Gerhard Eichhorn

Gerhard Eichhorn was born in Judenbach, a small village in Thuringia’s Sonneberg region on 3 May 1927—and thus right into the middle of a century torn apart by cold and hot wars, by the ideological conflicts between democracy and National-Socialist dictatorship, between Communists, Stalinists, and Social Democrats, between East and West. All these tensions were to profoundly influence his work. 

It must have been an act of temerity to choose the life of an artist in this era. Gerhard Eichhorn attended from 1942 to 1943, and then after the Second World War from 1945 to 1947, the Fachschule für Angewandte Kunst in Sonneberg. He finished this training with a degree in ceramics design. From 1950 to 1955, he completed a degree in graphic design at the Leipzig Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst, an institution with which he was to remain affiliated for the rest of his life. His teachers at the Hochschule included Elisabeth Voigt, Heinz Eberhard Strüning and Heinz Wagner. From his graduation through 1958, he worked as research assistant for Hans Mayer-Foreyt, who later became (together with Werner Tübke, Wolfgang Mattheuer, Gerhard Kurt Müller and Bernhard Heisig) one of the “founders” of the first “Leipziger Schule”. This was the era of the so-called “formalism debate”, which had so great an impact on GDR culture. Its president Walter Ulbricht, for instance, proclaimed in 1951: “We do not want to see any more abstract paintings in our art schools. We don’t need pictures of moon landscapes or rotting fish. Gray on gray painting is an expression of the decline and fall of capitalism, and it stands in blatant contradiction to contemporary life in the GDR.” The lithographs Arbeitslos (Unemployed), Aufmarsch (March) and Streik (Strike) from 1958 – dense and powerful, wholly in the tradition of socially engaged graphic art, such as that of Käthe Kollwitz – show to what extent Eichhorn identified with the effort to establish a new country: a “different”, peaceful Germany, free of exploitation, a “nation of workers and farmers”. Nevertheless, debates were later to arise concerning some of his pictures.  

Even during his period as research assistant, Eichhorn had led the evening classes on life drawing at the Leipziger Hochschule. Immediately after he finished his studies, he began to teach, initially from 1959 to 1964, at the Fachschule für angewandte Kunst Leipzig. From 1966 through 1992, he was a lecturer at the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst in Leipzig, leading the workshop on etchings and copper engravings. In 1968, he also took over leadership of its Department of Painting and the Graphic Arts. In 1976, he was named Deputy Rector, in 1978 Extraordinary Professor at the Hochschule. In addition, from 1964 through 1970, Gerhard Eichhorn acted as Chairman of the Leipzig region’s chapter of the Verband Bildender Künstler (Association of Visual Artists).  

Eichhorn exhibited in numerous solo and group shows, and was invited to participate in the lucrative competitions for the Kunst am Bau (Art in Buildings). From 1958 to 1978, he was included in the official Art Exhibitions of the GDR, showing, in 1978, the sensitively received “Portrait”, painted two years earlier, and a Stillleben (Still Life) from 1977, which reveal a more open and experimental approach than his earlier works.  

The legacy of a teacher also lives on in his students – thus Eichhorn had reason to be proud of the great influence he exerted on the artistic development of such younger artists as Arno Rink, Peter Sylvester and Wolfgang Böttcher.  

Gerhard Eichhorn died on 15 December 2015 and was buried in Leipzig-Gohlis.  

text: Matthias Zwarg, translation: Darrell Wilkins