Project title
Heinrich Wildemann
Object description

* 6 December 1904 in Lodz (Poland); † 25 May 1964 in Stuttgart
 
German painter and graphic
 
Heinrich Wildemann: “My path led me from my own experiences without external influence from expressionism via cubism to the abstract [...]”.
 
In 1918 Wildemann comes to Tuttlingen. After an apprenticeship as a model-maker and marquetry-carpenter, he studies from 1924 at the Stuttgart Academy of Art. In 1927 he transfers to the School of Free and Applied Art in Berlin-Charlottenburg. The exhibition “25 years Existence of the Brücke” stimulates him to produce graphic works, which are acquired by, among others, the Berlin Museum of Prints and Drawings. A close friendship develops with Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, whom he later helps to rescue works of the Brücke-artists before the Gestapo can lay their hands on them. In 1939, during the National Socialist period, his work is defamed and Wildemann is prohibited from exhibiting. He has a narrow escape from deportation to a concentration camp. The largest proportion of his work is destroyed during an air raid on Berlin. In 1944 he returns to Tuttlingen.
 
After World War II he is among the circle around painters like Willi Baumeister, Ernst Wilhelm Nay, Max Ackermann and Fritz Winter, whose abstract works mark a new artistic beginning in Germany. In 1946 he exhibits at the First General German Art Exhibition in Dresden. The Kunsthalle Regensburg organises a solo exhibition of his work in 1949. In the following year he exhibits as a guest of the ZEN 49 Group in Munich. In the time to come he is represented in many exhibitions, including those abroad. On Willi Baumeister’s recommendation, Wildemann is appointed as his successor and Professor of Painting at the Stuttgart Academy of Art in 1955. His works are held in public and private collections.