Walter Habdank

Highly expressive wood carvings – and more

11.10.2007 - 30.11.2007

Text taken from the Tauber-Zeitung of 31 October 2007:

Wood carvings, lithographs and paintings by the contemporary artist Walter Habdank are currently on display at both the gallery of the Caritas Hospital in Bad Mergentheim and the Lauda “Factory Gallery" in Lauda-Königshofen.

MAIN-TAUBER DISTRICT– In the words of the director of the hospital, theologist Thomas Wigant M.A., through his expressive works Walter Habdank, “opens the senses to this world and to that other world which escapes our simple gaze.” Prof. Dr. Hans-Dieter Bundschu, who paved the way for the exhibition and organised it in cooperation with Dr. Gerhard Wobser, pointed out that Habdank “has interpreted biblical themes like no other contemporary artist, not only in his wood carvings, but also in his murals and altar paintings, stained-glass windows and mosaics.” Bizarrely, although the son of a Protestant deacon, the artist, who passed away six years ago, was better known in Catholic than in Protestant circles. While the Caritas exhibition concentrates more on the artist’s wood carvings, at Dr. Gerhard Wobser’s “Factory Gallery”, one can marvel at extracts from his earlier works, including paintings, portraits and town scenes, as well as his later works in watercolour.

The exhibition was opened by church minister and economist, Johannes Habdank, the artist’s son. Walter Habdank himself was born in Schweinfurt and attended a classics grammar school in Munich, where his artistic talents were recognized and promoted at an early stage. After the war, he confronted modern French painting and German expressionism, constantly went on study trips to southern Europe and North Africa and “expressed his impressions in emotional oil and watercolour landscapes that captivate the eye of the beholder”. In 1962, he married Friedgard Hofmann, the marriage producing three children.

During the Fifties, Walter Habdank belonged to the “prestigious youth” of the Munich art scene, but at the same time he was heavily criticised for his uncompromising representationalism. Establishing himself as a wood carver of biblical themes in the Seventies, he designed fountains and squares, along with sculptural portrayals in remembrance of the Holocaust; however, “as a result of his increasing focus on religious themes, the official art world barely paid any attention to Habdank”. Recognition primarily came from “Catholic circles, which were much friendlier towards traditional paintings”.

Walter Habdank was an Expressionist, creating “formally and contextually compromised paintings, archetypal figures and scenes that challenged the beholder to form an opinion on life, themselves and their world”. The artist had a desire to “waken the emotions”.

Dr. Wobser would like to thank Friedgard Habdank for lending the works, the Caritas Hospital and Prof. Dr. Bundschu, who tackled the project with determination and perseverance. The Habdank exhibition at the Caritas Hospital is open from 10 a.m.- 8 p.m every day until the end of January. The exhibition at the factory Gallery runs until the end of November.

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