Burkhard Held is German painter living and working in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

. His art is based on figuration dissolving into abstraction.

Biography

Held was born in 1953. He studied at the

Berlin University of the Arts The Universität der Künste Berlin (UdK; also known in English as the Berlin University of the Arts), situated in Berlin, Germany, is the largest art school in Europe. It is a public art and design school, and one of the four research universiti ...

as a "Meisterschüler" (Master Disciple) of Dietmar Lemcke from 1972 to 1979, and was granted a scholarship at

Garrucha Garrucha is a municipality of Almería province, in the autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain. Garrucha is a seaport of south-eastern Spain on the Mediterranean Sea and the right bank of the river Antas. In 1998 the town had a population of 500 ...

(Spain) by the "German National Academic Foundation" (Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes). In 1993 he became professor at the

. and later served as a professor at the

China Academy of Art China Academy of Art (), also translated as China National Academy of Fine Arts, was founded in Hangzhou in 1928 by the government of the Republic of China (1912–49), Republic of China and the renowned educator Cai Yuanpei. It was the first a ...

("Chinesisch-deutsche Kunstakademie") in

Hangzhou Hangzhou ( or , ; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ), also romanized as Hangchow, is the capital and most populous city of Zhejiang, China. It is located in the northwestern part of the province, sitting at the head of Hangzhou Bay, whi ...

, PRC. Held is responsible for the organization of the cooperation of the

and China.

Work

Burkhard Held is a figurative painter, who dissolves his motifs – landscapes,

portraits A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expressions are predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person. For this re ...

flowers A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants (plants of the division Angiospermae). The biological function of a flower is to facilitate reproduction, usually by providing a mechani ...

– 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 Canvas is an extremely durable plain-woven fabric used for making sails, tents, marquees, backpacks, shelters, as a support for oil painting and for other items for which sturdiness is required, as well as in such fashion objects as handbags ...

. Thus they gain lyrical overtones and additional brightness. 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.

Exhibitions (selection)

* 2011 – 2012 ''Kleine Welten – Große Kunst im kleinen Format'', CAS,

Salzburg Salzburg (, ; literally "Salt-Castle"; bar, Soizbuag, label=Bavarian language, Austro-Bavarian) is the List of cities and towns in Austria, fourth-largest city in Austria. In 2020, it had a population of 156,872. The town is on the site of the ...

, Austria * 2009 ''Monuments in Time'', Michael Schultz Gallery,

Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...

, China * 2009 ''River deep, Mountain high'', Michael Schultz Gallery,

* 2008 ''Walk the Line'', Cooperativa de Actividades Artísticas,

Porto Porto or Oporto () is the second-largest city in Portugal, the capital of the Porto District, and one of the Iberian Peninsula's major urban areas. Porto city proper, which is the entire municipality of Porto, is small compared to its metropol ...

(Portugal) * 2008 ''Close-Up'', Por Amor À Arte Galeria,

(Portugal) * 2007 ''100 Jahre Kunsthalle Mannheim'',

Kunsthalle Mannheim The Kunsthalle Mannheim is a museum of modern and contemporary art, built in 1907, established in 1909 and located in Mannheim, Germany. Since then it has housed the city's art collections as well as temporary exhibitions – and up to 1927 those ...

* 2007 ''Path of the sun'', Keumsan Gallery, Heyri (Korea) * 2007 ''Auf dem Weg ins Licht'', Sammlung de Knecht,

Kunsthalle Rostock The Rostock Art Gallery (german: Kunsthalle Rostock) was opened on 15 May 1969 as a museum of contemporary art in Rostock in the German federal state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. It is in the grounds of the park around the Schwanenteich lake in the ...

* 2006 ''Uzpuolimas!'', Gallerija Vartai,

Vilnius Vilnius ( , ; see also other names) is the capital and largest city of Lithuania, with a population of 592,389 (according to the state register) or 625,107 (according to the municipality of Vilnius). The population of Vilnius's functional urb ...

(Lithuania) * 1998 ''Berliner Fenster'', Galerie Brusberg,

Full list
at Held's gallery representation.

External links

Representation at Michael Schultz Gallery

Representation at Gallery Kampl, Munich, Germany

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Held, Burkhard Berlin University of the Arts alumni 1953 births German contemporary artists 21st-century German painters 21st-century German male artists German male painters Living people 20th-century German painters 20th-century German male artists