Klaus R. Uhlig

Klaus R. Uhlig, born in 1932 in Altenburg near Leipzig, is at first and foremost a painter of people. His upright figures, with a strong vertical emphasis and often depicted in groups, represent the emerging XXL generation. With his 'Structurels', Uhlig created a painting style that combines classical realistic with modern abstract painting. Linking and overlapping numerous individual pictures to form a composite creates configurations that can be interpreted in many ways. Gil E. Stein shows other aspects of his output in this publication. This includes works such as Das letzte Blatt der Welt or 9-11, which was actual-ly painted in 2001, and the group of pictures called 'Arborel'. The most striking feature of Uhlig’s pictures is the positive im-pact they make. One contributing factor here is that a clear working philosophy lies behind their creation. Uhlig’s work is intended to show 'that our life and our social associations are wonderful because the things that connect us are wonderful and mysterious'. He uses very many graphic and painting techniques to achieve this, including decalomania. The colour range of his work is defined by the Bauhaus colour theory. Uhlig’s colorism and structurelism emerged on the basis of a classical training in art and architecture, moving through the stages of stonemason, Dipl.-Ing., Master of Arts, government building of-ficer and Dr.-Ing. His professors in Weimar included Otto Herbig, who was close to Die Brücke, in Berlin the architect Hans Scha-roun and the sculptor Erich F. Reuter, and at Harvard University Le Corbusier when present at seminars. Here Uhlig also met Walter Gropius and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. After teaching at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Hamburg, Uhlig worked as a town planner in various German cities. He devised zoning maps for Göttingen, Heidelberg and finally for Cologne, where he worked as Stadtbaudirektor for many years. Uhlig lives in Cologne as a free-lance artist. Solo exhibitions have been devoted to his work in Europe and China, in cities including Berlin, Bologna, Brussels, Dresden, Hangshou, Leipzig, Cologne, Paris and Weimar. His work is to be found in state museum, public buildings and in institutional and private collections.