Two Figures
  • Hans Uhlmann
  • Berlin 1900 - 1975
  • Two Figures, 1949
  • Watercolour over pen and black ink, on strong paper
  • signed and dated with pen on the lower right: Uhlmann 1949,
    another, cut down drawing by the artist on the verso with coloured chalks
  • 321 × 188 mm
Provenance:
Estate of the artist
Hildegard Uhlmann, Berlin
Gallery Herz, Bremen
Gallery Fred Jahn, Munich 2013
Literature:
Carmela Thiele: Hans Uhlmann (1900-1957), Die Aquarelle und Zeichnungen, catalogue raisonné, Berlinische Galerie, Berlin 1990, and Wilhelm-Lehmbruck-Museum, Duisburg, no. 370

Hans Uhlmann successfully finished his graduate studies in engineering at the Technical University in Berlin in 1924 and earned a living there as a permanent assistant to Professor Max Kloss until 1933. In addition to this work, he began his first attempts to express himself artistically – particularly threedimensionally – as early as 1925. This energy was finally honoured in 1930 by a solo exhibition at the renowned Gallery Gurlitt in Berlin; here, Uhlmann displayed heads modelled in plaster. In October 1933, he was arrested during an anti-Fascist leaflet campaign and sentenced to two years in prison for “conspiracy to commit high treason.”

After that, he remained in Berlin, working during the day as an engineer and covertly experimenting during the evenings with his metal statues. After the war ended, Hans Uhlmann worked for several years as the exhibition director at the Galerie Rosen, where his own sculptures and drawings were also presented in 1947. In 1950, he was appointed professor at the University of the Arts in his hometown. There, he soon launched an independent course for metal sculpture; Uhlmann remained in this teaching position until 1968.

His statues, particularly his edged steel sculptures, can now be admired in such prominent places as the Deutsche Oper in Berlin or the Beethoven Hall in Bonn. The Wilhelm-Lehmbruck-Museum in Duisburg constructed an entire space for him in 1977 with permanent loans from the family, however, as did the Berlinische Galerie in 1988 at the Martin Gropius Building. Hans Uhlmann’s works were also represented during the first four documenta exhibitions in Cassel.