Encountering Forces. Erwin Hahs between Abstraction and Representativeness

Our new exhibition is dedicated to the work of Erwin Hahs. The painter and graphic artist, born in Berlin in 1887, belongs to the outstanding artistic personalities of Classical Modern Art. He left behind an extensive and thematically varied œuvre, with coloured works on paper taking a major position. From 5 March to 30 April, the exposition “Encountering forces – Erwin Hahs between abstraction and representativeness” shows about 30 pictures of the time between 1908 and 1964. The works were made available from the artist’s estate by courtesy of the Hahs family.


As Erwin Hahs, because of his humanist and artistic convictions, had faced repressions in the two German dictatorships, his œuvre remained unknown for a long time. His multi-layered work, showing stylistic influences of Expressionism, Constructivism, and New Realism, is characterized by attempts to synthesis. Thanks to his long-standing, fruitful activities as a professor at Burg Giebichenstein he may be regarded as father of the Halle school of painting. 


Encountering forces in the work and life of Erwin Hahs: that is the artistic struggle for transcendence and spiritual autonomy in a period of dictatorships; that are the primordial relationships between colour and line, between figure and room, between emotional opulence and constructive rationality, and  between abstraction and representativeness as well.


Opening: Friday, 4 March 2016, from 6 to 9 pm
Speech by the art historian Dr. Heinz Schönemann
 
Finissage: Saturday, 30 April 2016, from 5 to 8 pm

Erwin Hahs | Encountering Forces | 1956 | lithography | signed, dated and titled | 44,5 x 83
Erwin Hahs | Encountering Forces | 1956 | lithography | signed, dated and titled | 44,5 x 83

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