Hermann Ueberholz
A man of many talents

This master of understatement has been living and working in ‘Casa de la Luz’ high above Cala Salada for the last ten years. On the journey up to the sprawling house and studio which Hermann designed himself, the visitor is greeted by the sight of cheerful and colourful installations which have been created from discarded everyday objects, such as gas-bottles, wheel-trims, canisters and so on. Arriving at the top of the hill, we enter the open, sunlit interior of the house with its breathtaking view over the Cala Salada and across the sea towards the Spanish mainland. As evening approaches, it often serves as a balcony seat for impressive sunsets.

After a brief handshake we immediately embark on a chronological journey through the artistic life of Hermann Ueberholz, wandering through all the rooms in the house and acquainting ourselves with the various creative phases and themes of his artistic career. The house itself is thus a sort of private gallery on the scale of a museum. On our way round we discover that, although he started out studying art, his father insisted that he should combine this with the study of architecture. Both disciplines were taught in the same building of the Weissenhof Art Academy in Stuttgart. He then joined his father’s architect’s practice. Many of his designs made the transition from drawing-board to construction, mainly in his native city of Wuppertal. Amongst these are the Wupperfeld Church, several residential and commercial developments and shopping malls. But he was also responsible for pioneering and revolutionary designs including a prestige residential complex which other architects used as the basis for a skyscraper in Chicago. In the annual review for 1956 published by the trade journal ‘Baukunst und Werkform’ his entry for a municipal design competition was mentioned in the same breath as designs by such great names as Le Corbusier, Sulemi Horiguchi, Stone and Walter Gropius. But his true driving force is art and so he joined the group known as ‘rbk’ and with them at the end of the 50’s he became one of the first western artists to exhibit works in Warsaw and Cracow. In the mid-60’s the emphasis of his work shifted more and more towards painting.

“In 1980 he made a break with architecture. He compiled short commentaries, photos and sketches of his major projects and then piled up all the rest of his papers in the fireplace and burnt the lot. This helped him tidy up and also produced a few thermal units of heating.” This is how his son Björn Ueberholz describes the event in the foreword to one of his catalogues. From then on he devoted himself exclusively to art and alongside painting he also produced three-dimensional works. Even when he was in Wuppertal, Ueberholz had been fascinated by the myriad possibilities of light, especially refraction, and of using this in geometrical forms, and so he developed new techniques of working with acrylic glass. Several of these acrylic works are on display in a number of public buildings.

On our tour through the rooms we finally enter his studio where he generally uses the floor to paint on. His pictures are alive with light and transparency – this internationally-acclaimed artist’s works are characterised by subdued colours and fine structures. On entering the cellar our breath is taken away – hundreds if not thousands of pictures are stacked in rows against the walls or sorted out on shelves. What incredible creativity this man possesses! He himself utters the dry comment: “My creativity stems from self-imposed constraints.” Almost as an aside he tells us that he has translated Kishon’s writings into Spanish and written an essay about Picasso in German and Spanish.

He is a free spirit who has often turned down offers from galleries to buy complete cycles of his work. He can also be quite an awkward customer who relishes a scrap. For example, in San Antonio where several of his works are displayed in the Paseo Maritimo, he has frequently given the powers-that-be a piece of his mind (constructively of course) concerning town planning. He was prepared to bequeath his life’s work to the town and even to ensure that there would be adequate accommodation and supervision for it. The town declined the offer. What a tragic loss for Ibiza! We can only hope that those responsible reconsider their decision.

He is not thinking of hanging up his paintbrush just yet. Even though many of his friends have - as he puts it - ‘gone to the happy hunting grounds’, we have before us a vital and amiable if obstinate old fellow bursting with creative energy. His one burning ambition is to publish a children’s book with paintings his children did for him and captions written by a famous author. Hermann Ueberholz: is just the man to make this come true!