Galerie Noah in Augsburg is opening the Heisig Year 2025 with a retrospective: from January 24, 2025, 26 paintings and six drawings will be presented in the light-flooded, high-ceilinged rooms of the Glaspalast in the exhibition “Bernhard Heisig – 100 Years” to mark the 100th birthday of probably the most famous artist of the former GDR. At the same time, 13 paintings by Gudrun Brüne, who was Bernhard Heisig’s artistic companion and life partner for over 50 years, will be shown in the gallery’s studio under the title “Masked”. Just one day after the exhibition opened, on January 25, 2025, Gudrun Brüne passed away at the age of 83 after a long illness (DEEDS reported). She was still involved in the selection of the works. Further thematic exhibitions in the Heisig year will follow in various German cities, including Leipzig (Museum der Bildenden Künste), Potsdam (Schloss Sacrow), Regensburg (Kunstforum Ostdeutsche Galerie), Erfurt (Angermuseum) and Ahrenshoop (Kunstmuseum).
Image above: Bernhard Heisig, Die Sammlerin Frau Köster und die Malerin Antoinette (> The collector Mrs Köster and the painter Antoinette), 2003, oil on canvas, 90 x 70 cm
Bernhard Heisig (1925-2011) is considered one of the most influential personalities of the Leipzig School. His work thematizes the ambivalence of the human being between the role of victim and perpetrator, without placing political dogmas in the foreground. Stylistically, he oriented himself towards classical modernism and used various genres such as portraits, still lifes, landscapes and allegorical genre and history paintings. His expressive, sometimes magical-realistic paintings reflect intense emotions such as anger, sadness and fear. Influences from artists such as Max Beckmann, Oskar Kokoschka and Francisco de Goya are recognizable in his work.
His traumatic experiences during the Second World War as a soldier in the Waffen SS, which he joined at the age of just 17, had a lasting impact on Bernhard Heisig’s life and work. He engaged intensively with cultural history, literature, theater and music in his search for figures of identification and possibly also for absolution. He brought these inner struggles openly and honestly to the canvas. As Rector of the Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig, he influenced a generation of artists, including Arno Rink and Neo Rauch, and thus paved the way for the New Leipzig School after 1989.
Prof. Dr. Bernd Lindner, cultural historian and cultural sociologist as well as a proven expert on the Leipzig School, emphasized the extraordinary significance of the artist for German art history in his lecture during the opening ceremony of the exhibition “Bernhard Heisig – 100 Years” on the evening of 23 January 2025 at Galerie Noah. Heisig’s works are not only an expression of great painterly mastery, but also a profound reflection on history, guilt and memory. Heisig dealt intensively with the past and processed both personal experiences and collective experiences in his paintings. This examination was never one-dimensional, but always with a strong inner conflict – a trait that makes his art so vivid and impressive.
A central theme in Heisig’s work is the ambivalence of human action. Lindner emphasized that the artist repeatedly posed the question of individual responsibility in the context of major historical events. As a former soldier in the Second World War, Heisig was a contemporary witness to an era that left deep traces in his artistic work. His pictures do not show simple answers, but rather the struggle with one’s own past. In them, man appears as both victim and perpetrator – caught between guilt, repression and the desire to come to terms with the past.
In addition to his artistic work, Bernhard Heisig was also influential as a teacher and mentor. Dr. Lindner made it clear that Heisig influenced generations of artists. At the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig, where Heisig was rector for a time, he taught a style of painting that was characterized by expressiveness, narrative depth and a critical attitude towards political and social developments. His students – including Arno Rink and Neo Rauch – continued this tradition and helped to establish the Leipzig School as an important art movement even after reunification.
According to Lindner, Heisig’s art is still highly relevant today. His works confront viewers with the abysses of history, encourage reflection and make it clear that the confrontation with the past and responsibility is never complete. Especially in times of political and social upheaval, it is important to pay tribute to artists like Heisig, who show with an unerring eye and great emotional depth how history shapes us – and how we can deal with it.
Gudrun Brüne (1941-2025) was Bernhard Heisig’s artistic companion and life partner for over 50 years and his wife since 1991. She was one of the few female artists to receive recognition in the male-dominated Leipzig School. Born in Berlin in 1941, she studied at the Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig under Heinz Wagner and Bernhard Heisig from 1961 to 1966 after completing an apprenticeship as a bookbinder. After completing her studies, she worked as a freelancer and worked for a time in the studio of Heisig, whom she married in 1991. From 1979 to 1999, she taught painting and graphics at the Burg Giebichenstein Art Academy in Halle/Saale, where she led a specialist class. Her independent painting in an old-masterly, surreal to magical-realistic style questions femininity and ideals of beauty. She campaigned for emancipation and often criticized embellished, inauthentic depictions of women in myths, legends, religious material and the real present. She courageously put her finger on social wounds and uncovered role clichés, often with a tragicomic touch. A selection of her paintings will be shown in the Noah Gallery studio. Right at the entrance to Galerie Noah, visitors are greeted by a double portrait by Bruene, in which she has captured herself in her painting style and the portrait of her husband in his painting style. The painting was created in 2011, the year Bernhard Heisig died.
Galerie Noah is located in the Glaspalast, an important industrial monument in Augsburg. The Glaspalast was put into operation in 1910 as the fourth expansion stage of the Augsburg Mechanical Cotton Spinning and Weaving Mill (SWA) and is regarded as Germany’s first large reinforced concrete skeleton building. The building impresses with its generous window areas, which provided the workers with daylight at the time. After production ceased in 1988, the glass palace was acquired by building contractor Ignaz Walter in 1999 and extensively renovated. Today, in addition to the Noah Gallery, it also houses the Walter Art Museum and the H2 – Center for Contemporary Art. Galerie Noah, founded in 2002 by Ignaz Walter, has made a name for itself as an internationally established art gallery with a contemporary focus. It is located in the former engine room of the Glaspalast, a listed domed hall with sublime architecture. The gallery presents a varied program with changing exhibitions. A particular focus is on the promotion of young talent and the combination of art from East and West Germany.
WHEN?
Vernissage: Thursday, January 23, 2025
Exhibition period: Friday, January 24 to Sunday, April 13, 2025
Tue – Fri 11 am – 3 pm
Sat, Sun + public holidays from noon – 5 pm
WHERE?
Galerie Noah
Beim Glaspalast 1
86153 Augsburg
