Karl Weschke: Postwar modernist painter who remains criminally under-recognised

Irish Times

6 days ago

Karl Weschke: Painting order out of chaos
Hillsboro Fine Art Gallery
★★★★☆
Karl Weschke was a German-British painter, born in 1925, who became a notable figure in postwar British modernism. Though his acclaim never reached the same heights as contemporaries such as Francis Bacon and Peter Lanyon, his talent and influence are undeniable.
Karl Weschke in 1962. Photograph: Andrew Lanyon
This retrospective at Hillsboro Fine Art on Dublin's Parnell Square is a labour of love by the director John Daly. Personally acquainted with the painter, and now the author of a book on the subject, Daly is a champion of Weschke, persuasively campaigning for a wider recognition of his role in the history of contemporary British art.
Born in Gera, a city in the German state of Thuringia, Weschke's childhood was marked by abandonment and Nazi rule. After a period in and out of orphanages, he joined the Luftwaffe at 16, and was captured in 1945 by the British army. He became a prisoner of war and was shipped to the UK. As the war was in its last stage, a surprisingly progressive British military system emphasised rehabilitation and education for German POWs, with the goal of denazification. Weschke attended lectures and talks on many subjects, and was allowed to take courses in art history in St John's College in Cambridge.
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This was a pivotal moment for the otherwise alienated, impoverished teenager. Although he resented his loss of freedom, he later remarked that this period was the first time he had genuinely positive experiences, remembered fondly, and was grateful for the opportunity to study 'the other life' of art and beauty.
After his release in 1948, Weschke made the UK his home. He studied sculpture at St Martin's School of Art for one semester, but left, preferring to go to museums on his own to replicate the work of European masters, or sitting quietly in a neighbour's ballet class to sketch the students. His personal life was always tumultuous, and he spent brief periods in other countries. In 1955, however, Weschke moved to Cornwall, and found a landscape that would profoundly shape his work.
Karl Weschke: Painting order out of chaos gives its audience a concise summary of the artist's style and thematic focuses over the course of his lifetime. Included in the show, for instance, are the pair Apocalypse and Blue Horse & Black Form, which Weschke showed in 1957, and which were lauded by John Berger. 'A young painter worth going to see and worth remembering for a long time,' the influential critic wrote.
Karl Weschke, Girl In Bath
There are several of Weschke's abstract works from the 1960s, which evoke the tempestuous, windswept coastline of his environs. There are also two powerful portraits featuring a female nude, facing one another in the last room of the gallery. The first is a reverential yet sensual depiction of a young woman bathing. The other is a study in menacing despondency: a woman in darkness, exposed on a bare mattress, rendered in such a fashion that the tones of her flesh recall a butcher shop display – you are struck, uncomfortably, by the thought that she is about to be eviscerated.
Karl Weschke, Exposed Figure, 1979
A fascinating exhibition that gives insight into an under-recognised, though historically significant, 20th-century painter of prodigious talent.
Karl Weschke: Painting order out of chaos continues at Hillsboro Fine Art until August 29th