Werner Mathias Goeritz Brunner

Place: Danzig

Born: 1915

Death: 1990

Biography:

Werner Mathias Goeritz Brunner, a Mexican painter and sculptor of German origin, left an indelible mark on the art world. Born on April 4, 1915, in Danzig, German Empire (now Gdańsk, Poland), Goeritz spent his childhood in Berlin, where he developed a passion for philosophy, art history, and painting.

Early Life and Education

Goeritz began studying philosophy and the history of art at Berlin's Friedrich-Wilhelm-Universität, now known as the Humboldt University of Berlin, in 1934. He received a doctorate in art history from this institution in 1940. His doctoral dissertation on the nineteenth-century German painter Ferdinand von Rayski was published as Ferdinand Von Rayski und die Kunst des Neunzehnten Jahrhunderts. During his studies, Goeritz also trained as an artist at the Kunstgewerbe- und Handwerkerschule in Berlin-Charlottenberg, where he studied drawing with German artists Max Kaus and Hans Orlowski.

Career

Upon completion of his doctorate, Goeritz worked at Berlin's Nationalgalerie (National Gallery), now the Alte Nationalgalerie, under the supervision of nineteenth-century art specialist Paul Ortwin Rave. In 1941, he left Germany and settled in Tetuan, Morocco, where he began to develop his unique style. In 1942, he married photographer Marianne Gast, and the couple settled in Granada, Spain. Goeritz's first solo exhibition was held at the Librería-Galería Clan in Madrid in 1946. In Mexico, Goeritz collaborated with renowned architect Luis Barragán to create monumental abstract sculptures in reinforced concrete, including El animal del Pedregal (The Animal of the Pedregal, 1951) and Torres de la Ciudad Satélite (Towers of Satellite City, 1957). His work was influenced by the Expressionism movement, which emphasized subjective experience and distorted reality for emotional effect.

Notable Works

Some of Goeritz's notable works include:

• El Eco Museo Experimental (1953), an experimental museum in Mexico City
• Los amantes (The Lovers), a sculpture at the Hotel Presidente, Acapulco
• La mano divina (The Divine Hand) and La mano codiciosa (The Covetous Hand), reliefs in the Iglesia de San Lorenzo, Mexico City

Goeritz's legacy can be seen in his contributions to Emotional Architecture, a movement that emphasizes the emotional and spiritual aspects of building design. His work has influenced contemporary architects visually and conceptually, and he won the Pritzker Prize, the highest award in architecture, in 1980. For more information on Goeritz's life and work, visit Werner Mathias Goeritz Brunner or Mathias Goeritz on Wikipedia. Explore his artwork and that of other renowned artists at The Museum Stadtische Kunstsammlungen Gorlitz, Germany or Pablo Picasso's The Blue Vase.