Karl Weschke was born in Taubenpreskeln, Germany in 1925. Brought up in an orphanage, he was recruited by the Hitler Youth in his teenage years and later served in the Luftwaffe during the war, prior to being taken prisoner in 1945, when he was transported to England and held in various camps. Postwar, he settled in Cornwall, where he associated with avant-garde artists from the St Ives school (though he was not formally part of the movement), creating paintings inspired by German expressionism, myth and history, and by feelings of displacement and introspection.
Painter Karl Weschke was born on 7 June in 1925 in Taubenpreskeln, near Gera, Germany, one of three illegitimate children. At just two years old, his mother, unable to provide for him, left him at an orphanage where he stayed until he was seven. He only met his father once, an anarchist fugitive who would later perish in a Nazi concentration camp. When Weschke outgrew the orphanage, his mother was forced to take him back, but their reunion was far from joyful. Weschke subsequently joined the Hitler Youth, giving him a sense of 'pride, participation and kinship' (cited in Rye 1999, p. 74). At 17, he joined the Luftwaffe. Reflecting on his childhood, he later described it as 'brutally evil' and 'without any dignity' (theEYE documentary).
During the Second World War, Weschke was taken prisoner in Arnhem, the Netherlands, in 1945. He was then transported to England and held in various camps designed to ‘re-educate’ prisoners and mould them into democratic citizens. At Radwinter, near Saffron Walden in Essex, Weschke contributed to the camp newspaper, made theatre sets, and attended history of art lectures presented by Cambridge University, his first exposure to German Expressionism. Later, he was transferred to Wilton Park, in Buckinghamshire, where he was granted day release privileges, allowing him to visit the Royal Academy and the Tate in London. At Wilton Park, he befriended the left-wing MP and journalist Tom Driberg, a frequent visitor and lecturer at the camp, who introduced him to various exhibitions, including a Van Gogh show at the Tate Gallery in 1947. Upon his release in 1948, Weschke took on various odd jobs, such as working at a stonemason's yard in Soho and assisting with feeding lions in a circus. He later joined St Martin's School of Art but left after just one term, driven by a desire to explore.
In 1955, fellow artist Bryan Wynter introduced Weschke to St Ives in Cornwall. Wynter was a prominent figure in the St Ives artistic community of avant-garde artists, whose notable members included Ben Nicholson, Barbara Hepworth, and Russian émigré Naum Gabo. By 1960, Weschke had made his home in a secluded house overlooking the sea in Cape Cornwall, near Land's End, where he lived for the rest of his life. While Weschke maintained close friendships with St Ives artists, including Wynter and Roger Hilton, he was not formally part of the movement, and his foray into abstraction was brief. His work was primarily figurative, but it incorporated elements of Modernism. Unlike the St Ives artists, who favoured a vibrant chromatic palette, Weschke opted for earthy tones that resonated with his depictions of life's darker aspects and the tumultuous landscapes of Cape Cornwall. Weschke's art delved into myth and history, drawing inspiration from German expressionism. Art critic and ceramicist Emmanuel Cooper described his work as imbued with a ‘teutonic brooding and introspection’, further noting that it exuded ‘a moody atmosphere that evokes a quietly threatening sense of danger’ (Cooper 2004, p. 27). Weschke's subjects included landscapes, figurative scenes, and mythical themes. The motifs he chose – ranging from battling dogs, scenes of assault, storms at sea, to solitary horsemen (as in Rider on the Moor, Government art collection, 1977) – echoed the adversities he had endured and his feelings of displacement. As art historian and curator Ben Tufnell has observed, ‘what we see in these paintings are the facts of his life – personal, individual moments of experience – translated into images of universal significance’ (Tufnell’s website). The human figure prominently features in much of Weschke’s work. An example is Body on the Beach (1978, Tate Collection), which forms part of a series and which depicts a solitary figure lying on his back with his head turned to one side. Positioned against a desolate landscape, the image was inspired by a traumatic episode in Weschke's own life when he was pulled from the sea, nearly lifeless, following a diving accident. The artist once said: ‘I am a painter and the pictures I make are me reaching out to an audience to find a response’ (cited in Lambirth 2016, unpaginated).
Weschke’s first solo exhibition was held at the New Vision Centre Gallery, London (1958); subsequent museum and gallery shows included the Grosvenor Gallery, London (1964), City Art Gallery, Plymouth (1971), Whitechapel Art Gallery, London (1974) and Kettle's Yard, Cambridge (1980). A major retrospective, titled Karl Weschke: Beneath a Black Sky, was held at Tate St Ives in 2004, a year before his death. Karl Weschke died in Hayle, Cornwall, England on 20 February 2005. Posthumously, an exhibition of his work was held at Jonathan Clark Fine Art, London in 2016. In the UK public domain, his work is represented in many collections, including Tate, Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery and the Government Art Collection.
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Karl Weschke]
Publications related to [Karl Weschke] in the Ben Uri Library