Heinz Trökes
Heinz Trökes (15 August 1913 – 22 April 1997) was a German painter, printmaker and art teacher. Biography. Trökes was born in Duisburg. After completing his "Abitur" (school leaving examination) in 1933, Trökes was a pupil of Johannes Itten in Krefeld from 1933 to 1936. From 1936 to 1939, he lived as a painter in Augsburg and earned his living designing textiles with the "J. P. Bemberg" company. In 1938, his first solo exhibition in the Galerie Nierendorf in Berlin was closed at the initiative of the Nazis. He was then expelled from the Reich Chamber of Culture and  had no more opportunities to exhibit until 1945. In 1937 he met Wassily Kandinsky in Paris; the following year, he travelled to Vienna, Budapest, Yugoslavia and once again to Italy. In 1939, Trökes moved to Zurich in order to emigrate from there to the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia). The outbreak of the Second World War prevented this, however. Returning to Germany in 1940, he studied with Georg Muche in Krefeld, but was and conscripted to the Wehrmacht, until 1942 as a flak soldier in Berlin. He attended the art school of Max Dungert in his free time. He was friends  with, among others, Oskar Huth, who provided him with a fake official exemption from the Wehrmacht. In 1945, Trökes was a co-founder of the Berlin Galerie Gerd Rosen, the first private art gallery in Germany after the war, and remained artistic director until 1946. From 1946 to 1948, a series of cosmonaut-like images was created, including "Die Mondkanone" (The Moon Cannon), "Terrain der Kosmologen" (Terrain of the Cosmologists), "Sphärische Kontraste" (Spheric Contrasts) and "Zwei Welten" (Two Worlds). He was called to the "Staatliche Hochschule für Architektur und Kunst in Weimar" (College of Architecture and Art) (today Bauhaus Universität ) together with the painter in 1947, but finished teaching after one semester due to excessive external influence. He participated in the exhibition "L’Art Allemand Moderne", "Deutsche Kunst der Gegenwart" (German art of the present) in Baden-Baden. During the blockade from 1948 to 1949, he stayed in Berlin, in Rodenbach near Neuwied on the Rhine, then again in Berlin. In 1949 he married Renata Severin. Trökes published an article in the magazine "Les Temps modernes", Paris (Dir. Jean-Paul Sartre) on "La peinture et le public en Allemagne. L’inflation d’expositions et le scandale qu’elles provoquent". From 1950 to 1952 he  won the "Blevin-Davis competition" in Munich, stayed in Paris and befriended with Wols and Paul Celan. Trökes joined the "Rixes group" with Roberto Matta, Jaroslaw Serpan, Jean-Paul Riopelle and Zañartu, among others. Participation in the weekly Jour fixe revolving around André Breton (Benjamin Péret, Marcel Duchamp, Toyen, Max Ernst, Rufino Tamayo and Gérard Hérold). Heinz and Renée Trökes moved to Ibiza in 1952. Here, he created many island pictures, often of a topographical character. He won the Hallmark competition, New York. In 1954 his son, Jan Manuel, was born. Also in 1955, he received the Deutscher Kritikerpreis and  teaching offers from art schools and academies in Berlin, Karlsruhe, Zurich, Stuttgart and Frankfurt, which he, however, declined. In 1955, he participated in documenta 1 in Kassel. (He also participated in further documentas in 1956 (II. documenta) and 1964 (documenta III). In 1962 he was called to the "Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste" / State Academy of Fine Arts Stuttgart. Ben Willikens was one of his students among others. From 1965, Trökes taught painting at the "Hochschule für bildende Künste", today Berlin University of the Arts. In the same year he also designed a Church window in Leonberg near Stuttgart. In  1966, he experimented with Georg Muche on "Helio-Klischographs" in Kassel with the aim of manufacturing electrically controlled prints. The quiet images were succeeded by intensively coloured ones. Many of his topics seem rather being influenced by his travels around the world. Heinz Trökes died in Berlin on 22 April 1997. Legacy. The written legacy, including the journals, was endowed to the "Deutsches Kunstarchiv" (German art archive) in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum. The sketchbooks were donated to the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (Berlin State Museums), the Kupferstichkabinett Berlin (Museum of Prints and Drawings).