Background
Karl Otto Gotz was born on February 22, 1914, in Aachen, Germany.
Karl Otto Götz working in his Düsseldorf studio, 1959
Karl Otto Götz work on the canvas, 1976
Karl Otto Götz with his wife Rissa during a photo session on the honour of his 100th birthday (2014) in front of one of his paintings. A photo by Oliver Berg
artist printmaker writer moviemaker
Karl Otto Gotz was born on February 22, 1914, in Aachen, Germany.
Karl Otto Gotz revealed his passion for art and his talent in secondary school. His first creations dated to 1924.
Later, in 1932, Gotz pursued his studies at the School of Applied Arts in Aachen, where he had studied for one year.
The begging of Karl Otto Gotz’s career when he experimented with various media forms and created his first abstract and surrealist works concurred with the blossom of the Nazi Party in Germany. The artist was prohibited to paint and to present his art. However, the artist created landscapes and sold them to earn his living.
In 1936, the artist joined the Wehrmacht Air Force where he had served for two years. At the outbreak of the Second World War Gotz had a post of the signal officer in Norway controlled by the Nazi. While serving, the artist continued his experiments with spray paint, photograms and abstract cine-films. He produced abstract compositions dubbed ‘electron paintings’ with ground-based radars. They were similar to animated television picture.
After the end of the War Gotz left Norway. The artist tried his hand in solarization and the use of the air pump as a painting instrument. He created with its help many woodcuts and watercolours depicting imaginative figures and plants. In 1947, Karl had his debut solo exhibition.
From 1948 to 1953 Götz had contributed to the periodical Meta as a publisher.
At the same period, in 1949, the artist joined the art group CoBrA and participated at its exhibition at The Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. This three-year collaboration pushed Gotz to the Art Informel which became a universal art language at the early 1950s. So, in 1952, the artist along with his colleagues Otto Greis, Heinz Kreutz and Bernard Schultze established an artistic group called Quadriga. It had functioned for two years and contributed a lot to the development of the Art Informel in Germany. The group provided the artist with popularity around the country and lead to his participation at the Venice Biennale of 1958 and Documenta exhibition in Kassel next year. The same year, he got a professor’s post at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf and had held it till 1979.
At the beginning of the 1970s, the artist became fascinated with the questions of information aesthetics and visual perception.
In 1995 Karl Otto Gotz tried himself as a ceramist. This period of his professional journey had lasted for six years.
Since the year 2004, the artist almost lost his sight but continued to paint with the help of his wife Rissa.
In 2014, the huge retrospective of the art by Karl Otto Gotz was organized by the Berlin Neue Nationalgalerie in celebration of the artist’s 100th birthday.
Karant 5.7.1957
Untitled
Untitled
Gilgamesh
Smolbeck
Entym
From a Laugh without Mouth
Untitled
Selva (Series A)
Untitled
Untitled
Untitled
Untitled
Untitled
Lilly II
Ilmir II
Giverny IV/2
Festive Table
Giverny A7
18.12.1953
Giverny IV/3
Castor + Pollux VIII
24 Variations with 1 Texture (Theme: Head 3)
14 Variations on One Theme. Excerpt from the "Fakturenfibel"
Composition
Ilph II
Untitled
Auring
Figurines in a Circle
After the Second World War, Karl Otto Gotz became a member of the Rosicrucian Order.
Karl Otto Gotz was married twice. On December 1945, his first wife became his old friend named Anneli Brauckmeyer. The couple had lived together till the break up in 1965.
The same year, the artist married for the second time. His second spouse, one of his students at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, was Karin Martin, or Rissa. She also became an artist.