Bert Heller

Bert Heller (30 March 1912 – 29 April 1970) was a German painter and illustrator who for two years in the later 1950s served as Rector of the Fine Arts Academy in the Weissensee district of Berlin.[1] Heller‘s reputation as an artist is based primarily on his portraits, water colours and posters.[2]

Bert Heller
Bert Heller1951
Born30 March 1912
Aachen, Germany
Died29 April 1970
Berlin, East Germany
OccupationPainter and illustrator
Academy Rector

Life

Bert Heller was born in Aachen, where in 1927 he enrolled for three years as a student at the Fine Arts Academy (as the institution was known at the time).[3] One of his teachers was Anton Wendling. On completing his three years at the academy he undertook a study tour that took in the Netherlands, Belgium and Austria, before embarking on a career as a freelance artist based in Laurensberg (Aachen), very close to Germany's Dutch frontier.[4] He also produced some high-profile murals.[1] January 1933 brought régime change and the Hitler government lost little time in imposing one-party government in Germany. Bert Heller joined the ruling Nazi Party in 1940.[5] Between 1940 and 1942 he studied under Hermann Kaspar at the Munich Fine Arts Academy.[3] During the closing years of the war he undertook artwork commissions in connection with some of the architectural projects that were a feature of the time and place.[3]

In 1946 Heller took a teaching post at the Arts Academy in Wernigerode, which in 1945 had ended up in the Soviet occupation zone within what remained of Germany. He remained at Wernigerode till 1950.[4] During this period he was also producing wall and table images and designs.[3] He then became a scholar student (Meisterschüler) for painting, studying under Heinrich Ehmsen at the (East German) Academy of Arts in Berlin.[3] In the meantime the occupation zone had been relaunched, in October 1949, as the Soviet sponsored German Democratic Republic (East Germany) and Heller joined the Socialist Unity Party (SED / Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands), the ruling political party in what had by now become his country's second one-party dictatorship.[3] The period of study at the Academy of Arts was followed by a professorship of painting at the Academy for Visual and Applied Arts at Weissensee (Berlin), where between 1956 and 1958 he served as Rector[1] in succession to Werner Laux.[3] Heller's period as Rector ended suddenly, with his dismissal: it was later suggested that he had fallen foul of the authorities by siding with students' criticisms of "simple curriculum stuffing, that left no space for independent research choices and insights",[6] according to the historian Hiltrud Ebert.[7] "He struggled against the mental narrowness at the academy, and rebelled in the face of uniformity".[1][8] Heller's appointment to the academy's top job had come in the wake of the "political thaw" announced in 1955, but his dismissal two years later was an indication that the thaw was powerfully circumscribed by the enduring requirements of The Party.[1]

Between 1958 and his death in 1970 Bert Heller worked as a freelance artist in Berlin.[3] He had never officially been disgraced and appears to have been at least partially rehabilitated following his removal from the academic establishment, and was permitted to visit China for a study tour in 1963.[3]

Awards and honours
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References
  1. Stefan Strauß (25 October 2013). "Fische aus den Fünfzigern". Berliner Verlag GmbH (Berliner Zeitung). Retrieved 9 November 2015.
  2. Gerd Ilte (2012). Bert Heller - sozialistischer Verzeigekuenstler?. Kunst und Künstler in Wernigerode nach 1945. 28. Lukas Verlag. p. 30. ISBN 978-3-86732-117-4.
  3. Anke Scharnhorst; Bernd-Rainer Barth. "Heller, Bert * 30.3.1912, † 29.4.1970 Maler, Rektor der Kunsthochschule Berlin-Weißensee". "Wer war wer in der DDR?". Ch. Links Verlag & Bundesstiftung zur Aufarbeitung der SED-Diktatur. Retrieved 9 November 2015.
  4. "Bert Heller". Kunst in der DDR. Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (sponsor). Retrieved 9 November 2015.
  5. Ernst Klee: Das Kulturlexikon zum Dritten Reich. Wer war was vor und nach 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 232.
  6. „...reine Stoffvermittlung, die keinen Raum lasse zum selbstständigen Suchen, Wählen und Sichentscheiden...“
  7. Hildtrud Ebert (Ed.) (1996). Drei Kapitel Weißensee. Dokumente zur Geschichte der Kunsthochschule Berlin-Weißensee 1946–1957. Lukas Verlag, Berlin. ISBN 978-3-9368-7227-9.CS1 maint: extra text: authors list (link)
  8. Er kämpfte gegen die geistige Enge an der Hochschule, es war ein Aufbruch gegen die Erstarrung.
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