By Florian J. Haamann, Fürstenfeldbruck
Until recently, there was hardly an exhibition opening in Fürstenfeldbruck that Guido Zingerl didn’t stop by at least briefly. Leaning on his cane, he looked at the work with interest before sitting down on a chair in a quiet corner to watch what was happening for a moment – and to talk to the people who wanted to talk to him. And there have always been some. Whether for a quick chat or a conversation about painting and society, the grand seigneur of Brucker Kunst always took his time. This was also the case with his last own exhibition last October in the Frey Gallery in Fürstenfeldbruck and at the anniversary exhibition of the art prize winners of the district in November, at which Zingerl was represented as a two-time prize winner. Heinrich Scholz, as his real name was, died on Thursday, a few weeks after his 90th birthday.
Born in Regensburg on January 19, 1933, Zingerl was certainly never the most popular artist in his adopted home of Fürstenfeldbruck with his provocative nature, but he was the most important one socially. He kept pressing his paintbrush into open wounds and was always offended by it. With his work, he not only criticized current city politics, it was above all his great life’s work to come to terms with the crimes and history of National Socialism in Fürstenfeldbruck. And yet he was never stuck in the past, but always commented on current issues and developments, most recently on the war in Ukraine. Not only in his paintings, but also as a caricaturist, a few years ago also for the Southgerman newspaper.
His anti-fascism was based on two experiences in his youth
Guido Zingerl’s deep and combative anti-fascism was based on two experiences in his youth. In 1938, when he was seven, his father woke him up because he was supposed to take him to see the burning synagogue in Regensburg. At the time he didn’t really understand what was happening, but the image of the burning house was deeply embedded in his mind. And shortly before the end of the war he was dragged with his school class to the execution of the cathedral preacher and two of his friends. The priest had prayed for a speedy surrender of the city. “Seeing the people hanging there was just terrible,” Zingerl once said in an interview.
After the war, Zingerl’s second conviction quickly joined this childhood anti-fascism: a fundamental critique of capitalism. In 1968 he was one of the founders of the DKP and was part of the party executive. For this, he and his wife Ingrid were observed by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. After a few years, however, they left the party because they could no longer support its development. Zingerl continued to be involved in the union. We owe his collaboration to two important institutions: the VG Bild-Kunst and the artists’ social insurance. He was no longer able to achieve his third major goal, an exhibition fee for visual artists.
In his youth, however, it did not look as if Zingerl would one day become an artist. He was a good student and the teachers wanted him to be a teacher too. However, he believed that he was interested in natural sciences and began studying mechanical engineering. Although he didn’t really feel comfortable there from the start, he fought his way through to his diploma. He just didn’t finish his doctorate. In 1960 he decided to take a new path and become a painter. His father supported him with 300 marks a month, the young man earned the rest as a construction worker and as a truck driver.
Zingerl was not concerned with external reality, but with inner truths
Without any training, he gradually established himself in his new profession. The non-academic became his trademark. His works were not the technically cleanest, beauty and precise strokes were not his claim. No, Zingerl’s style was always as crude and brutal, as direct and straightforward as his motives required. For him it was not about capturing the external reality in a snapshot on the canvas, but about releasing the truths of content from their temporality and making them eternally valid. He has mastered this to perfection.
From the very beginning, his work attracted great national and international attention. Since 1963 he has regularly taken part in the annual exhibitions of the Herbstsalon in Munich’s Haus der Kunst, and his work has been shown in the Neue Münchner Galerie as well as in Edinburgh and Prague. 1975 in West Berlin, 1978 at the Caricature Biennial, 1993 at the Max Planck Institute. And, of course, his works were also regularly on view in Fürstenfeldbruck, hardly a year went by without a major exhibition with Zingerl’s participation. The city also bought some of his work. But although he was one of the few professional artists in the district, he could not rely on the sale of his work. It was his wife who “brought him through”, he once said.
The void that Guido Zingerl’s death has now torn into the art landscape of the city and the district is huge. He was the last major socially critical artist whose voice was recognized outside of the art world. A voice that will be sorely missed at this time of brutal war in Ukraine and growing social tensions.
In his work “The Ship of Fools” Zingerl brings together all the figures he has criticized over the decades.
(Photo: Carmen Voxbrunner)
The cycle “The Secret of the Greek Owl” combines ancient mythology with the history of the city of Fürstenfeldbruck
(Photo: Johannes Simon)
The painting “Peace Doesn’t Come Alone” was created in 1982, at the time of the first Gulf War.
(Photo: Carmen Voxbrunner)
In this caricature, Guido Zingerl takes on the atrocities committed by the Fürstenfeldbruck police academy during National Socialism.
(Photo: Voxbrunner Carmen)
This painting is reminiscent of the current debate about artificial ski slopes.
(Photo: Carmen Voxbrunner)