Wyny Ecu

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Self-portrait, 2006, wood & acrylic, H 50 cm
Invention of the Europid, 1983. New human dimensions, letterpress & colored pencil, 24 × 16 cm
Europid XI, 1998, wood & acrylic, H 100 cm.
Europid & Aphrodite 1995, canvas & acrylic, 90 × 90 cm
Wyny Ecu with Europid, 2014–15, wood & acrylic, H 180 cm.

Wyny Ecu (actually Werner Grosch ; born June 4, 1931 in Bochum ) is a German sculptor, painter and author. His artistic work is a commitment to the cultural heritage and the unity of Europe.

life and work

Wyny Ecu is the second child of Kaspar Erich Grosch (1905–1985) and his wife Gertrud, née Rumann (1909–1992). His brother Günter Erich (1929) died six weeks after he was born.

He first spent his childhood in Bochum . Inspired by his father's artistic activity, he used perspective in his children's drawings at the age of six, learned to play chess at an early age and, as a twelve-year-old, examined the contrast between official Nazi and prohibited degenerate art .

Because of the increasing bombing of the Ruhr area during World War II , he came to live with relatives in Zella / Rhön towards the end of 1943 . The village was occupied by American troops in March 1945 without a fight. In order to become an architect, after the end of the war, accompanied by his mother, he walked from the Rhön to Bochum in the middle of a refugee trail. The totally destroyed city forced their return and so they came inevitably and unintentionally to the Soviet occupation zone (SBZ), the later GDR. The hunger winter of 1946/47 came, and there were no offers for further training. It was only by chance that he received an apprenticeship contract as a wood sculptor.

After graduating early and receiving a scholarship, he began studying in 1949 at the Staatl in the neighboring village. Carving school Empfertshausen / Rhön with Wilhelm Löber . He also completed this training and was a member of the examination board of this school, which, located near the border, was later closed. As a chess player, he developed his Katzenstein defense and took part in a tournament for the Thuringian state championship. In 1952 political circumstances forced him to flee the GDR to the Federal Republic of Germany. He lost his early wooden sculptures, which had to be designed in the style of " socialist realism ". (Portrait: Maxim Gorki)

In Bochum he first worked as a laborer in a machine factory, then in the advertising department of a large department store. There he produced, among other things, larger-than-life, mechanically driven figures. In the years 1952-1957 he was interested in the Schauspielhaus Bochum. He attended almost all theater and concert performances, designed stage and sound bodies of today's minimal and conceptual style, the results of which for him, in terms of sculpture, were unsatisfactory.

From 1958 he studied sculpture at the Düsseldorf Art Academy with Manfred Sieler and Zoltan Székessy . Study trips took him to Amsterdam, Athens, Brussels, Florence, Paris, Crete and Rhodes. He received his artistic tools from Rudolf Belling , on whose behalf he made wooden sculptures from 1958 to 1963. In 1962 he had contact with Alexander Calder , who made a portrait of Wyny Ecu.

Untouched by the zeitgeist of popular art movements, he devoted himself to the "spatial problem of sculpture" in 1959 and explains: "Space encloses, penetrates and divides the body". This is how the first "Divisible Sculpture" came about. Due to this invention, a professorship for sculpture was possible in 1965. However, he was unable to provide evidence of the required university degree, as he had been misinformed and dropped out of his studies at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf after the sixth semester in order to secure his future livelihood with Erwin Heerich with a pedagogical exam at the seminar for working education in Düsseldorf and to get married in 1965. From 1968 onwards, the couple worked together on sculptures with room sensors in accordance with their studies on the problem of space from 1959.

Wyny Ecu was a member of the Professional Association of Visual Artists (BBK) and taught at a secondary school from 1969. There he developed an educational program for processing plastics in general schools and was an honorary judge at the Berlin-Moabit regional court. During a deep depression, Ecu himself destroyed most of his large-format works, which were created as a divisible sculpture, but which have been preserved photographically. In 1979 his daughter was born. In the same year he founded the Plinthe Sculpture Gallery in Berlin-Charlottenburg for the promotion of German Small Sculpture, which he was solely responsible for and, after intending to close it in 1996, enabled his wife to continue the gallery according to established guidelines in the following years.

His artistic new beginning took place with the invention of an artificial figure. In the study Vitruvmann by Leonardo da Vinci he discovered previously hidden things - a new human dimension as the archetype of Europid - a contribution to the unity of Europe, signed with the art name Wyny Ecu. This was followed by a two-year work stay at the North Sea, which led to the divorce. He made larger colored wooden sculptures: "The redefinition of the proportions does not allow for a natural artistic design, but has to conform to the law of abstraction".

In the summer of 1999 he moved into a new studio in Berlin-Charlottenburg and wrote the book "Scandal - The earthly chaos is god-willed". In it he questions the traditional worldview, because damaged bacteria deported by God to planet earth determine earthly life. Contrary to this, but visible in the Turin shroud , Christ carried "the cross in his face". The European Last Supper created with the Code in 2011 was deeply impressed by this. His analytical sculpture “Smiling” was only created in 2009, although it was already clear to him in Paris in 1965 that the Mona Lisa's mysterious smile is explained formally and not psychologically. Shapes automatically develop a life of their own that cannot be influenced, and when carried out consistently, these forces - the harmony of the corners of the mouth and eyes - also determine the mysterious smile.

His art is characterized by a pleasure in calculating the laws of form in advance. But he rarely showed them in public, and he kept aloof from the art market.

His work includes colored wood sculptures, reliefs, acrylic paintings, graphics and books.

Since 2010 he has lived at the place of residence of his daughter Teresa (Tessa) in Freigericht, Hesse.

Wyny Ecu is a member of VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn.

Exhibitions (selection)

  • 1953 Bochum Artists Association
  • 1963 Galerie S Ben Wagin, Berlin
  • 1965 Youth Art Prize, Mannheim / Bochum
  • 1967 Galerie S Ben Wagin, Berlin
  • 1968 Bochum Artists Association
  • 1968 Ben Wagin Gallery, Europa-Center, Berlin
  • 1979 Artistic Competition - International Congress Center Berlin
  • 1983 Free Berlin Art Exhibition
  • 1983 Plinthe Sculpture Gallery, Berlin
  • 1987 Galerie Nierendorf, Berlin - art dealer active as an artist
  • 1994 Artistic Competition - Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe , Berlin
  • 1996 State Representation of Thuringia in Berlin, Hitler biography, Joachim Fest, Galerie Hebecker, Erfurt / Berlin
  • 1998 Berlin / Grunewald train station / deportation of the Jews
  • 2006 Kunstkammer, Berlin
  • 2009 Art Cross, Berlin
  • 2011 Freigericht / Crossing borders - France, Italy and Germany
  • 2013 Summer Music Days, Main-Kinzig-Kreis, Hof Trages Chapel
  • 2018 Orangery Putbus / Rügen - Wilhelm Löber the forgotten Bauhaus student

Public property

  • Graphothek Berlin-Reinickendorf, archive no .: A0166, A0170, A 0202
  • Art Office Berlin-Spandau, sculpture, archive no .: 1338
  • Art collection of the Düsseldorf Art Academy, archive no .: 3411
  • Wilhelm-Lehmbruck-Museum, Duisburg, archive no .: 4234/1995
  • Art collection Christiane Herzog, Bellevue Palace, Berlin 1997

Published books

Contributions

literature

watch TV

SFB broadcast, regional magazine “Tele-Journal” 1987, interview with Werner Grosch. Archive no .: 68037 / FIDOS 1/1/1

Web links

Commons : Wyny Ecu  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Others

In 1975 Grosch (Ecu) lost the final in a simultaneous chess game against Michail Botvinnik (world champion from 1948 to 1963) after the 44th move in time pressure.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Catalog: "Great German Art Exhibition 1940," Knorr & Hirth Verlag, Munich 1940
  2. ^ Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf: "Alfred Flechtheim, collector, art dealer, 1937." Publisher: Das Museum, Düsseldorf 1987, ISBN 978-3777904009
  3. ↑ Hartmut Gill: "Wilhelm Löber: The forgotten Bauhaus student and Rügen ceramist," by Edition Schwarzdruck, Gransee 2018, ISBN 978-3-935194-88-4 pp. 38–43
  4. ^ Gorki, Maxim: "Duden Lexikon, rororo," Rowohlt Verlag, Hamburg 1966, Volume 4, p. 870
  5. ↑ Wyny ECU archive: "Correspondence," Rudolf Belling-Werner Grosch, Dusseldorf, 1952-1972
  6. ↑ Alexander Calder: "Portrait Werner Grosch (Wyny Ecu)," felt pen on the back of the catalog, Berlin 1962, Wyny Ecu Archive
  7. ^ Galerie Wolfgang Ketterer: "Catalog Rudolf Belling," Verlag München, Munich 1967, theory: "Spatial problem of sculpture" p. 7
  8. ↑ Werner Grosch: "Spatial problem of sculpture," Wyny Ecu Archive: Düsseldorf 1959, study sheet: Dividing plastic bodies, feeling spatial bodies, 29.7 x 21.5 cm
  9. ^ Josef Giesen: “Dürer's Proportions-Studien,” Kurt Schroeder Verlag, Bonn 1930, Vitruvmann Lionardos, Jean Paul Richter, London 1883, plate XII. Colored drawing by Werner Grosch as a prototype of the "Europid" 1983, Wyny Ecu Archive
  10. ↑ Der Volks-Brockhaus: Verlag FA Brockhaus, Leipzig 1941, "Europider Rassenkreis," p. 443
  11. ↑ Wyny Ecu: "Scandal the earthly chaos is God wanted," BOD Books on Demand, Norderstedt 2007, ISBN 978-3833484988
  12. ^ EA Seemann Verlag: “Leonardo da Vinci 1452-1952. On the occasion of the 500th anniversary of Leonardo's birthday, “Mona Lisa 1503, Paris, Louvre, license no. 460 • 350/7/52, p. 34
  13. ^ Giorgio Vasari: "Artists of the Renaissance." Vollmer Verlag, Wiesbaden-Berlin 1959, ed. U. zsgest. by Fritz Schillmann. With 30 portrait drawings. by Herbert Thannhaeuser. Leonardo da Vinci, pp. 240-244
  14. ↑ Werner Grosch: "Notation of the game Botwinnik / Grosch" 1975, Wyny Ecu Archive
personal data
SURNAME Ecu, Wyny
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Grosch, Werner (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German sculptor, painter and book author
DATE OF BIRTH June 4, 1931
PLACE OF BIRTH Bochum