HORST ANTES

Biography

(German, b. 1936)

Horst Antes was born in 1936 in Heppenheim, Germany.  He studied from 1957-59 at the Academy of Art in Karlsruhe under H.A.P. Greishaber, who was an important influence on him. In one aspect of his work, Antes represents an up-to-date version of German Expressionism, linking the spirit of Max Beckmann with modern figurative abstraction. 

He was best known for his "Gnome"paintings: clumsy, heavily stylized figures, usually represented in profile, with eyes set one above the other and over-large hulking hands and feet. Sometimes the limbs and head build up the figure without torso. In his paintings from the late 1960s he often depicted a single head offset by some symbolic object such as a cock's comb or a letter.   

Antes was at one time considered to be Karlsruhe's most illustrious alumnus. As a student, he captured the Hannover Grand Prix, at twenty-four he had his first one-man show and for many years afterwards was considered Germany's most powerful Postwar painter.

Impetuous as a young man, marriage and the birth of two children served to calm Antes down somewhat. He was born in the decade that spawned Nazism, learned his ABCs in Hitler schools and burst upon the cultural scene in 1959 to become a symbol of Germany's postwar conscience. Extremely prolific, he was slow to release his paintings, keeping them for at least six months, and constantly asking strangers, as well as friends for positive comments on what he has done.  

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