Picture "To Brecht: 'Mother Courage and her Children' II" (1964) (Unique piece)
Picture "To Brecht: 'Mother Courage and her Children' II" (1964) (Unique piece)
Quick info
unique piece | signed | pen-and-ink drawing on paper | framed | size 50 x 36.5 cm
Detailed description
Picture "To Brecht: 'Mother Courage and her Children' II" (1964) (Unique piece)
In 2001, Kunsthaus ARTES published the lithographic portfolio of "Mother Courage and Her Children" by Bernhard Heisig. Due to a fortunate circumstance, we are pleased to be able to offer you an exclusive copy of the 1964 original, which the painter and graphic artist executed in pen and ink.
He used the literary material of the play "Mother Courage and Her Children", which Bertolt Brecht wrote in 1938/39 in exile in Sweden - the dramatic story of a sutler who loses her children in the Thirty Years' War.
Heisig was dismissed as professor and rector of the Academy of Visual Arts in Leipzig by the Association of Visual Artists of the GDR in the year he produced these drawings. The unique piece on paper represents a rare testimony of the time, which is a sought-after collector's item not only for Heisig enthusiasts.
Pen-and-ink drawing on paper. Signed. Motif size/sheet size 23 x 19 cm. Size in frame 50 x 36.5 cm as shown.
About Bernhard Heisig
1925-2011
"Bernhard Heisig was one of the most important artists of our time, not only of the immediate present but of the whole century." (Prof. E. Roters)
Bernhard Heisig, born in Breslau on 31 March 1925, was one of the great and incisive figures for the development of art in East Germany. He was influential, troublesome, celebrated by a wide viewership and such an independent and unique artist that his work today holds a significant place not only in German art history but also the whole world. He was one of the founding fathers of the Leipzig School, where he taught from 1961-1990.
"Die Wut der Bilder" (eng.: The Rage of Images) was the title of Bernhard Heisig's exhibition, with which three German museums honoured him on his 80th birthday in 2005. The Museum der bildenden Künste Leipzig, the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen in Düsseldorf and the Staatliche Museen Berlin exhibited this comprehensive overview of his oeuvre, which can’t be described with simple explanations.
An exhibition at the Nationalgalerie Berlin compared Bernhard Heisig to artist like Kirchner, Heckel and Schmidt-Rottluff. The artist referred to his work as that of Dix and Beckmann. Similar to them, he painted with the same motivation: melancholy and grace and a tremendous intensity that goes into the visionary. At the same time, the artist was known for constantly revising and changing his paintings. The artist: "It is only fun to paint when you bring out everything you have inside you. Without struggle, it's no fun."
In 1986, Heisig painted a portrait of former chancellor of Germany Helmut Schmidt – for the gallery of portraits of former chancellors. Heisig's panoramic painting "Time and Life" is also on display in the German federal parliament.
In 2010, the renowned painter was honoured for his life's work with the "Art Prize of the Brandenburg Minister-President". He had created "a work that has an impact far beyond the present".
Bernhard Heisig died in June 2011 at the age of 86.
Depiction of typical scenes from daily life in painting, whereby a distinction can be made between peasant, bourgeois and courtly genres.
The genre reached its peak and immense popularity in Dutch paintings of the 17th century. In the 18th century, especially in France, the courtly-galant painting became prominent while in Germany the bourgeois character was emphasised.
A one-of-a-kind or unique piece is a work of art that has been personally created by the artist. It exists only once due to the type of production (oil painting, watercolours, drawing, etc.).
In addition to the classic unique pieces, there exist the so-called "serial unique pieces". They present a series of works with the same colour, motif and technique, manually prepared by the same artist. The serial unique pieces are rooted in "serial art", a type of modern art, that aims to create an aesthetic effect through series, repetitions and variations of the same objects or themes or a system of constant and variable elements or principles.
In the history of arts, the starting point of this trend was the work "Les Meules" (1890/1891) by Claude Monet, in which for the first time a series was created that went beyond a mere group of works. The other artists, who addressed to the serial art, include Claude Monet, Piet Mondrian and above all Gerhard Richter.