Heinz Trökes - "DOUBLE MOON OVER THE MOUNTAINS" 1968

Large format
Colour serigraph, 56 x 44 cm (76 x 64 cm per sheet) on laid paper.
Signed and dated 68 in pencil.
Edition, here page 16 of 100.

Magnificent coloring, excellent condition.


Heinz Trökes, 15 August 1913 in Hamborn am Rhein - 22 April 1997 in Berlin.

After graduating from high school in 1933, Trökes was a student of Johannes Itten in Krefeld from 1933 to 1936. In 1934, Trökes undertook a bicycle tour through Italy, visiting Florence, Rome, Naples, Palermo, and Venice, among others. From 1936 to 1939, he lived in
Trökes worked as a painter in Augsburg and earned his living through textile designs for the JP Bremberg company. In 1938 his first solo exhibition at the Nierendorf Gallery in Berlin was closed at the instigation of the Nazis. He was then expelled from the Reich Chamber of Culture and was no longer able to exhibit his work until 1945. In 1937 he met Wassily Kandinsky in Paris. The following year he traveled to Vienna, Budapest, Yugoslavia and again to Italy. In 1939 Trökes moved to Zurich and from there emigrated to the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia). However, the outbreak of World War II prevented this. He returned to Germany. From 1940 he studied with Georg Muche in Krefeld and was called up to join the Wehrmacht, serving as an anti-aircraft soldier in Berlin until 1942. In his free time he attended Max Dungert's art school. He became friends with Oskar Huth and others.

In 1945, Trökes co-founded the Berlin Galerie Gerd Rosen, the first private art gallery in post-war Germany, of which he was artistic director until 1946. From 1946 to 1948, he created a series of cosmonautic paintings, including "The Moon Cannon," "Terrain of the Cosmologists," "Spherical Contrasts," and "Two Worlds." In 1947, he was called to the State Academy of Architecture and Art in Weimar (now the Bauhaus University) together with the painter Mac Zimmermann. After one semester, he gave up teaching due to excessive outside influence. He participated in the exhibition L'Art Allemand Moderne, Contemporary German Art, in Baden-Baden. During the Berlin Blockade from 1948 to 1949, he lived in Rodenbach near Neuwied on the Rhine, then returned to Berlin. In 1949, he married Renata Severin. Trökes published an article in the Paris journal Les Temps Modernes (directed by Jean-Paul Sartre) on "Painting and the Public in Germany. Exhibition Inflation and the Scandal They Provoke." From 1950 to 1952, he won a prize at the Blevin-Davis Competition in Munich. He spent time in Paris and became friends with Wols and Paul Celan. Trökes joined the Rixes group with Roberto Matta, Jaroslaw Serpan, Jean-Paul Riopelle, Zañartu, and others. He participated in the weekly Jour fixe (jour fixe) around André Breton (Benjamin Péret, Marcel Duchamp, Toyen, Ernst, Rufino Tamayo, and Gérard Hérold).

In 1952, Heinz and Renée Trökes moved to Ibiza. Here, he created numerous island paintings, often of a topographical nature. He won a prize at the Hallmark Competition in New York. In 1954, his son, Jan Manuel, was born. In 1955, he toured Spain extensively, visiting Madrid, Alicante, and Toledo, among other places. Also in 1955, he received the German Critics' Prize and was offered teaching positions at art schools and academies in Berlin, Karlsruhe, Zurich, Stuttgart, and Frankfurt, which he declined. In 1955, Heinz Trökes participated in documenta 1 in Kassel. (He participated in further documenta works in 1959 (documenta II) and 1964 (documenta III).)

In 1956, he traveled from Ibiza to Andalusia and Morocco. Trökes was awarded the Berlin Art Prize. From 1956 to 1958, Trökes headed the Department of Free Graphics at the Hamburg Academy of Fine Arts. He created lithographs and etchings. In 1957, he exhibited a mosaic at the Milan Triennale. In 1958, he undertook a three-month trip to Ceylon, visiting Cairo, Djibouti, Aden, and Bombay, among other places. He painted watercolors on a rubber plantation for the volume "Sinhalese Miniatures." He participated in the Venice Biennale. At the Interbau trade fair in Berlin-Hansaviertel in 1957, he created a stained-glass window for the Kaiser Friedrich Memorial Church. He returned to Ibiza. From 1959 to 1960, Trökes lived with his family on the island of Aegina in Greece. After the vibrant colors of his years in Paris and Ibiza, he created quiet images in reduced and atmospheric colors in the nuanced light of Greece, and continued until 1966. He traveled to Crete, Rhodes, the Peloponnese, and Istanbul. From 1960 to 1961, he returned to Ibiza via Berlin, Wameln (etchings "Wamelner Serie"), Paris, and Barcelona. During this time, he created three carpet designs. They were executed by Anker-Teppiche, Düren.

As a member of the German Artists' Association, Heinz Trökes participated in seven major DKB annual exhibitions between 1952 and 1971, including the traveling exhibition in Belgium in 1961.[1] From 1961, Trökes was a member of the Academy of Arts in Berlin. From 1962 to 1965, he alternated between Ibiza and Stuttgart. He taught at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart. In 1964, Trökes undertook extensive travels through Latin America: Curaçao, Caracas, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Panama, Guatemala, Mexico, and New York. This followed the publication of the illustrated book "Eldorado." He received the Karl Ströher Prize from the 1st International Drawing Competition in Darmstadt. He also exhibited solo at the Museo de Bellas Artes in Caracas.

In 1965, Trökes was offered a professorship at the Academy of Fine Arts, now the Berlin University of the Arts. Since then, he has lived in Berlin again, although he also continued to work on Ibiza. He painted church windows in Leonberg near Stuttgart. He traveled extensively through northern and southern Spain, to Madrid and Morocco. In 1966, Trökes experimented with Georg Muche on a helio-klischograph in Kassel to produce electrically controlled prints. The still images were replaced by vibrant colors. In 1967, he traveled extensively to Argentina, Brazil, and Senegal. He held a solo exhibition at the Lehmbruck Museum in Duisburg. In 1968, he experimented with LSD painting with Dr. Hartmann in Munich. He became an honorary member of the Accademia Internazionale "Tommaso Campanella" die Lettere-Arti-Scienze in Rome.

From 1968 to 1970, he created 64-color illuminations for the eight-volume complete edition of "Crébillon." In 1969, he traveled to Cuba and Denmark, and in 1970 to Ethiopia, Ankara, and Anatolia. In 1971, he replaced the multicolored and often large-format paintings with two-color, smaller formats. Trökes undertook his second trip to Ethiopia and his second trip to South America, visiting Bolivia, Peru, Panama, Honduras, Guatemala, and Mexico. In 1972, he taught a seminar on free painting at the Salzburg International Summer Academy of Fine Arts. He traveled to Tunisia, Algeria, and the Central Sahara. From 1973 onward, he created black-and-white collages and Chinese ink drawings, as well as several sketchbooks.

From 1974 to 1975, he experimented with gold. A four-month trip to Asia: Ceylon, Burma, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Nepal, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iran. From 1976 to 1977, he worked in Chinese inks, colored etchings, and primarily watercolors. He spent four months traveling the world: Israel, Thailand, Bali, Australia, the South Pacific, Chile, and Argentina. He gave lectures at the Tel Aviv Museum and the Israel Museum in Jerusalem on "Art in Germany under Hitler and After." He traveled to South Yemen and to the clay high-rise buildings in Wadi Hadramaut. In 1978, he created three tapestry designs, executed by the Franconian Tapestry Manufactory. He created new oil paintings in Ibiza, and further sketchbooks in Berlin. He ended his teaching career at the Berlin University of the Arts. He traveled to Egypt.

From 1981 onward, he created numerous square paintings with wiped and glazed backgrounds. From around 1990 onward, Trökes painted cheerful 50 × 50 cm pictures that once again condense his entire drawing and painting experience and express a great degree of formal freedom. On August 15, 1993, Heinz Trökes was awarded the Mercator Plaque by the Mayor of Duisburg, Josef Krings, on the occasion of his eightieth birthday. On April 1, 1997, Renée died in Berlin, followed just a few days later, on April 22, by Heinz Trökes.
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