Wolfgang Mattheuer

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Mattheuer's grave in Leipzig's southern cemetery with a bronze sculpture entitled “Showing one's face”, in June 2007

Wolfgang Mattheuer (born April 7, 1927 in Reichenbach / Vogtland , † April 7, 2004 in Leipzig ) was a German painter , graphic artist and sculptor . In addition to Werner Tübke and Bernhard Heisig , Wolfgang Mattheuer is one of the main representatives of the so-called Leipzig School .

Life

Mattheuer's father Otto Walter Mattheuer was a bookbinder in the large printing company Carl Werner, his mother Helene Mattheuer, née Spindler, was a housewife. Wolfgang Mattheuer had two sisters, Gerda and Annerose. After attending school in Reichenbach (1933 to 1941), he completed an apprenticeship as a lithographer at the Carl Werner company in Reichenbach from 1941 to 1944 . The first artistic work was created while taking part in in-house drawing courses. After completing his training, he was unable to study commercial graphics, which he was promised after winning a competition in Munich, because he was called up to join the mountain hunters in Salzburg. In 1945 Mattheuer was wounded at the front in Slovakia and taken to a hospital in Prague. He was taken prisoner by the Red Army , from which he managed to escape.

In 1945 Mattheuer returned to Reichenbach and had to take part in the dismantling of the Carl Werner company. From 1946 to 1947 Mattheuer attended the arts and crafts school in Leipzig, where he met his future wife Ursula Neustädt . From 1947 to 1951 Mattheuer studied at the University of Graphic Art and Book Art in Leipzig with Professors Egon Pruggmayer , Walter Arnold and Elisabeth Voigt . Graduated with a graphic diploma. From 1951 to 1952 he worked as a graphic artist for the “Illustrierte Rundschau” in Berlin. In 1952 he returned to Leipzig, married the graphic artist Ursula Neustädt and began teaching at the College of Graphics and Book Art (1952 to 1956 assistant, 1956 to 1965 lecturer, 1965 to 1974 professor). During his teaching activities he had a formative influence on many of his students, e. B. Sighard Gille , Erich Kissing and Wolfgang Peuker . As a member of the first generation of graduates from the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst, the university professor Wolfgang Mattheuer, together with his colleagues Bernhard Heisig and Werner Tübke, caused a change of direction away from the teaching of socialist realism . These three artists are considered to be representatives of the so-called Leipzig School , which became important for the art of the GDR from 1960 onwards and made the academy known and made its founders successful. At his own request, Wolfgang Mattheuer resigned his teaching post in 1974 and from then on only worked as a freelancer. From 1978 he was a member of the Academy of Arts of the GDR .

In 1953, private collectors bought pictures and graphics for the first time. In 1954 Mattheuer was represented for the first time with paintings at the Leipzig district art exhibition. Until 1985 he took part regularly in important exhibitions in Leipzig. In 1958 Mattheuer took part in the IV German Art Exhibition in Dresden with free graphics and illustrations  . Since then he has been represented at all other GDR art exhibitions in Dresden. In 1963 the first major museum exhibition took place in the State Lindenau Museum in Altenburg. In 1965, the Moritzburg State Gallery in Halle / Saale was the first museum to acquire a picture by Wolfgang Mattheuer ( Kain , 1965).

In 1963 Mattheuer made friends with the student of his specialist class, Inge Gohrisch (Brüx). In 1966 Mattheuer's son Richard Gohrisch (Brüx) was born.

Since 1962, he lived and worked in his parents' house in Reichenbach and in an old apartment at Clara-Zetkin-Park in Leipzig, in which two 4.20 m high rooms served him and his wife as a studio . After initially only working as a painter and graphic artist, he has also created plastic works since 1971. His best-known work was the sculpture Century Step (1984), in which he takes stock of the social contradictions of the 20th century. The contrast between fascism , socialism , barbarism and reaction requires the viewer to make their own assessment. In 1974/75 a personal exhibition by Wolfgang Mattheuer took place in the Gemäldegalerie Neue Meister parallel to the large Caspar David Friedrich exhibition. In 1977 Mattheuer was involved in documenta 6 in Kassel when the topic of New Realistic Art was discussed and he was presented as a representative of socialist realism in the other German state. In 1984 he took part in the 41st  Venice Biennale .

Wolfgang Mattheuer found inspiration for his work with Caspar David Friedrich , with the old Dutch painters, but also with artists of the 20th century such as Picasso , Léger , Magritte , Beckmann and Hofer . The content of Mattheuer's work was fed by everything he saw, read and experienced. His main topic was the confrontation with reality, in his own country, but also worldwide, always vacillating between hope and doubt, resistance and resignation.

A year before the fall of the Wall on October 7, 1988, the GDR's national holiday , he left the SED with an open letter , which he had joined in 1958 after Khrushchev's forced de-Stalinization . Extensive state security files show that Mattheuer had been spied on since the 1960s and even classified as an enemy of the state towards the end of the GDR. In 1989 Mattheuer took an active part in the Leipzig Monday demonstrations .

Wolfgang Mattheuer died of heart failure on April 7, 2004, in the first hour of his 77th birthday, after he had been hospitalized a week earlier because of a broken hand in a fall. His final resting place is in the Leipzig South Cemetery (2nd section).

Wolfgang Mattheuer was considered a chronicler of society . After his death, the Ursula Mattheuer-Neustädt and Wolfgang Mattheuer Foundation was founded in Leipzig in 2006 . The aim and purpose of the foundation is to preserve the artistic work of both artists and make them accessible to the public. In addition, the work of Wolfgang Mattheuer as an academic teacher and his influence on students and artistic descendants should be highlighted.

Prizes and awards

Honors

In 2011, by resolution of the Leipzig City Council, a new street in the Probstheida district was named Mattheuerbogen .

Works

Bronze sculpture “ Step of the Century ” in Potsdam in the courtyard of the coach stable
“ Step of the Century ” - iron cast in front of the House of History in Bonn
Bronze statue "Showing your face" on the market in Reichenbach / Vogtland
Rear view of the bronze sculpture

The work of Wolfgang Matt Heuer includes 740 paintings, more than 5,500 drawings, about 850 prints and 50 sculptures and objects.

Drawings (example)

  • 1981 - Prometheus leaves the theater or The End of the Enlightenment Pencil 60 × 80.2 cm, private collection.

Print (example)

  • 1981/1995 - My suns are called: Despite everything. Woodcut 1981 45.5 × 45.5 cm; 1995 partially colored edition of 30 sheets.

Paintings (examples)

  • 1965 - Cain , 96 × 118 cm, Staatliche Galerie Moritzburg Halle / Saale.
  • 1967 - Adam is waiting , 118 × 96 cm, Staatliche Galerie Moritzburg Halle / Saal.
  • 1968 - Thaw (first version) 50 × 70 cm, private collection.
  • 1969 - The big skylight
  • 1970 - Floating lovers , 96 × 118 cm, State Museum Schwerin,
  • 1971 - The Blue Leipzig , 119.5 × 96 cm, Museum of Fine Arts Leipzig.
  • 1971/72 - Easter Walk II , 58 × 89 cm, Museum Moderne Kunst Vienna.
  • 1972 - The Flight of Sisyphus , 96 × 118 cm, Galerie Neue Meister Dresden.
  • 1973 - A wide field , 105 × 129 cm, National Gallery Berlin.
  • 1973 - Behind the Seven Mountains , 170 × 130 cm, Museum of Fine Arts Leipzig.
  • 1973/74 - The Award Winner , 125 × 100 cm, National Gallery Berlin.
  • 1979 - Unterbuchwald , 85 × 70 cm, private collection.
  • 1986 - Outside, Inside and Me , 200 × 200 cm, National Gallery Berlin, loan from the Fritz P. Mayer Collection
  • 1985 - Get out of your box , 147 × 253 cm, Sprengel-Museum Hannover.
  • 2002 - Nothing new in the new century

Sculptures (selection)

  • 1975 - Sisyphus in the wheel
  • 1979 - entangled
  • 1981 - Man with a mask (mask man) . - In memory of the Monday demonstrations, the sculpture, which was distributed in several casts, was renamed in Leipzig to reveal a face . The Heilbronn copy kept its original name.

Further bronze casts: National Gallery, Berlin; Museum of Fine Arts, Leipzig; Südfriedhof, grave of Wolfgang Mattheuer; City of Heilbronn; Reichenbach im Vogtland, market square in front of the town hall

Further casts: House of History, Bonn (iron); Grundkreditbank, Berlin (Eisen); Moritzburg Foundation, Halle / Saale (bronze); Museum Ludwig, Oberhausen (bronze); Forum of Contemporary History, Leipzig (bronze)

  • 1996 - Icarus rises
  • 2001 - refugees

Factory locations

  • Aachen, Ludwig Forum for International Art
  • Ahrenshoop, Ahrenshoop Art Museum
  • Altenburg, Lindenau Museum
  • Augsburg, Walter Art Museum
  • Bad Frankenhausen, Panorama Museum
  • Berlin, German Historical Museum
  • Berlin, art collection of the Berliner Volksbank
  • Berlin, Bundestag
  • Berlin, State Museums - National Gallery
  • Beeskow, Beeskow Art Archive
  • Bonn, Foundation House of the History of the Federal Republic of Germany
  • Budapest, Ludwig Museum
  • Chemnitz, art collections
  • Dresden, State Art Collections, New Masters Gallery
  • Durbach, Museum of Contemporary Art - Hurrle Collection
  • Erfurt, Angermuseum
  • Frankfurt am Main, Deutsche Bundesbank art collection
  • Frankfurt am Main, Städel Museum
  • Frankfurt (Oder), Museum of Young Art
  • Halle / Saale, Moritzburg Foundation, Art Museum of the State of Saxony-Anhalt
  • Hanover, Sprengel Museum
  • Cologne, Museum Ludwig
  • Leipzig, art collection of the Sparkasse
  • Leipzig, Museum of Fine Arts
  • Leipzig, Fritz P. Mayer Collection - Leipzig School
  • Leipzig, City History Museum
  • Leipzig, Forum of Contemporary History
  • Magdeburg, Museum of Cultural History
  • Mannheim, art gallery
  • Nuremberg, Germanic National Museum
  • Beijing, Ludwig Museum for International Art
  • Plauen, Vogtland Museum
  • Potsdam, collection of the LBS Ostdeutsche Landesbausparkasse A
  • Potsdam, Hasso Plattner Collection
  • Reichenbach im Vogtland, market square in front of the town hall
  • Rostock, Rostock art gallery
  • Schwerin, State Museum
  • St. Petersburg, Museum Ludwig in the Russian Museum
  • Weimar, Weimar Classic Foundation, New Museum and Castle Museum
  • Vienna, Museum of Modern Art Ludwig Foundation
  • Würzburg, Museum am Dom

Exhibition (example)

  • "Wolfgang Mattheuer - the graphic work", Rathausgalerie Grimma , November 17, 2018 - January 13, 2019

Movie

Publications (excerpt)

  • 1974 - Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden (Ed.): Wolfgang Mattheuer , exhibition catalog Gemäldegalerie Neue Meister - Albertinum, Dresden, with the text by Joachim Uhlitzsch: "The unusual realism of Wolfgang Mattheuer"
  • 1978 - Museum of Fine Arts Leipzig : Wolfgang Mattheuer , exhibition catalog, Leipzig
  • 1987 - Staatliche Galerie Moritzburg Halle: Wolfgang Mattheuer - drawings , exhibition catalog
  • 1988 - National Gallery of the State Museums in Berlin : Proximity and Horizon - Wolfgang Mattheuer , exhibition catalog Henschelverlag, Berlin
  • 1988 - Heinz Schönemann: Wolfgang Mattheuer , comprehensive monograph in EA Seemann-Verlag, Leipzig
  • 1990 - Wolfgang Mattheuer: Statements , texts and graphics, Reclam-Verlag, Leipzig
  • 1995 - Municipal Art Museum, Spendhaus Reutlingen : Wolfgang Mattheuer - Vom Holz , exhibition catalog of wooden sticks and woodcuts, Reutlingen
  • 1997 - Ursula Mattheuer-Neustädt: Pictures as a message - The message of pictures , reflections on the work at Faber & Faber, Leipzig
  • 2002 - Ingrid Mössinger, Kerstin Drechsel (eds.): Wolfgang Mattheuer , exhibition catalog Retrospective Art Collections Chemnitz, Seemann-Verlag, Leipzig
  • 2005 - Edition Galerie Schwind: Wolfgang Mattheuer - Catalog raisonné of sculptures and objects , Frankfurt a. Main
  • 2005 - Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum Aachen: Wolfgang Mattheuer - Icarus, the unrecognized and the step of the century , exhibition catalog drawings from private collections, Aachen
  • 2007 - Museum of Fine Arts Leipzig: Wolfgang Mattheuer - Evening, Hills, Forests, Love. The other Mattheuer , exhibition catalog
  • 2007 - Ursula Mattheuer-Neustädt, Heinz Schönemann u. a. (Ed.): My suns are called: In spite of everything. Memories of Wolfgang Mattheuer , Verlag Faber & Faber , Leipzig
  • 2008 - Ingrid Mössinger, Kerstin Drechsel (eds.): Wolfgang Mattheuer - Flugversuch , exhibition catalog of the retrospective of drawings, Edition Minerva, Munich
  • 2009 - Jürgen Lennsen (Ed.): Wolfgang Mattheuer - Century Step , catalog of the exhibition in the Museum am Dom, Würzburg
  • 2010 - Ingrid Mössinger, Kerstin Drechsel (eds.): Wolfgang Mattheuer, Das Druckgrafische Werk - Donation Hartmut Koch , inventory of the printed works (German and English edition), Wienand-Verlag, Cologne, ISBN 978-3-86832-031-2

literature

  • Anja Hertel: Wolfgang Mattheuer - The political landscape. Marburg 2014, 369 pages, ISBN 978-3-8288-3302-9 .
  • Annette Müller-Spreitz: Adaptation and Autonomy - The picture titles in Wolfgang Mattheuer 1950 to 1990 . Leipzig 2018, 387 pages. ISBN 978-3-96023-153-0
  • Stefanie Michels (editor), Eduard Beaucamp, Annette Müller-Spreitz (authors): Wolfgang Mattheuer - Images as a message. Catalog raisonné of the paintings 1950-2003 . Leipzig 2017, 367 pages, ISBN 978-3-932830-71-6
  • Kirsten Leuenroth (editor + editor): Wolfgang Mattheuer - catalog raisonné of sculptures and objects. Frankfurt am Main 2005. ISBN 3-932830-51-2
  • Anke Scharnhorst:  Mattheuer, Wolfgang . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 2. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
  • Wolfgang Mattheuer, Joachim Uhlitzsch , exhibition catalog Gemäldegalerie Neue Meister Dresden, 1975

Web links

Commons : Wolfgang Mattheuer  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikiversity: Wolfgang Mattheuer: Tauwetter (1968)  - course materials

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Personalities from Reichenbach in Vogtland. Mattheuer, Wolfgang, Prof. www.reichenbach-vogtland.de. Retrieved January 26, 2018.
  2. ↑ Council meeting of May 18, 2011 (resolution no. RBV-822/11), official announcement: Leipzig Official Gazette no. 11 of June 4, 2011, in force since July 5, 2011 and August 5, 2011. Cf. Official Journal No. 16 of September 10, 2011.
  3. ^ Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz: Wolfgang Mattheuer, Das Druckgrafische Werk - Donation Hartmut Koch , ISBN 978-3-86832-031-2
  4. ↑ Edition Galerie Schwind ( Memento of the original dated August 4, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. : Wolfgang Mattheuer - catalog raisonné of sculptures and objects , ISBN 3-932830-51-2 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.galerie-schwind.de
  5. ↑ The copy is there in front of the entrance to the Klinikum am Gesundbrunnen, see article Monuments and Sculptures in Heilbronn .
  6. ↑ Thomas Kube: Mattheuer graphics are shown for the first time in Grimma "Wolfgang Mattheuer - the graphic work" is the name of an exhibition that will open on Saturday in the Grimma Town Hall Gallery. Quite extraordinary. Mattheuer's screen prints were rarely shown in exhibitions. Leipziger Volkszeitung , online portal, November 16, 2018. Accessed December 1, 2018 .
  7. ↑ https://www.l-iz.de/bildung/buecher/2018/07/Die-subversiv-poetisch-Bildtitel-im-Werk-des-Leipziger-Malers-Wolfgang-Mattheuer-223922
personal data
SURNAME Mattheuer, Wolfgang
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter, graphic artist and sculptor
DATE OF BIRTH April 7, 1927
PLACE OF BIRTH Reichenbach in Vogtland
DATE OF DEATH April 7, 2004
Place of death Leipzig