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The German abstract and figurative painter Horst Robert Bonsack (March 19, 1903- March 8, 1987) was born in Upper Silesia but lived and worked mostly in Berlin. He began his training as an artist in 1920 at the Munich Art Academy and two years later became a student of Ewald Duelberg in the Art Academy in Kassel. He returned to Berlin in 1924 where he continued his training under Karl Hofer. Among the most significant influences upon his work, both stylistically and philosophically, were the paintings of the 19th-century German master Hans von Marees and the Homeric epics.
His artistic career was interrupted by the economic depression of the 1920s and 1930s, the rise of the Third Reich, WWII and subsequent internment in a Russian prison camp.
Once he was able to resume painting, his work reflected influences from diverse international sources (Morandi, Tapies, Klee, Bacon, Rauschenberg), with his canvases alternating between figurative and abstract approaches. Visits to Italy and South Carolina in the 1970s also influenced his subject matter and style. Throughout his paintings and drawings, the Trojan saga emerges as the dominant theme and is reflected in several compositional series (The Barbarians, Icarus, Iliad and Penthesilia). His initial one-person show was held in Berlin in 1973 and was followed by additional exhibitions in Berlin and in the US (e.g. Goethe Institute Atlanta Traveling Exhibition 1981-83). Retrospective exhibitions of his work have been held in Berlin (1989) and Columbia, SC (2003).
He was a member of the Berlin Artists Association. Among publications devoted to his work are A. Kruse-Rodenacker, Bilder und Zeichnunge 1973, J.B, Jungmann, Bilder und Zeichnungen (1977), J. Bartosch, H.R. Bonsack (1979), and C.R. Mack (Robert Bonsack: a Centenary Celebration (2003). An entry on the artist is included in Sauer's Allgemeines Kuenstler Lexikon (1996).
Source:
Written and submitted by Charles R. Mack, biographer of the artist, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Art History, University of South Carolina
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