HAP Grieshaber
Encyclopedia
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
artist. His preferred medium was large format woodcut
Woodcut
Woodcut—occasionally known as xylography—is a relief printing artistic technique in printmaking in which an image is carved into the surface of a block of wood, with the printing parts remaining level with the surface while the non-printing parts are removed, typically with gouges...
s.
Biography
Grieshaber was born in Rot an der RotRot an der Rot
Rot an der Rot is a town in the district of Biberach in Baden-Württemberg in Germany. The town developed out of Rot an der Rot Abbey....
. He went to school in Nagold
Nagold
Nagold is a town in southwestern Germany, bordering the northern Black Forest. It is located in the Landkreis of Calw . Nagold is known for its ruined castle, Hohennagold Castle, and for its road viaduct...
and later in Reutlingen
Reutlingen
Reutlingen is a city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is the capital of the eponymous district of Reutlingen. As of April 2008, it has a population of 109,828....
. From the age of 17 he was apprenticed to the printing trade in Reutlingen. While here, from 1926-28, he studied art in nearby Stuttgart
Stuttgart
Stuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million ....
. He then travelled extensively to Paris, London, Egypt, Arabia and Greece. At the beginning of the Nazi regime, from 1933 until 1940, Grieshaber was banned from his profession. During that time he scratched out a living as an untrained labourer in the town of Reutlingen
Reutlingen
Reutlingen is a city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is the capital of the eponymous district of Reutlingen. As of April 2008, it has a population of 109,828....
. He spent the war years unwillingly in the German army and, as a prisoner of war, doing forced labour in Belgian mines. After the war he returned to Germany, living in a small cottage on the Achalm, and concentrated on doing large-scale woodcuts and posters. From 1951-53 he taught at the Bernsteinschule school of art. Between 1955 and 1960 he taught at the Kunstakademie in Karlsruhe as successor to Ernst Heckel.
Grieshaber was a long-time pacifist and political activist, not only against the dictatorships in Greece and Chile, but also in the area of conservation and ecology, against nuclear plants, and in favour of a bridging between the two Germanies. His companion in his later years, from 1967 till his death in 1981, was the lyric poet Margarete Hannsmann.
Grieshaber was honoured with numerous prizes and retrospective exhibitions. He exhibited works at the documenta
Documenta
documenta is an exhibition of modern and contemporary art which takes place every five years in Kassel, Germany. It was founded by artist, teacher and curator Arnold Bode in 1955 as part of the Bundesgartenschau which took place in Kassel at that time...
in 1959 and 1964. In honor of his 70th birthday in 1979, large retrospectives were shown in various museums in both parts of Germany. The last prize that Grieshaber was awarded in 1980 was the art prize of the town of Konstanz
Konstanz
Konstanz is a university city with approximately 80,000 inhabitants located at the western end of Lake Constance in the south-west corner of Germany, bordering Switzerland. The city houses the University of Konstanz.-Location:...
. Grieshaber died in 1981 in Eningen unter Achalm aged 72 years.
Relations
Grieshaber's daughter, Nani Croze, founded the Kitengela Glass workshop on the Athi-Kapiti plains adjacent to the Nairobi National ParkNairobi National Park
Nairobi National Park is a national park in Kenya. Established in 1946, the national park was Kenya's first. It is located approximately 7 kilometres south of the centre of Nairobi, Kenya's capital city, with only a fence separating the park's wildlife from the metropolis. Nairobi's skyscrapers...
. She is a muralist, experimenting in a range of materials. Her commissioned works can be found all over East Africa. Nani’s son, Anselm Croze, has expanded the studio. Together, they create art glass pieces and a large variety of other glass.
Works
Grieshaber's work were influenced by works of Paul KleePaul Klee
Paul Klee was born in Münchenbuchsee, Switzerland, and is considered both a German and a Swiss painter. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. He was, as well, a student of orientalism...
and Lyonel Feininger
Lyonel Feininger
Lyonel Charles Feininger was a German-American painter, and a leading exponent of Expressionism. He also worked as a caricaturist and comic strip artist.-Life and work:...
. He took a stab at industrial design in the 1970s with a 500-piece run of the upscale Suomi tableware by Timo Sarpaneva
Timo Sarpaneva
Timo Sarpaneva was an influential Finnish designer, sculptor, and educator best known in the art world for innovative work in glass, which often merged attributes of display art objects with utilitarian designations. While glass remained his most commonly addressed medium, he worked with metal,...
that Grieshaber decorated for the German Rosenthal porcelain
Porcelain
Porcelain is a ceramic material made by heating raw materials, generally including clay in the form of kaolin, in a kiln to temperatures between and...
maker's Studio Linie.
External links
- HAP Grieshaber bei art directory
- Biographie of HAP Grieshaber (in German)
- HAP Grieshaber, Registry at artfacts.de
- Freundeskreis HAP Grieshaber e. V. (in German) with woodcut
- Special events for the 100th birthday (in German)
- Nani Croze
- Kenyan Utopia