Project title
Heinz Trökes
Object description

* 15 August 1913 in Hamborn am Rhein; † 22 April 1997 in Berlin
 
Painter, graphic artist and draughtsman
 
Heinz Trökes is one of the leading representatives of German post-war modernism. His entire oeuvre is characterised by a versatile formal language. After graduating from high school, Trökes took lessons with Johannes Itten in Krefeld from 1933 to 1936. He then lived in Augsburg as a freelance artist. In 1937 he met Wassily Kandinsky in Paris. His first solo exhibition in 1938 at the Nierendorf Gallery in Berlin is closed at the instigation of the Nazis. The artist was also excluded from the Reich Chamber of Culture and had no opportunity to exhibit until 1945. In 1940 he begins to study with Georg Muche in Krefeld, which is interrupted by his call-up to the Wehrmacht. In his free time he attended the art school of the painter Max Dungert in the capital.
In 1945 Trökes co-founded the Berlin gallery Gerd Rosen, which he ran as artistic director until 1946 and where Katja Meirowsky also exhibited. In 1947 he accepts a call to the State College for Architecture and Art in Weimar. 1949 Trökes belongs to the ensemble of the legendary Berlin cabaret "Die Badewanne", which was founded by Katja Meirowsky and other artists. The painter participates in the first documenta in 1955 as well as in the 1959 and 1964 art exhibitions in Kassel. He takes up teaching posts in Hamburg and West Berlin. In 1961 he became a member of the Academy of Arts in West Berlin. In addition to many exhibitions at home and abroad, the artist is also represented in 2018 at the Harvard Art Museums in Cambridge in the presentation "Inventur: Art in Germany 1943-55", the first of its kind on German post-war art in the USA. Works by Heinz Trökes are in private collections and numerous museums, including the Neue Nationalgalerie Berlin and Berlinische Galerie, Cologne's Museum Ludwig, New York's Museum of Modern Art and the Chicago Museum, as well as museums in Copenhagen and Buenos Aires.