Anatol Herzfeld

Anatol Herzfeld (born Karl-Heinz Herzfeld; 21 January 1931 – 10 May 2019) Teaching traffic rules to school children using puppets was one of his specialties. An action by Beuys and Anatol took place in the pub in Düsseldorf in 1968. Three of Beuys's students, Joachim Duckwitz, Ulrich Meister and Johannes Stüttgen, were shown handcuffed to a steel table made by Anatol and sitting on steel chairs. Red and green signals, operated by Anatol from a corner of the room, directed each sitter as to when they could speak. Beuys stood in the opposite corner of the room, silently making different gestures. After Beuys was expelled from the Kunstakademie in 1972, Anatol protested in an action the following year. On 20 July 1973, he placed Beuys in a dugout canoe that he had built, and they crossed the Rhine from Oberkassel, where Beuys lived, to the Akademie, in a symbolic journey of a return of his master titled Die Heimholung des Joseph Beuys. Furthermore, he regularly participated in ring talks (Ringgespräche) about art theory. From 1979 to 1981, he taught art at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. In 1982, he settled on the Museum Insel Hombroich, running a studio in a former barn. In 1996, he was appointed honorary professor of fine arts by the University of South Dakota in Vermillion.

He died in Moers on 10 May 2019 at age 88 after a short illness.

Exhibitions Anatol's art was presented in exhibitions including: 1972: documenta 5, Fridericianum, Kassel 1977: documenta 6, Fridericianum, Kassel 2014: Anatol. Arbeiten aus der Sammlung Gertz.,

Die Jade (1975), Dangast Das Traumschiff Tante Olga (1976), documenta 5 in Kassel, then Heinrich-Schütz-Schule there Triptychon (1991), St. Agnes, Cologne Die Wächter der Kinder (2002), Viersen Heilkunst (2005), Graz, Austria Head of Joseph Beuys (2008), Meerbusch-Büderich Wächter (2010/2011), Selm-Bork Demokratie, National Assembly in Paramaribo, Suriname

Awards 1991 Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany

Gallery