Born on 8th October 1948, Gottfried Helnwein is an Australian-Irish contemporary artist who grew up in Vienna. Helnwein has been a popular controversial german speaking visual artist for more than 30 years. He received the prize of master-class during his studies at the University of Visual Arts, Vienna. Helnwein had a tough childhood, one dominated by Catholicism – A world full of stage drama for guilt, penitence, torture, blood, wounds, and martyrdom. Helnwein’s first contact with art happened during his time in the churches. He spent long hours there observing the huge murals and paintings. He also took part in plays and art exhibitions at the Catholic Marian Society of the Jesuit University Church in Vienna. As a child, some of the first colours that he encountered were the ones in the Catholic church’s depictions of torture and agony. Even as a child, Helnwein started questioning the silence of society during the National Socialist period and the burden of guilt fascinated him. He actively involved himself in the National Socialist Legacy and the mechanisms of fascism during his school times which was later reflected in his art installation using the faces of children.
Hyper Realistic movement | Gottfried Helnwein
The artist is known for his hyperrealistic paintings. Having been brought up in an era of crisis and blood, Helnwein’s subject of art is the human condition. His early artworks were drawn from the horrors witnessed by his own generation – emotional and physical suffering. He confronts his viewers with the dark sides of human nature, violence, and power. He began with a central theme of children, their injuries, and abuses in a world where they were supposed to be carefree and innocent. Helnwein considers children to be spiritual beings and believes that there is a whole potential utopia. He believes that this potential is being grabbed away from them by society through education and manipulation. The abuse and suffering of children startled him, and that was his reason to start painting.
Harry S. Parker III, Director of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, explained what makes Helnwein’s art significant: “For Helnwein, the child is the symbol of innocence, but also innocence betrayed. His recent paintings are more baffling and open-ended, broadening from narrative scenes to paintings with a universal metaphorical resonance.
Medium
Helnwein uses a technique of light and dark in his paintings. He usually projects, outlines, and then paints, but he always experiments with different techniques to transfer his final composition onto the canvas. Sometimes he even prints a pale image onto the canvas and then paints over or changes it with many layers of brushstrokes. Helnwein’s mediums of artwork are watercolour, oil, and acrylic on canvas though he also likes to employ a wide range of media.
Helnwein agreed with Picasso when he said: “I wish to reach the point where the viewer cannot see how I painted my picture. Why does it matter? My only wish is that nothing but emotion rises from my picture”.
Works | Gottfried Helnwein
Helnwein works as a painter, fine artist, draftsman, photographer, muralist, sculptor, and performance artist. He started his career as an artist in the early 60s, and his works have bridged from modernism to post-modernism. He was influenced by the Austrian artists Arnulf Rainer and Hermann Nitsch, who worked on abstract and experimental art. These artists had a style that depicted pain and injury, similar to that of Helnwein.
Most of Helnwein’s works were reflections of societal happenings and their taboos, focussing on sociological and psychological anxiety, historical issues, and political topics from history – the Nazi rule and the horror of the Holocaust. His first painting of Hitler was when he wasn’t even an artist. He was a student in the school of Graphic Design when he felt like he was living in a world that he didn’t belong to. Everything was brutal, authoritarian, and oppressive in the Nazi time. His painting shook his professors. Everybody got nervous, started running around, and everything stopped. Helnwein realized the power of an image to instigate reality and this was also his drive into art.
Helnwein’s works are often provoking and controversial. They are based on Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity), a concept that was born in German-speaking countries combined with expressionism and surrealism. He creates portraits that are rooted in the legacy of German expression and American pop culture. His works have appeared in more than 50 solo shows, group exhibitions, books, documentaries, and press features. They still attract a large number of visitors today and are in demand at world-renowned museums and exhibitions. Except for a few of his performances, Helnwein’s works are not influenced by the Avant-Garde movement during the time.
Helnwein’s early painting “The child”, exhibited at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor, organised by the San Francisco Fine Arts museum, attracted more than 120,000 visitors. This work concerning the child included drawings, photographs, and paintings and ranged from subtle enigma to brutality.
Helnwein’s works were an uncensored version of the pain in humans. The Disasters of war 24,2007 is a painting of a boy who turns a gun on a manga girl. The boy’s face remains wrapped up in bandages, hiding his eyes. This is one of his recent harrowing works that captures the psychological violence spreading through our ages.
The American Paintings | Gottfried Helnwein
American Pop culture was a saviour in Helweins world of darkness. While pain and suffering is the central theme of his works, there is another side to it. Helnwein was aware of the significant role that cartoons played in a child’s life over their real life. He came across the colourful stories of Donald Duck and Duckburg that changed his life. Gottfried was obsessed with Disney characters. The first German comic book that his father brought home one day opened a new door in Helnwein’s life, which was haunted by the dreary past. He mentioned that opening the book finally felt to him like arriving in a world where he belonged. It was in the 1970s that he started including cartoon characters in his paintings.
Almost 70 years after the end of the war, Helnwein’s paintings still touch people who have not lived the events personally. Helnwein’s art has been significant because of its ability to make us reflect emotionally and intellectually on the very expressive subject he chooses.
References:
Bildersturm-film.The Silence of Innocence – the Artist Gottfried Helnwein. Available at: the-silence-of-innocence[Accessed 23/12/2022]
Famous Photographers.Gottfried Helnwein
Available at: Gottfried-helnwein[Accessed 23/12/2022]
Helnwein, Gottfried.The Subversive Power of Art
Available at: article_92-The-Subversive-Power-of-Art[Accessed 23/12/2022]
Helnwein,Gottfried.Studio.[Photograph]
Helnwein,Gottfried.(2009)Murmur of the Innocents.[Photograph]
Galerie Kaiblinger.(2021)Murmur of the Innocents.[Photograph](Vienna)
Helnwein,Gottfried.(2011)The Child’s dreams.[Photograph](New Israel)
Helnwein,Gottfried.(2007)The Disasters of war 24.[Photograph]
Helnwein,Gottfried.(1995)Mouse.[Photograph]
