A MAS T E R O F THE SMAL L FORMAT
On the death of ceramic
sculptor Klaus Lehmann
(1927-2016)
He was someone one met
less at trade fairs and private
viewings than in book
shops. What does this tell
us about Klaus Lehmann,
who was long considered
a “ceramist”? That his interests
were both wider and
deeper than just supplying
bowls and vases with aesthetically
pleasing forms
and décor. Widely read in literature and philosophy, he was concerned with nothing
less than the fundamental conditions and acts both of the material and of
humankind. Born in Berlin and confronted with the most difficult of contemporary
conditions in his youth, he studied educational science and took his first steps in
ceramics self-taught at the Werkkunstschule in Kassel, he then successfully ran a
pottery in the Odenwald region with his then- wife Signe Lehmann-Pistorius. The
couple attained a certain prominence with their hybrid vessel-sculptures, which retained
their functionality over an extended period. “But you grow tired of making
openings and lids“, is how he explained his abandonment vessel ceramics and his
orientation towards sculpture on the basis of fired clay. He earned his own characteristic
position in art with cubic objects that successfully combined the rational
design of Minimal Art with great tactile charm: his “Containers”, open at the side
or the top, reminiscent of architectural models with their unglazed matt surfaces
in varying shades of grey. Thus it is no surprise that he felt a particular intellectual
affinity with colleagues from the field of Concrete Art; not of course with sticklers
for sterile, formulaic formalism; he appreciated surprise, ambivalence, mystery and
magic in others as well as in himself.
In 1989, his work was distinguished with the renowned Westerwald Prize for Ceramic
Sculpture, only one of many honours he received. But it was not an inducement
for standstill at the level he had achieved. It has variously been noted that
even in advanced years he was prepared to risk “the step into the unknown, the
insecure” (Walter Lokau). In fact, his later work represented a complete break with
the established canon of his work. The right angle survived only as a kind of launchpad
or counter-form for forcefully handmade, irregularly proliferating constructions,
for preference in ivory white to avoid anything distracting from the interplay of
light and shade. This could go as far as amorphousness, as if all creation were just
in the process of extracting itself from primordial chaos. Mural pieces often resulted
– definitely no longer to be mistaken for vessel ceramics. Klaus Lehmann, who
died on 9 June in a hospital in Erbach after a long history of illness, was correctly
identified in the announcement of his death in the Darmstädter Echo as a “sculptor”.
That he was attracted to small formats all his life in no way detracts from his
standing. It is actually much more suited to his personal demeanour, which was free
from any form of vanity, always focused on the matter in hand and on essentials,
yet always attentive to others, and with an occasional flash of mischievous humour.
It was easier for him to praise others than to listen to praise of himself. The impetus
that Lehmann gave sculpture with ceramic means lives on, both in the work of his
immediate pupil, Friederike Zeit from Deidesheim, as well as overall in a younger
generation of artists, who were inspired by his unwavering attitude towards the
discovery of new pathways. Roland Held, Darmstadt