden, 1979.
  • Holbein the Younger, painter and work . Verlag der Kunst, 1980
  • Carl Crodel . Verlag der Kunst, Dresden, 1981
  • Journey home to the present - a report . Henschelverlag, Berlin, 1982
  • Adolph Menzel - Selected woodcuts. EA Seemann, Leipzig, 1983
  • The Düsseldorf School of Painting . EA Seemann Leipzig, 1984
  • The dragon slayer in the paradise garden - iconography for children . Children's book publisher, Berlin, 1988
  • German painting and graphics 1750–1945 . Henschelverlag Berlin, 1986
  • Defregger 1835-1921 . Leipzig and Munich, 1986
  • Background - With the indecency and blasphemy paragraphs against art and artists, 1900–1933 ., Henschelverlag, 1990
  • Shadow light. Fly Head Publishing House, Halle, 1999.
  • Funded. Supervised. Reform pressure from visual artists of the GDR. The example of Halle . Stekovics, 2004, ISBN 3-89923-073-6 .
  • Vermillion red and Schweinfurt green . Roman, Halle (Saale), 2009
  • Where is Arcadia? Roman, Halle (Saale), 2011

Publications as co-author (selection)

  • The Naumburg Cathedral . Sachsenverlag Dresden, 1956
  • Otto Nagel, Berlin Pictures . 1970
  • Albrecht Dürer, The entire graphic work . Henschelverlag, Berlin 1971 (licensed edition Verlag Rogner & Bernhard, Munich)
  • The Albrecht Dürer house book . Rogner & Bernhard, Munich, 1975
  • Ludwig Knaus . Wiesbaden, 1979
  • Figurative painting from the last decade of the GDR . 1999
  • Narrowness and diversity - commissioned art and art funding in the GDR . 1999
  • Delightful letters from the Dessau painter Carl Marx to Wolfgang Hütt . 2002
  • Johann Peter Hasenclever - A painter's life between Biedermeier and revolution. Solingen, 2003
  • More than 400 scientific and popular scientific publications, essays and articles.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ He declared art for everyone The Halle author Wolfgang Hütt is dead , mz-web.de, January 14, 2019, accessed on January 15, 2019.
personal data
SURNAME Huett, Wolfgang
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German art historian and author
DATE OF BIRTH August 18, 1925
PLACE OF BIRTH Barmen
DATE OF DEATH January 14, 2019
Place of death Halle (Saale)