Gotthard Graubner

Gotthard Graubner (13 June 1930 – 24 May 2013) was a German painter, born in Erlbach, in Saxony, Germany.[1]

Gotthard Graubner
Born13 June 1930
Erlbach, Germany
Died24 May 2013(2013-05-24) (aged 82)
Neuss, Germany
Known forPainter

Graubner studied at the Academy of Arts, Berlin, the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts and the Düsseldorf Academy of Arts in Germany, before becoming a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Hamburg in 1969 and at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in 1976. His work Black Skin (Schwarze Haut), was selected to be featured in one of the 100 Great Paintings programmes by the BBC in 1980.[2] For the last decades of his life, he lived and worked in Düsseldorf and on the Museum Insel Hombroich, Neuss, where he died shortly before his 83rd birthday.[3][4]

Life

Graubner was born in 1930 in Erlbach (Saxony, Germany). From 1947 to 1948 he studied at the Academy of Arts, Berlin, and from 1948 to 1949 at the Academy of Arts, Dresden, where he was a student of Wilhelm Rudolph. When his professor had to leave the Dresden academy for ideological reasons, Graubner was on his side and therefore exmatriculated.[5] In 1954 he left East Germany.

From 1954 to 1959, Graubner studied painting at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf,[6] where he was first a student of Otto Pankok [7] with Günther Uecker and Bert Gerresheim becoming his classmates.[8][9][10] Later he became a master pupil of Georg Meistermann.[11][12][13][14] In 1959, when Meistermann left the Academy,[15][16][17][18] Graubner became one of Karl Otto Götz's first students,[19][20] his classmates being HA Schult, who also studied under Meistermann,[21][22] and Kuno Gonschior.[23][24][20]

In 1959, Graubner left the academy. Shortly before leaving it, he came into contact with Otto Piene and Heinz Mack, the founders of the Zero group,[25][26][7] For some years, Graubner worked, with Mack, as an art teacher at the Lessing Gymnasium, Düsseldorf.[27][28]

In 1965 he was appointed at the Academy of Fine Arts, Hamburg, where he became Professor of Painting in 1969. From 1976 to 1992 he hold a professorship at the Academy of Fine Arts, Düsseldorf.[29] Among his many Düsseldorf students were Chen Ruo Bing,[30][31] Mechthild Hagemann, Doris Helbling, Jana Vizjak, Hans-Willi Notthoff, Georg Schmidt, Jens Stittgen,[32] Stoya,[33] Martin Streit,[34][35][36] Peter Thol,[37] Ulrich Moskopp,[38] Albert Maria Pümpel,[39] Ingo Ronkholz,[40] Ansgar Skibba[41] and Carl Emanuel Wolff[42]

In 1988 the Federal President of Germany ordered two works from Graubner.[43] The artist was also commissioned to create a cushion picture for the German Bundestag.[44] In 1996 he became a member of the Saxon Academy of Arts, Dresden.[45]

After his retirement, Graubner lived and worked in Düsseldorf-Oberkassel, where he had his studio.[46] His last years he spent on the island of the Museum Insel Hombroich, Neuss, near Düsseldorf.[47]

Artistic style: colored cushions and color-space bodies

Graubner's art is characterised by his unique philosophy and the use of color in his work. He began developing his own style in 1959, while he studied under K.O. Götz. Before that, Graubner's work had been characterised by using color sparingly, in shapes and on the edges of the canvas,[48] but, from 1955 onwards, he had already experimented with different approaches towards color, at first with watercolor and later on canvas. Instead of focusing on shapes, he began to use color lavishly.

About 1960, the artist produced flat panel paintings with surfaces built up of differentiated nebulous color formations, the application of color in layers of varying degrees of transparency opening up the picture surface, producing a color formation of indefinite depth comparable to the paintings of Mark Rothko.[49]

In the 1960s, Graubner mounted picture-size colored cushions onto his paintings and used Perlon fabric in an attempt to enhance the spatial effect of color surfaces. These works were displayed in Alfred Schmela's gallery in Düsseldorf.[48]

Between 1968 and 1972 he did what he called "Nebelräume" ["Fog Spaces"].

Graubner never allowed his style to be dictated by the current fashions or trends. He developed his own style of using color as the medium through which his work announced itself, allowing it to work independently of any connection to any kind of representation or theme. According to Helga Meister, his works have sensibility, feeling and meditative force.[50] However, his paintings are only at first glance monochrome; as a closer look reveals, they are in fact polychrome.[51] They "breathe"; they live; their colors, even though fixed on canvas, have movement that stirs the imagination as much as his "fog-spaces" of the sixties, in which he continued the romantic tradition of Caspar David Friedrich.[52] Moreover, his "color-space bodies" ("Farbraumkörper")[53] have been described by art historian Max Imdahl as "picture-objects" in which "color-space and body, intangible vision and tangible facticity cooperate in a special interrelationship."[54]

Graubner explains the genesis of his painting as an "intermediate" between Caspar David Friedrich and J.M.W. Turner.[55] According to art historian Werner Hofmann (who had Friedrich's "The Monk by the Sea" in mind[56]), both Graubner and Friedrich created an aesthetics of monotony as a counterpart to the aesthetics of variety that was predominant before the nineteenth century.[57] Graubner also saw his own work in the tradition of old masters such as Matthias Grünewald, Titian, El Greco and Paul Cézanne.[58]

Berke Inel considers Graubner's "original use of the color-light-space triad" as the "unique aspect" of his work: "The artist presents color to the audience as though it were a landscape," and he always pays attention to detail. "While he does not use specific shapes, he uses color shades and the warm-cold balances and contrasts very well." His artworks have "no specific topic and theory" and represent "a research into color and a 'tone in tone' approach."[59]

Exhibitions

In 1975, there was a major Graubner exhibition at the Kunsthalle Hamburg. In 1977, the Städtische Kunsthalle Düsseldorf presented the exhibition, "Gotthard Graubner: Farbräume, Farbkörper, Arbeiten auf Papier". In 1980, his works were shown at the Kunsthalle Tübingen and the Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden. In the 1980s, Graubner's paintings were presented in exhibitions at the Royal Academy of Art, London, entitled "A New Spirit in Painting" (1981) and "German Art in the Twentieth Century: Painting and Sculpture 1905-1985". In 1982, Graubner participated in the Venice Biennale. In 1987, the Kunstsammlung NRW, Düsseldorf, presented his paintings of the mid-80s. In 1990, the Kunsthalle Bremen exhibited his works on paper. In 1992, he exhibited together with Gerhard Richter and Sigmar Polke at the Galerie Schönewald and Beuse, Krefeld.[60] In 1995, his paintings were shown at the Saarland Museum, Saarbrücken. In 2000, Graubner's drawings were presented at the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden and his other works at the Goethe-Institut, Istanbul, the CaixaForum Barcelona and the Ankara State Art and Sculpture Museum. In 2001, the Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe exhibited his watercolors. In 2002, his work was shown in a major exhibition at the Wiesbaden Museum. In 2005, the Art Museum of the China Academy of Art, Hangzhou, and the Art Museum of the China Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing, presented his paintings and watercolors.[61]

Notable works

Graubner's works include Kissenbilder (Cushion Pictures; ca. 1960s), Erster Nebelraum - Hommage à Caspar David Friedrich (1968) and further Fog Spaces ("Nebelräume", 1969-1971, 2006-2007).[62] In 1988, Graubner was commissioned to create two large cushion pictures for the Schloss Bellevue in Berlin.[43][63]

Awards

Gotthard Graubner was awarded the August Macke Prize of the city of Meschede in 1987 and the North German Art Prize in 1988. In 2001, he was awarded the Otto Ritschl Prize that honours a life's work in colour painting.[64]

Further reading
  • Ernst-Gerhard Güse, ed., Gotthard Graubner: Malerei, exhibition catalog, Saarland Museum, Saarbrücken, 14 May - 16 July 1995.
  • Gotthard Graubner: Träger des Otto Ritschl Preises 2001 - Gotthard Graubner: Recipient of the Otto Ritschl Prize 2001, exh. cat. Museum Wiesbaden (Düsseldorf: Richter Verlag, 2001).
  • Veit Görner and Caroline Sommer, eds., Gotthard Graubner: Farblicht, exhibition catalog, Kestnergesellschaft, Hanover, 16 May - 3 August 2003.
  • Dorit Schäfer, ed., Gotthard Graubner: Radierungen, exhibition catalog, Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe, 12 July - 28 September 2008.
  • Uwe Wieczorek, ed., Gotthard Graubner: Malerei - Painting, exhibition catalog, Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein, 4 February - 25 April 2010.
  • Erich Franz, Gotthard Graubner: Zeichnungen - Drawings, Düsseldorf, 2011.
  • Gotthard Graubner: Magier der Farbe, exhibition catalog, Akademie-Galerie, Die Neue Sammlung, Düsseldorf, 27 September 2013 – 26 January 2014.
  • Richard Hoppe-Sailer, "Farbe - Fläche - Körper - Raum: Gotthard Graubners Gemälde im Dialog mit der Hildesheimer Bernwardtür", in Michael Brandt and Gerd Winner, eds., übergänge | transitions: Gotthard Graubner - Bernwardtür - Qiu Shihua, Hildesheim, 2014, pp. 6–15.

See also

Notes
  1. "Gotthard Graubner ist tot: Der Farbmagier - Kunst". FAZ. 15 May 2013. Retrieved 26 May 2013.
  2. Gisela Hossmann, "Gotthard Graubner (geb. 1930), Schwarze Haut (1969)", in Wibke von Bonin, ed., 100 Meisterwerke aus den großen Museen der Welt, Volume 4 (Cologne: vgs verlagsgesellschaft, 1988), pp. 162-68.
  3. Helga Meister, Der Maler Gotthard Graubner ist tot, Westdeutsche Zeitung, 24 May 2013.
  4. "Maler Gotthard Graubner gestorben", Zeit Online, 25 May 2013.
  5. "Maler Gotthard Graubner mit 82 Jahren gestorben", Hamburger Abendblatt, 27 May 2013.
  6. "Gotthard Graubner". Museums Plattform NRW. Retrieved 22 April 2017.
  7. C.F. Schröer, "Im Labyrinth des Malers: Zum Tod von Gotthard Graubner".
  8. Cornelius Tittel, "Günther Uecker – mit Nägeln gegen die Russen", Die Welt, 31 May 2012.
  9. "Galerie Duo Bernd Bentler, Bonn: Biografie Günther Uecker". Archived from the original on 28 April 2016. Retrieved 28 October 2016.
  10. Ursula Posny, "Die Waschküche war sein erstes Atelier", NRZ, 23 December 2008.
  11. Kunstakademie Düsseldorf: Pressemitteilung - 10. Juni 2010: Hochschulnachrichten: Gotthard Graubner wird 80 Jahre.
  12. Munzinger Biographie: Gotthard Graubner
  13. Kultur Chronik, Volume 18 (Inter Nationes, 2000), p. 4.
  14. Siegmar Holsten, "Graubner, Gotthard", AKL, 61 (Munich and Leipzig: K.G. Saur, 2009), p. 3.
  15. Inge Herold, "Meistermann, Georg", AKL, vol. 88, Berlin and Boston, 2016, p. 535.
  16. Jutta Held, "HAP Grieshaber und Georg Meistermann an der Karlsruher Akademie der Bildenden Künste." In Kunst und Architektur in Karlsruhe. Festschrift für Norbert Schneider (Universitätsverlag Karlsruhe, 2006), pp. 129-142.
  17. Meistermann-Gesellschaft: Georg Meistermann: Biographie
  18. Georg Meistermann zum 100. Geburtstag.
  19. Kunstakademie Düsseldorf: Hochschulnachrichten: Gotthard Graubner wird 80 Jahre.
  20. Oliver Kornhoff and Barbara Nierhoff, Karl Otto Götz: In Erwartung blitzschneller Wunder, exh. cat., Arp Museum, Remagen (Kerber Christof Verlag, 2010), p. 114.
  21. Christiane Hoffmans, H.A. Schult, der Musen-Sohn, Die Welt, 30 April 2006.
  22. Munzinger Biographie: "HA Schult: deutscher Aktionskünstler"
  23. "An der Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf studiert er [Gonschior] von 1957 bis 1961 in der Malklasse von Karl Otto Götz zusammen mit Gotthard Graubner und HA Schult." See Museumsplattform NRW: Kuno Gonschior.
  24. Günter Steinle writes that Gonschior "in Wanne-Eickel, im Herzen des grauen Ruhrgebiets geboren wurde und später in Köln und Düsseldorf zusammen mit Gotthard Graubner und HA Schult studierte." See Sammlung Steinle: Das Kunstwerk des Monats Oktober 2015: Kuno Gonschior, VIBRATION ROT-GR-BLAU-VIO.
  25. "Gotthard Graubner studierte in Berlin, Dresden und zuletzt in Düsseldorf. Hier kam er in Kontakt mit Piene, Mack und Uecker, den Gründern der Gruppe Zero." See Grisebach, Contemporary Art, Berlin, 5 June 2015.
  26. "Zero: Works from the Zero Era". Sotheby's.
  27. "Zum Tod des Malers Gotthard Graubner: Meister der Zeitlosigkeit" (in German). rheinische Art. 2013.
  28. "Klasse von Heinz Mack feiert 50 Jahre Abitur". Rheinische Post (in German). 23 March 2012.
  29. For more details, see Siegmar Holsten, "Graubner, Gotthard", in Allgemeines Künstler-Lexikon (AKL), vol. 61 (Munich and Leipzig, 2009), pp. 4-5.
  30. Der Maler Chen Ruo Bing
  31. "Chinesischer Künstler zeigt imposante Farbspiele", Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, 29 July 2016.
  32. Museum Insel Hombroich: Bildende Künstler.
  33. Andreas Fasel, "Abgetaute Coolness", Welt am Sonntag, 15 September 2002.
  34. Werkhallen: Martin Streit
  35. "Lichtkammer: Begehbare Camera Obscura Projekte von Martin Streit" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 11 September 2016. Retrieved 28 October 2016.
  36. "Ein Maler durchleuchtet das Gedächtnis der Dinge", Generalanzeiger Bonn, 18 November 2001.
  37. Kunstakademie Allgäu: Gegenständliche Malerei: Bildnerisches Sehen: Peter Thol
  38. "Ulrich Moskopp". Archived from the original on 29 October 2016. Retrieved 28 October 2016.
  39. Albert Maria Pümpel: Alles - Ein Spaziergang zwischen Öl und Wasser
  40. Kunstaspekte: Ingo Ronkholz
  41. "Ansgar Skibba: "NATUR – hin zu Bewegung und Farbfluss"". Archived from the original on 29 October 2016. Retrieved 28 October 2016.
  42. Frauen-Kultur-Archiv: Yvonne Friedrichs Textforum: Ein Anglerkönig auf dem Thron: Ausstellung Carl Emanuel Wolff im Kunstpalast und an der Bilker Straße
  43. Gotthard Graubner: Die Bilder im Schloß Bellevue (Bonn: Bundespräsidialamt, 1989).
  44. Deutscher Bundestag: Gotthard Graubner.
  45. "Sächsische Akademie der Künste: Mitgliederübersicht". Archived from the original on 1 June 2013. Retrieved 15 April 2013.
  46. Essen-Nord: Oberkassel.
  47. Stiftung Insel Hombroich: Künstler der ersten Stunde.
  48. Gotthard Graubner biography Ketterer Kunst.
  49. The Grove Dictionary of Art, Volume 13 (Oxford University Press, 1996), p. 323.
  50. Helga Meister, Die Kunstszene Düsseldorf (Recklinghausen 1979), p. 82.
  51. Karl Ruhrberg, Kunst im 20. Jahrhundert: Das Museum Ludwig (Cologne, Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1986), p. 37.
  52. Amine Haase, Andreas Vowinckel and Stephan von Wiese, Michael Buthe & Marcel Odenbach, exh. cat., Walter Phillips Gallery, 22 September–16 October 1983, p. 3.
  53. Friedegund Weidemann, "Gotthard Graubner: Tojama II (Farbraumkörper), 1984", Verein der Freunde der Nationalgalerie.
  54. Cited by Sabine Schütz, "Color-Space Bodies: The Art of Gotthard Graubner", Arts Magazine, Volume 65, April 1991, p. 49.
  55. Raum der Stille im Landtag Nordrhein-Westfalen.
  56. Werner Hofmann, Caspar David Friedrich, 1774-1840, exh. cat., Hamburger Kunsthalle, 1974, no. 77.
  57. "Kissenkunst, zerrissene Realität", Die Zeit, 19 December 1975.
  58. "Zum Tod von Gotthard Graubner Felder, Kissen, Räume", Der Tagesspiegel, 25 May 2013.
  59. Berke Inel, "Art and Design Festival at Marmara University", Daily News, 12/19/1999.
  60. Gotthard Graubner, Sigmar Polke, Gerhard Richter: Gemälde, Aquarelle, Graphiken, exh. cat., Krefeld, Galerie Schönewald and Beuse, 8 May-8 July 1992.
  61. For these and many other exhibitions, see Siegmar Holsten, "Graubner, Gotthard", in AKL 61 (Munich and Leipzig, 2009), pp. 4-5.
  62. For these and other of Graubner's works, see Siegmar Holsten, "Graubner, Gotthard", AKL, 61 (Munich and Leipzig: K.G. Saur, 2009), p. 3.
  63. Räume und Park von Schloss Bellevue.
  64. Otto Ritschl Award
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