Publikationen
ANNELIESE HERMES
BILDER für Kißlegg
Herausgegeben vom Kulturförderkreis Kißlegg,
Anneliese Hermes
Der Katalog erschien anlässlich der Jahresausstellung des Kulturförderkreises Kißlegg im Museum Expressiver Realismus Kißlegg vom 17. Juni - 22. Juli 2001
ANNELIESE HERMES
BILDNISSE · MALEREI
Heilbronner Museumskatalog Nr. 73
Im Auftrag der Stadt Heilbronn am Neckar
Herausgegeben von Dr. Andreas Pfeiffer
ISBN 3-930811-71-5
Der Katalog ist erschienen anlässlich der Ausstellung
ANNELIESE HERMES, BILDNISSE · MALEREI
vom 24. März - 3. Mai 1998
ANNELIESE HERMES
Portrait
Katalog zur Ausstellung
Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste Stuttgart
Am Weißenhof 1 · 7000 Stuttgart 1
Der Katalog erschien anlässlich der Ausstellung vom 6. bis 22. Februar 1986 und wurde von den Freunden der Akademie und dem Ministerium für Wissenschaft und Kunst gefördert.
Die Ansprache der Künstlerin zur Enthüllungsfeier des Bildes an der Stanford University:
For me, Gerhard’s persona is all about head and hands. That is what first comes to my mind when I think about him and that is why I chose this format for the painting. Gerhard is also an entertainer—someone who entertains with spirit, intellect, wit, imagination, and character.
His spirit, his gesture paint this picture for me. In that sense, he painted the picture with me. I was able to experience him as he taught his students—with his hands.
My remarks today are based upon his lecture to his students back then. In a sense, that lecture, that experience, was the seed for this painting.
In these remarks, I will go back and forth between my first encounter with Gerhard and the process I went through when I painted this portrait several months later.
Please, indulge me!
His head and hands make him the experience he is as a speaker. The click-click of my camera not only irritated the students—it also irritated me. We wanted to experience everything undisturbed.
Suddenly, he seems huge; the format of the picture threatens to be too small to fit him in. In his words, in his deeds, he is big. I purposefully chose the rectangular format. Gerhard, broad and expansive in his shoulders. Gerhard, larger than life in front of the Cardinal Red—Stanford, his life’s work. The 130x100 centimeter canvas doubles the size of Gerhard’s head. The unpainted continuation of his body hovers above this world. The rectangular format also signals calm and relaxation, similar to the sprawling American landscape or the representation of a figure lying down.
He is generous in his discourse, his disbursement of knowledge, his gesticulations. I want to be generous in my choice of colors and still be able to focus on what’s most important. Red and Blue and, of course, White—his White.
A wind is blowing. The wind of freedom—freedom of speech—the freedom to paint.
The wind of his lecture aims at, and reaches, everyone and it refreshes the community of listeners—and the wind carries the message further. Wind is gesticulation—is movement. Gerhard has achieved a lot of movement at Stanford.
My wind transports Red in White, Red in Blue and White and in secondary colors. My wind is his gesticulation. We are painting this picture together—together!—
I have never known anybody like Gerhard who so unselfishly, and on the highest level, engages himself in order to improve the lives of others. I am thinking about the many architectures at Stanford. I have represented these with colors in my painting, for example the Violet-Blue and White.
In the end, I had to pack Gerhard into a frame made of olive wood—more than 100-year-old olive wood, as old as Stanford. Made in Italy. There are young olive trees growing in an architecturally beautiful courtyard here at Stanford—my wish is that they will grow for at least a century. By using the olive wood frame, I wanted to create an association with Palo Alto. The frame encloses the colors and makes the message of my painting clear.
I hope the message of my painting has reached you.
With each of my portrait commissions, my horizon has widened further, and I am grateful that I was allowed to paint—and get to know—Gerhard.
My portrait is in reverence to him—Gerhard Casper.
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