Heinz Drache

We owe the interpretation of painter Heinz Drache as a gardener to Dresden art critic Ingrid Wentzkat: "Just as a gardener cultivates his field, he too repeatedly digs up his own, washes it out, uses leftover paint to sow other colors over it in delicate structures, moss-like growths, and surface-forming splashes of color." His late paintings can be described as gardens in which a wealth of the rarest, most fragile, and at the same time most seductively beautiful forms grow. He worked on canvas and paper, patiently applying layer upon layer, like fertile soil. The elaborately crafted backgrounds are also a trademark of Heinz Drache. They create an immaterial color space for his transformations and metamorphoses, damaged, cracked, yet preciously shimmering. In this carefully prepared bed of color, the dreams and dream images of his soul blossom into mostly whimsical and cheerful, rarely disturbing and eerie, but always sensitively balanced creations.

  • Heinz Drache – „Ruhende“
  • Heinz Drache – „Feste Formen“
  • Heinz Drache – „Liegende“
  • Heinz Drache – „Im fernen Raum“
  • Heinz Drache – „Strohblumen“
  • Heinz Drache – „Muschel“
  • Heinz Drache – „Tierschädel“
  • Heinz Drache – „Gebilde auf Blau“
  • Heinz Drache – „Muschel“
  • Heinz Drache – „Vogel auf rosa Grund“
  • Heinz Drache – „Blockhaftes II“
  • Heinz Drache – „Ohne Titel“
  • Heinz Drache – „Distel“
  • Heinz Drache – „Schiefe Symmetrie“
  • Heinz Drache – „Stakkato“
  • Heinz Drache – „Theaterbild III“
  • Heinz Drache – „Theaterbild“
  • Heinz Drache – „Strandkörbe“
  • Heinz Drache – „Schiff“
  • Heinz Drache – „Liegender weiblicher Akt“
  • Heinz Drache – „Mädchenkopf“
  • Heinz Drache – „Muschel“
  • Heinz Drache – „Bizarres Gebilde“
  • Heinz Drache – „Stachelige Muschel“
  • Heinz Drache – „Muscheln“
  • Heinz Drache – „Ohne Titel“
  • Heinz Drache – „Blütenzweig“

curriculum vitae

1929 born in Dresden
1948-1953 Student at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste (HfBK) Dresden under Hans Theo Richter, Josef Hegenbarth, Max Erich Nicola and Fritz Dähn, aspirant under Heinz Lohmar
1953 since then member of the Verband Bildender Künstler der DDR (VBK)
1953-1960 freelance work
1956 Art Prize of the City of Dresden
1957 Bronze medal at the Internationale Kunstausstellung in Moscow
1959-1981 Scenographer at the DEFA-Studio for animated films in Dresden, commissioned works for the Kulturpalast Dresden (in collaboration with Walter Rehn) and the Teehaus in Radebeul, for companies, schools and other public institutions
1969 Medal “Erbauer des Dresdner Stadtzentrums”
1973 “Goldener Lorbeer” of the former GDR television
1979 “Goldener Lorbeer” of the former GDR television
1981 since then freelance work in his art sudio in Radebeul
1983 Art Prize of the City of Radebeul
1989 died in Radebeul
exhibition: Heinz Drache – Metamorphosen

Exhibition at the Galerie Himmel

Heinz Drache
Metamorphosen

20. September 2014 — 08. November 2014

exhibition: Heinz Drache – Florale Abstraktionen

Exhibition at the Galerie Himmel

Heinz Drache
Florale Abstraktionen

20. January 2018 — 10. March 2018 | in the cabinet
Armed with the skills he acquired while studying under Hans Theo Richter at the Dresden Academy, Heinz Drache began to develop a moderate form of surrealism in the 1950s. He found spiritual mentors in Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, Paul Klee, and Fernand Léger. Inspired in this way, his desire for form pushed him to the point where the object begins to dissolve and the form takes on a life of its own. ... At the end of the 1970s, the starting point of his fantastical image creation shifted more and more from the outside to the inside. Sensations of the soul and the unconscious became the immediate source of inspiration. This led him to a free, almost pure abstraction. In a kind of introverted metamorphosis, he listened to the fragile states of his inner world and then gave them form in his paintings. A visit to Johnny Friedlaender's retrospective at the Kupferstichkabinett Dresden in 1980 became a striking encounter with a kindred spirit for Drache. In a miraculous way, his late work touches on the visual aesthetics of the great graphic artist and his abstractions, freely composed on the surface.
Michael Böhlitz
Heinz Drache. Metamorphosen, Faltblatt zur Ausstellung, Galerie Himmel, Dresden 2014

further exhibitions

1946 Dippoldiswalde: »Heimat und Arbeit« (participation)
1951 International Art Exhibition Berlin (participation)
1953 Third German Art Exhibition (participation)
1957 International Art Exhibition Moscow (participation)
Dresden District Art Exhibition (participation)
1958/1959 4th German Art Exhibition (participation)
1959 Dresden District Art Exhibition (participation)
1962/1963 5th German Art Exhibition, Dresden (participation)
1977 Galerie Kuehl, Dresden
Deutsche Akademie der Künste, Berlin: »Zehn Jahre bildende Kunst in der DDR« (participation)
1979 Galerie Nord, Dresden
1980 Galerie im Cranachhaus, Weimar
1981 Schloss Moritzburg
1982 Galerie am Schönhof, Görlitz
1983 Galerie Kunst der Zeit, Dresden
1985 Klub der Intelligenz, Dresden
1987 St.-Marien-Krankenhaus Dresden
1988 TU-Dresden, Klub der Professoren, Kleine Galerie, Dresden
1989 Neue Dresdner Galerie, Dresden
Kreuzkirche Dresden
1990 Nikolaikirche Leipzig
1993 Galerie Kunst der Zeit, Dresden
1994 Stadtgalerie, Rathaus Sparkasse und Landebühnen Sachsen, Radebeul
1999 Stadtgalerie Börse, Coswig
2008 Landesbühnen Sachsen, Radebeul
2014 GALERIE HIMMEL, Dresden
2017 GALERIE HIMMEL, Dresden (participation)
2018 GALERIE HIMMEL, Dresden, Kabinett