Edmund Kesting
Edmund Kesting ( born July 27, 1892 in Dresden, † October 21, 1970 in Birkenwerder ) was a German painter, printmaker, photographer and art educator. He is one of the representatives of the informal painting.
- 3.1 Publications
- 3.2 secondary literature
Life and work
Born in 1892 as the son of a municipal police secretary in Dresden from 1911 Kesting studied painting and sculpture in his hometown at the art school at Friedrich Erich Kleinhempel, Ermenegildo Antonio Donadini and Richard Guhr. From 1915 he continued his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts under Richard Müller. From 1915 to 1918 he took part in France in the First World War. He then continued his studies as a master student of Otto Gussmann. In 1919 Kesting the private art school The Path - School of Design. At times studied, inter alia, there Lea Langer. In 1921 he met and began Herwarth Walden by storm participate.
Since 1920, constructivist work and cutting collages created. He made oil paintings, watercolors and gouaches. 1922 married Kesting his student Gerda Müller. There were close contacts with avant-garde artists such as Kurt Schwitters, László Moholy -Nagy, El Lissitzky, Alexander Archipenko, and others. In particular, Schwitters work impressed Kesting strong. From 1923 on, he took part in the exhibitions of the " storm" circle.
Since about 1925, he occupied himself intensively with photography. He tested experimental photo techniques such as multiple exposures, photograms and negative montages; used in this case Kesting cameras with large focusing screen formats. 1926 saw the founding of the Berlin School The path and the founding of the Society of Friends storm in Dresden. Kesting was now also an international success. He has participated in exhibitions in Moscow and New York. The Museum of Modern Art acquired cutting collages of him. He began with the multiple exposures, in which he explored expressive possibilities of photography. Since 1930, Kesting busy with portraits and dance photography. In the early 1930s he joined the Werkbund. 1933 took place first searches of him; Kesting destroyed then some of his works. He worked in the following years as an advertising photographer for photo and car companies. In 1936, Kesting received a painting and exhibiting prohibition from which the photograph was not affected. The following year, twelve of his works were declared "degenerate " removed from museums; In the following period, he photographed architecture in Dresden and documented the art treasures in the Green Vault. Kesting developed a technique of " Chemical painting " in which on sensitized paper, with introduction of different times and he experimented scratch techniques with photo substances.
Along with Karl von Appen, Helmut Schmidt Kirstein, Hans Christoph and other Kesting founded in 1945 in Dresden, the artist group the call - freed art. 1945/46, built after the destruction of Dresden, a series of experimental photographic works titled Dresdner Totentanz, the name inspired by a Renaissance relief. Kesting was appointed in 1946 to the Academy of Art in Dresden factory; he took over the management of the training workshop "Photography and film." Just a year later he was released, after which he was based in Berlin and in 1948 director of the class of photography at the College of Fine and Applied Arts in Berlin- Weissensee was. In 1953 it came to termination without notice in the course of the formalism dispute. In 1955 he was appointed professor at the Academy of Film and Television in Potsdam -Babelsberg as a " lecturer in the Department of camera "; he became professor emeritus in 1960. In the late 1950s he worked as a celebrity photographer, 1958, he published his book A painter sees through the lens of Use.
1960 returned to his work seized from the Soviet Union. He was commissioned to photograph the members of the Academy of Arts. With the construction of his summer house in the area famous for its artist colony Ahrenshoop was started in 1961. Kesting held in the coming summers on the Darß and fish country. The scenery inspired him to write many works.
Edmund Kesting died 1970 in Birch Werder near Berlin, where he had moved in 1948. Between 1949 and 1959, no exhibition of his work took place in the GDR, only since about 1980 found Kesting factory official recognition.
Exhibitions (selection)
Solo Exhibitions
During his lifetime,
Posthumous exhibitions