Burkhard Held is German painter living and working in Berlin, Germany.[1] His art is based on figuration dissolving into abstraction.

Biography

edit

Held was born in 1953. He studied at the Berlin University of the Arts as a "Meisterschüler" (Master Disciple) of Dietmar Lemcke from 1972 to 1979, and was granted a scholarship at Garrucha (Spain) by the "German National Academic Foundation" (Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes). In 1993 he became professor at the Berlin University of the Arts.[2] and later served as a professor at the China Academy of Art ("Chinesisch-deutsche Kunstakademie") in Hangzhou, PRC. Held is responsible for the organization of the cooperation of the Berlin University of the Arts and China.[3]

Work

edit

Burkhard Held is a figurative painter, who dissolves his motifs – landscapes, portraits, flowers – into color fields with a strong tendency towards autonomy. His strongly colored all-over images reinterpret things as abstract and then lead the back into figuration. In 2009 Held started to dedicate himself to the subject of flowers: blossoms become compositions with a landscape character, and are distributed in equally strong colors across the canvas. Thus they gain lyrical overtones and additional brightness.[4] Hence Held has also begun to contrast figurative elements (such as the sky) - intentionally without painterly differentiation - with a hatching-like color field technique; this in traditional, monumental formats of his work.[5]

Exhibitions (selection)

edit

[11]

edit

References

edit
  1. ^ Within artfacts.net-ranking he counts among the top two percent of the leading artists worldwide.
  2. ^ Cfr. Helfen und warnen (Helping and Warning), in: UniSPIEGEL, 29 November 2004.
  3. ^ Cfr. German Week 2012, in: Hanghzou Daily, 13 Oktober 2012.
  4. ^ Cfr. Bettina Krogemann: Blumen sind bei Burkhard Held reine Malerei (Burkhard Helds' flowers are pure painting), in: DIE WELT, 17 April 2010.
  5. ^ Cfr. the chapter Burkhard Held, in: Gerhard Charles Rump, Rekonstruktionen. Positionen zeitgenössischer Kunst, Berlin 2010.
  6. ^ Cfr. Gerhard Charles Rump, Burkhard Held in Mannheim, in: DIE WELT, 15.08.2007.
  7. ^ Cfr. catalogue Burkhard Held, Ed. Keumsan Gallery, Heyri 2007.
  8. ^ Cfr. Auf dem Weg ins Licht, Ed. Arie de Knecht / Galerie Michael Schultz, Berlin 2007.
  9. ^ Cfr. catalogue Uzpuolimas!, Ed. Gallerija Vartai, Vilnius 2006.
  10. ^ Cfr. Cornelia Gerner, Berliner Fenster (Berlinian Window) Archived 2015-01-02 at the Wayback Machine, in: Berliner Zeitung, 12.3.1998
  11. ^ Full list at Held's gallery representation.