Horst Antes
Born in 1936, painter, graphic artist, and sculptor, known for his "Kopffüßler" (Cephalopods).
The oeuvre of Horst Antes, born in 1936 in Heppenheim, Germany, has had a lasting influence on the art of the 20th century. After his studies at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Karlsruhe under the famous woodcutter artist HAP Grieshaber, he held important solo exhibitions, e.g. in London, New York and Tokyo.
Antes works as a painter, sculptor and ceramist and is associated with the New Figuration art movement which developed at the end of the 1950s and unlike abstract art, returned to figurative forms. Through his use of colour and symbolism, Antes evokes the mysteries of sensation and the fateful compulsion to continue existence. With his invention of the "Kopffüßler" (literal translation: Head-Footer), he explains in a cheerfully ironic way the deformity and reducibility of civilised man.
Already at a young age, he was honoured with important German and international art prizes, including the 1961 Kunstpreis Junger Westen, 1962 Villa-Romana-Prize, 1963 Villa Massimo scholarship, UNESCO Prize for Painting at the 33rd Venice Biennale in 1966, Premio Marzotto-Europa, Valdagno 1968, 1991 Art Prize of the State of Baden-Württemberg, Hessian Culture Prize and Grand Prize of the San Paolo Biennale. He participated in documenta III, IV and V. 1965-67 (and 1984-2000), was a professor at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Karlsruhe and was a one-year guest-professor at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin (1967-68).
Since 1971 Horst Antes has been living as a freelance artist in Karlsruhe, Germany and Italy. His sculptures for the biennial federal horticulture show in Germany called Bundesgartenschau in 1967 brought him to the attention of a broader public. Today, his paintings and sculptures are exhibited in many major collections and museums around the world, e.g. the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Staatsgalerie in Munich, the Sprengel Museum in Hanover and the Kunsthalle in Hamburg.
