For the German-American composer and music teacher, see
Bernhard Heiden.
Bernhard Heiliger (11 November 1915,
Stettin – 25 October 1995,[1] Berlin) was a German artist.[2] He was considered "
West Germany's foremost sculptor",[3] and his large public artworks are a prominent presence in many German cities, especially Berlin.[1]
Biography
Heiliger began his artistic education with an apprenticeship as a stone carver and a course of study at the Stettiner Werkschule für Gestaltende Arbeiten from 1933 to 1936 under Kurt Schwerdtfeger, who had been a student of the
Bauhaus. After this he attended the Staatlichen Hochschule für bildende Künste (National College of Visual Arts) in 1938, where he studied under
Arno Breker. In 1941 he was drafted into the army and served as a radio operator on the
Eastern Front for two years, before he received an exemption from military service through the intervention of Breker. Despite this he was drafted again in 1944, after which he fled as a
deserter through northern Germany.
In May 1946 Heiliger exhibits with the painter
Fritz Ascher at the Karl Buchholz Gallery in Berlin. Heiliger's design for the Memorial to Unknown Political Prisoners (1953) brought him his first international recognition, earning him the Prize of the National Government and a prize from the
Institute of Contemporary Arts. This was followed by his participation in several prominent international exhibits, such as the
documenta I & II in
Kassel (1955 and 1959) and the
Venice Biennale (1956), and by commissions such as sculptures for the German pavilion at the 1958
World's Fair in
Brussels. In 1956 he became a member of the
Berlin Academy of Art. In 1974 he was recognized with the
Federal Cross of Merit, and in 1984 was awarded an honorary membership in the
Deutscher Künstlerbund.
He died in Berlin in 1995, and was buried in Berlin's Dahlem Cemetery (
Friedhof Dahlem).
Work
Heiliger's diverse output stretches from his early, organically abstracted figures to his late nonobjective, geometric abstractions. His early work (1945–1962), focuses on the human figure, which is treated in an organic style influenced by
Aristide Maillol and
Henry Moore. Also from this period is a series of portrait busts of prominent contemporary Germans. The artist departed from the human figure in his second period (1962–1970), instead developing imagery of the "flight of birds and vegetable forms"[4] influenced by the nonrepresentational
Informel style. The seven-meter-high The Flame (Flamme, 1962–63), commissioned by the city of Berlin for Ernst-Reuter-Platz,[1] is considered the key work in the transition between the early and middle periods.[4]The Five Continents (Die fünf Erdteile, 1961), by contrast, still alludes to the human figure in the torso-like shapes that make up the composition.
Kosmos 70, commissioned in 1970 by the city of Berlin for the restored
Reichstag building,[1] marks the transition into Heiliger's final period, where spheres and angular forms linked by lines of wire allude to planets and solar systems.[4] The different stylistic phases in Heiliger's career are connected to changes in material: whereas his works from the 1950s and 1960s are cast materials, such as cast stone or bronze, the works from the 1970s onward are most often made of
stainless steel or
corten steel.
Selected works
Max Planck (1948-9), an example of Heiliger's early work
The Five Continents (1961), a work that straddles the early and middle periods
The Flame (1962-3), the first major work of the middle period
Echo I (1987), representing the late, geometric period
Eye of the Nemesis (1989), a late work and the last of three major commissions from the city of Berlin[1]
Legacy
The Bernhard-Heiliger-Stiftung (Bernhard Heiliger Foundation) was founded in 1996 and is located in his former studio in
Berlin-Dahlem near the
Brücke-Museum. Since 1999 the foundation has conferred the
€ 15,000 Bernhard Heiliger Award of Sculpture upon a noted sculptor every four years. The laureates so far are: