Horst Antes
Encyclopedia
After his Abitur
Abitur
Abitur is a designation used in Germany, Finland and Estonia for final exams that pupils take at the end of their secondary education, usually after 12 or 13 years of schooling, see also for Germany Abitur after twelve years.The Zeugnis der Allgemeinen Hochschulreife, often referred to as...
, he studied from 1957 to 1959 under the important woodcutter HAP Grieshaber
HAP Grieshaber
Helmut Andreas Paul Grieshaber or HAP Grieshaber was a German artist. His preferred medium was large format woodcuts.-Biography:...
at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste (today known as the Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste Karlsruhe
Academy of Fine Arts Karlsruhe
The State Academy of Fine Arts Karlsruhe, situated in Karlsruhe, Baden-Württemberg, is one of the smaller art schools in Germany with average 300 students....
) in Karlsruhe
Karlsruhe
The City of Karlsruhe is a city in the southwest of Germany, in the state of Baden-Württemberg, located near the French-German border.Karlsruhe was founded in 1715 as Karlsruhe Palace, when Germany was a series of principalities and city states...
.
In 1959, the artist's work was honoured with two prizes, art prize of the city of Hanover
Hanover
Hanover or Hannover, on the river Leine, is the capital of the federal state of Lower Saxony , Germany and was once by personal union the family seat of the Hanoverian Kings of Great Britain, under their title as the dukes of Brunswick-Lüneburg...
and the Pankofer prize on the occasion of the German Youth Art prize.
In his early paintings, Antes sought a path somewhere between figurative painting and the L'Art Informel. One of his most important role models was Willem de Kooning
Willem de Kooning
Willem de Kooning was a Dutch American abstract expressionist artist who was born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands....
.
Around 1960 Antes discovered his 'Kopffüßler' (literal translation: Head-Footer), a form which preoccupied the artist in numerous variations and artistic techniques.
By 1963 his 'Kopffüßler' was fully developed in its stylistic and contextual premises and became also compulsory for his sculptural work, which began the same year.
The artist was given several scholarships and awards in the 1960s, including the Villa-Romana-Prize in Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
in 1962 and the Villa Massimo scholarship in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
in 1963.
Three years later, aged only 29, Antes accepted a teaching post at the Akademie in Karlsruhe.
This was followed by a post as a professor also in Karlsruhe which he held from 1967 to 1973, as well as a one-year guest-professorship at the Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
.
The artist resumed teaching at the Akademie in Karlsruhe in 1984 and continued teaching there for another 16 years. The regional capital awarded him the Hans-Molfenter-prize in 1989.
Since 1990 Antes has been living and working in Karlsruhe, Florence and Berlin. His oeuvre includes not only paintings and graphic art, but also sculptures in public spaces. His works are exhibited throughout the world and are represented in all the most important German collections, et al. at the Kunsthall Hamburg, the Museum Ludwig in Cologne, the Nationalgalerie Berlin, and the Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
.