Karl Hagedorn

Karl Hagedorn (* 1922 in Gunter Harz mountain range, † 2005 in Philadelphia ) was a German - American artist.

Life

From 1953 to 1959 he lived in Augsburg and studied from 1956 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. In 1959 he moved to the U.S.. Until 1972 he lived in Saint Paul, Minnesota. He worked as an illustrator and graphic artist. From 1960 he taught at the St. Paul Art Center. During this time produced designs for stained glass windows. From 1962 to 1965 he was artistic director of Catholic Digest, and from 1971 to 1972, he was appointed to a teaching post at the Hamline University in St. Paul. Then he traveled 1972/73 for half a year in Europe before he relocated to New York. From 1998 he lived and Karl Hagedorn works in Philadelphia, where he died in October 2005.

Awards

To the work of Karl Hagedorn

Man and machine were the central topics in the artistic work of Karl Hagedorn. The fascination for machines already developed in his childhood - and in his father's sawmill. Was particularly interested in the young Hagedorn for the steam engine. Already about 14 years, he began to draw intense. 1953 impressed him the encounter with a work of Fernand Léger in Paris. During the study period Hagedorn was involved in addition to the oil paintings on various projects, led wall paintings and mosaics in churches and public buildings. His early work shows the late fifties human figures in initially somber colors, rather taking up the tradition of the Renaissance. With the move to America, the human figure in his paintings became increasingly de-individualized. It initially surfaced sporadically, later becoming more common, elements from the field of engineering, machine parts, signal signs and graphic symbols as references to the human system of reference. Mid-sixties will Hagedorn him to his adequate visual language, which he then until last goal for consistently. The human figure in her appearance now disappeared completely, it was dismantled and integrated into the parts surrounding it. Almost always let the abstract forms to organic lead back.

Works by Karl Hagedorn are now in numerous collections and museums, mainly in Europe and the U.S., such as the Goethe Institute in New York or the Neues Museum in Nuremberg. The artistic estate is managed by the Galerie & Edition Bode in Nuremberg.