Alf Lechner
Biography 1925 - 2017
Alf Lechner was born in Munich on April 17, 1925 as the only son of middle-class parents. He began his artistic career in 1940 with the landscape and marine painter Alf Bachmann, who taught him how to paint in oil and pastel in Munich and at Lake Starnberg. After graduating from high school and serving in the Kriegsmarine, Lechner continued his studies with Alf Bachmann in 1946. In 1948, Lechner began training as a locksmith, whereupon he founded the company Litema (lighting technology and metal processing) and patented his own inventions. Among other things, he designed surgical lamps for dentists. He also worked successfully as a commercial graphic artist and built exhibition stands.
The works of Alf Lechner became known to a larger audience from the 1960s. As a result, he was present with exhibitions in all important museums of contemporary art in Germany and received numerous awards. Renowned art historians such as Prof. Dr. Dieter Honisch and Prof. Dr. Armin Zweite have dedicated studies to him. His work is represented at the Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin, the Staatsgalerie Moderner Kunst, Vienna, the Lenbachhaus, Munich and the Zollverein Colliery, Essen, among others.
In 1962, Lechner moved with his family to Degerndorf on Lake Starnberg, sold his company Litema and realized his dream: to dedicate his life entirely to art. The first steel sculptures were created here. In 1968, his first exhibition took place at the Heseler Gallery in Munich. In 1972, he received the sponsorship prize from the City of Munich and shortly thereafter the work grant from the Kulturkreis, which enabled him to produce large sculptures in the Linde AG workshops. He was awarded the Art Prize of the Academy of Arts in Berlin in 1974, which was followed by exhibitions in all important museums of contemporary art in Germany, including the Wilhelm Lehmbruck Museum in Duisburg, the Lenbachhaus Municipal Gallery in Munich, the Kiel Art Gallery, the State Gallery of Modern Art, the House of Art Munich, the New National Gallery Berlin and beyond national borders such as the Museum of Modern Art, the Liechtenstein Palace in Vienna and in Tokyo.
In 1979 he received first prize in the contemporary sculpture competition “Dimension 79" by Philip Morris GmbH. The acquisition and conversion of a disused industrial building into a residential building and studio in Geretsried in Upper Bavaria enabled him to develop new production options for large sculptures. His first sculpture park was created in the vicinity of the studio. Important trips to Saudi Arabia and Japan brought him his first international assignment, namely to develop two sculptures for King Saud University in Riyadh.
In 1988, Lechner won first prize in the competition “Stadtbildhauer im Stadtpark Schloss Philippsruhe” Hanau. In 1990, he was awarded the medal “Munich glows” in gold by the state capital Munich. In 1990-1991, Alf Lechner was honorary professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. In 1991 he received the Critics Prize for Fine Arts from the Association of German Critics e.V. in Berlin and the following year he was awarded the “Piepenbrock Prize for Skulptur”. In 1994 he was guest of honor at Villa Massimo in Rome for two months before he was appointed a full member of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts in Munich in 1995. From 1998 to 2002, the Institute for Foreign Relations (ifa) presented a special exhibition with sculptures and graphics by Alf Lechner in a total of eleven galleries/museums in Germany, Italy, France, Poland, the Czech Republic, Russia, and Hungary.
In 1999, he founded the Alf Lechner Foundation based in Obereichstätt, before the Alf Lechner Museum in Ingolstadt was ceremonially opened in 2000. In the same year, he received the Friedrich Bauer Prize for Fine Arts. In 2001, he and his wife Camilla moved from Geretsried to the former Royal Bavarian Iron Works in Obereichstätt, where he created a sculpture park on an area of over 23,000 square meters.
The Federal Cross of Merit First Class of the Federal Republic of Germany was awarded to Alf Lechner in 2002, and in 2008 he received the Bavarian Constitution Medal in gold. In 2010, the paper house in the Lechner Sculpture Park was opened, and in 2013, the large exhibition hall in the Lechner Sculpture Park was inaugurated. His important and multi-faceted oeuvre comprises over 800 sculptures, many models and over 4500 drawings, some of them large-format, as well as pastels and oil paintings from his youth. Alf Lechner is today considered one of the most important steel sculptors of the 20th century. He died on February 25, 2017 in Obereichstätt.
Prof. Dr. Dieter Honisch, former director of the National Gallery, Berlin
“Lechner bent, bent, rolled and hammered the steel, pierced and cut it, heated it and let it burst, set it up and put it together, concentrated and strung it together, inside and outside, in rooms and in places (...) He has calculated the bodies, steps and divisions and planned and developed them in countless drawings and models, and yet all his works appear completely spontaneous and completely original, like signs of another world, of an archaic period. They radiate a peculiar beauty and perfection that consists of nothing more than complicated numbers. ”
Prof. Dr. Armin Zweite, former director of the North Rhine-Westphalia Art Collection K20, K21
“At the end of the 1960s, Alf Lechner emerged as a sculptor in an environment that was still largely influenced by figurative sculpture, especially in Munich. His preferred, even exclusive, working material is steel, although his vocabulary of forms was initially derived from the constructivism of the 1920s and thus to Euclidean geometry. However, he quickly found his unmistakable style between the concept of art and minimal art. For example, he is not interested in combining and varying common basic forms such as square, circle or cube, cuboid, sphere, but rather with their decomposition, division, fission and refraction.
The process of making therefore plays a central role in Lechner's work, where the properties of the steel are tested, i.e. its strength, hardness, ductility, corrosion resistance. The evocation of feelings of load and heaviness, the relationship between measure and weight, the differences between forging and rolling, cutting and flaming, and the contrast of compressed mass and emptiness or of concrete and imaginary form determine the character of his works. His extensive oeuvre, which covers a period of half a century, is therefore always about the relationship between technology and art, between rationality and emotionality, between reflection and process, calculation and chance — ultimately about rational action and almost irrational result. In doing so, the complex aesthetic effect competes with the often simple, but sometimes difficult to understand working principles. The entire oeuvre is characterized by an inner consistency and consistency, which, in times of a radical expansion of artistic practices and complete dissolution of quality criteria, has something extremely impressive. How young, innovative and able to develop his oeuvre has remained up to now has been observed up to now. “My whole goal in life is simplicity,” said the artist, and then continued: “There are so many complicated things in simplicity that you can't be simple enough. Real discoveries are only made in the simplest forms. The more cluttered a shape is, the less you see the essentials.”
Alf Lechner's oeuvre reveals two things: On the one hand, his emphatic reluctance towards the spirit of departure, optimism, the visionary (as promoted by Zero artists in the Rhineland), but on the other hand, an obvious departure from the sculptural processes that have been common to date. While people weld from Gonzalez to Chillida over and over again in order to produce a specific shape and make it a symbolic medium of expression, Lechner is concerned with the relationship between measure and material, between proportion and process, with geometry and physics. The procedural aspect also plays an important role. His work manifests a particular attitude which, on the one hand, connects him with important German sculptors such as Norbert Kricke, Erwin Reusch, Erich Hauser, and on the other hand also relates him to Richard Serra, Carl André, Donald Judd and Sol LeWitt. Seen in this light, the dialogue between Europe and America continues in his highly independent oeuvre. ”
- Staatsgalerie Moderne Kunst, Munich
- Glaskasten sculpture museum, Marl
- Lenbachhaus, Munich
- New National Gallery, Berlin
- Wilhelm Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg
- Kunsthalle zu Kiel
- Staatsgalerie Stuttgart
- Federal Collection of Contemporary Art, Bonn
- Städtische Kunsthalle Mannheim
- State Gallery of Modern Art, Vienna
- Franz Marc Museum, Murnau-Kochel
- Sprengel Museum, Hanover
- Phillippsruhe Palace Sculpture Park, City of Hanau
- Rheinisches Landesmuseum, Mainz
- Ingolstadt City Museum
- Zollverein Colliery, Essen
- Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlung, Munich
- Museum Art Collection K 21, Düsseldorf
- Städel Museum, Frankfurt
- Neues Museum, Nuremberg
1972 Sponsorship Prize for Fine Arts from the City of Munich
1974 Art Prize of the Academy of Arts, Berlin
1979 1st prize “Dimension 79” (competition for contemporary sculptures)
1988 Art Sponsorship Prize “City Sculptor of the City of Hanau 1988”
1990 “Munich Lights” medal in gold from the state capital Munich
1991 German Critics Prize for the Visual Arts
1992 Piepenbrock Prize for sculpture
1993 Honorary Professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich
1998 Ring of honor from the city of Geretsried; highest award in the city
2000 Friedrich-Baur Prize of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts
2002 “Pro meritis scientiae et litterarum” from the Bavarian State Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts
2002 Federal Order of Merit 1st Class of the Federal Republic of Germany 2008 Cultural Prize of the District of Upper Bavaria
2008 Bavarian Order of Merit
2010 Bavarian Constitution Medal in Gold
1968 Heseler Gallery, Munich
1969 Hella Nebelung Gallery, Düsseldorf
1969 Lempertz Contempora, Cologne
1970 Defet Gallery, Nuremberg
1970 House of Art, Munich
1971 Stangl Gallery, Munich
1971 Mannheimer Kunstverein
1971 Gallery M, Bochum
1972 Otto Stangl Gallery, Munich
1973 State Gallery of Modern Art, Munich Gallery Stangl, Munich
1973 Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe
1974 Wilhelm Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg
1975 Folkwang Museum, Essen
1976 Municipal Gallery Altes Theater, Ravensburg
1977 Kunstverein Freiburg
1977 Bocholt Art Museum
1977 Municipal Gallery in the Lenbachhaus Munich
1978 Kunsthalle zu Kiel
1978 Gallery D+C Müller - Roth
1981 Municipal Gallery in an Empty Bag, Regensburg
1981 Hochrhein Art Association
1981 Trumpet Castle, Bad Söckingen
1981 Ulm Theatre
1981 Museums of the City of Regensburg
1982 Rupert Walser Gallery, Munich
1983 Reckermann Gallery, Cologne
1983 Gallery D+C Müller-Rot. stuttgart
1984 Municipal Art Gallery, Mannheim
1985 State Gallery of Modern Art, House of Art, Munich
1986 New National Gallery, Berlin
1986 Museum of Modern Art, Liechtenstein Palace, Vienna
1987 Rupert Walser Gallery, Munich
1989 Hans Strelow Gallery, Düsseldorf
1989 Freising Art Association
1989 Nuremberg Institute of Modern Art
1989 Gallery koe 24, Hanover
1990 Municipal Gallery in Lenbachhaus, Munich
1990 Wilhelm Hack Museum, Ludwigshafen
1990 Kunsthalle zu Kiel
1990 Lothringerstrasse 13
1990 Rupert Walser Gallery, Munich
1991 Gallery in the Ganserhaus, Wasserburg/In
1992 Kunsthalle Dominican Church and Museum of Art History, Osnabrück
1992 Dr. Luise Krohn, Badenweiler
1992 Piepenbrock group of companies, Osnabrück
1993 Kunstverein Reutlingen, Hans Thoma-Gesellschaft
1993 Kunstverein Reutlingen
1994 St. Wendel Museum, Mia Münster House
1994 Rupert Walser Gallery, Munich
1995 Wilhelm Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg Bauhütte Zeche Zollverein, Essen
1995 Morsbroich Castle Museum, Leverkusen
1995 Glaskasten Marl Sculpture Museum
1995 Von der Heydt Museum, Wuppertal
1995 Hans Strelow, Dusseldorf
1995 Bauhütte Zollverein Colliery, Essen
1996 Ruhr University Bochum
1996 Museum of Modern Art in the district of Cuxhaven
1998 Gallery of the Institute for Foreign Relations, Bonn
1998 Goethe-Institut Rome and Naples
1999 Spazio Zero, Palermo
1999 Goethe-Loft Lyon
1999 BWA Gallery, Wroclaw
1999 Polish Sculpture Exhibition Center, Oronsko
2000 Museum of Contemporary Art, Skopje Museum of Fine Arts, Prague
2001 Mukhina (formerly Stieglitz Palace), St. Petersburg
2002 Kiallitahaza Gallery, Budapest
2005 Defekt Gallery, Nuremberg
2014 New Museum and Sculpture Garden, Nuremberg
2018 Catholic Academy in Bavaria, Munich
2018 LAprojects gallery, Landshut
2019 Nagel Draxler Gallery, Berlin
2019 Studienkirche St. Josef, Burghausen
2020 Heidelberg Sculpture Park, Heidelberg
2020 LAprojects gallery, Landshut
2021 McLaughlin Gallery, Berlin
2023 KönigMuseum, Landshut
2000 Alf Lechner, opening exhibition
2002 Nikolaus Koliusis | Alf Lechner, Iron Sea Blue
2003 Werner Haypeter | Alf Lechner
2004 Alf Lechner, sinking
2004 Alf Schuler | Alf Lechner
2005 Alf Lechner, Fire and Flame and Time Division
2006 Susanne Tunn, Pearls of Stone I Alf Lechner, Bizarre Surfaces
2007 Alf Lechner, cuts
2009 Alf Lechner, Poetry of Chance
2010 Alf Lechner, diagonal
2012 Alfons Lachauer | Alf Lechner, Colors over the Sea
2013 Alf Lechner, steel sculptures since 1960
2014 Alf Lechner, rust on steel - pencil on paper
2016 Alf Lechner, calots and fads
2017 Alf Lechner, Beginning and No End
2018 Alf Bachmann | Alf Lechner, Sky Water Steel
2018 Sigrid Neubert, Architecture and Nature I Alf Lechner, Labyrinth
2019 Hermann Nitsch, The Complete Work of Art
2019 Alf Lechner, emotionally rational
2020 Rupprecht Geiger and Alf Lechner, RotxStahl
2020 Braschler/ Fischer, DIVIDED WE STAND
2021 Now II, An Homage to Then — Now
2022 Susanne Tunn, Karft der Stille
