Wieland Förster

Wieland Förster (born 12 February 1930) is a German sculptor, artist and writer. A recurring theme of his work is victimhood, reflecting his own youthful experiences during the incineration of Dresden in February 1945 and of the Soviet justice system between 1946 and 1950.

His life has been documented in unusual detail, not least by himself. By 2015 it was reported that the daily diary which he has kept since 1953 had reached its 150th unpublished "volume". Towards the end of 1944, still aged only 14, he was sent for four weeks to a Hitler Youth detention camp. On his release he volunteered for fire-watch duties in order to avoid further unwelcome interruptions to his training and education.

It is reported that he was such a quick learner as an apprentice technical draftsmen that after a year he was "promoted" to a preparatory year for a degree course at the Engineering Academy. He was also conscripted into the local branch of the newly launched German Home Guard ("Volksturm"), and it was as a member of the Home Guard that he experienced the English and American air attacks that destroyed the central districts of the city one day after his fifteenth birthday, on the night of 13 February 1945. During these years he was using his spare time to try out various artistic forms of expression, such as writing, music, theatre and advertising, along with the more visual arts. In the Autumn/Fall of 1952 he took part in a public "drawing event" at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts where the teachers encouraged him to enroll as a student.

He received his degree in 1958 he applied for a three-year Master Course at the Arts Academy in East Berlin, hoping to study with Gustav Seitz. However, it was becoming progressively more impractical for Seitz to sustain a life-style that involved pursuing a career simultaneously in West and East Germany, and 1958 was the year in which he opted to base himself in Hamburg (in the west).In order to be able to remain in Berlin, and following the recommendation of Seitz, Förster now hesitantly but successfully applied to become a Master Student ("Meisterschüler") with Fritz Cremer.

After just eighteen months his time as a Master Student of Cremer was prematurely terminated in connection with the increasingly heated debate then emerging on the subject of Formalism. He was permitted to use a workshop at the academy to complete his Life-sized plus group of figures "Völkerfreundschaft unter Studenten" (literally "People's friendship between students") which won the TU Dresden prize in 1961/62.

Retreat and recovery In 1961 Wieland Förster set himself up in a Berlin shop building which became his studio. For some years he lived and worked here as a virtual hermit, visited by his family and a couple of close friends, notably Erich Arendt and Franz Fühmann. The authorities did not endorse his self-imposed exile but nor, at least initially, do they appear to have interfered. Between 1968 and 1972, the authorities became disruptive. Förster was banned from exhibiting his works between 1968 and 1973,

In 1992 In 1996 he was a founding member of the Saxony Arts Academy in Dresden, However, foreign travel was a privilege rather than a right, and between 1968 and 1973 governmental agencies imposed various ideologically based blockages including the ban on exhibiting. Grudging rehabilitation, backed by Konrad Wolf, followed in 1974, when he was admitted to the National Arts Academy, and he was almost immediately able to stage his first major exhibition (organised by ) in Potsdam in the former observatory building on the Telegraph Hill.

Wieland Förster still works as a visual artist. Additionally, since the 1970s he has published a series of books and articles reflecting aspects of his own artistic creations.

Awards and honours not necessarily a complete list 1966: Will Lammert Prize of the German Arts Academy, Berlin 1973: Kunstpreis der DDR 1974: Käthe Kollwitz Prize of the National Arts Academy, Berlin 1976: National Prize of the German Democratic Republic for arts and literature, 3rd class 1977: Kleist Arts City Prize from Frankfurt (Oder) 1978: Arts Prize of the Trades Union Confederation 1983: National Prize of the German Democratic Republic for arts and literature, 2nd class 1996: Arts Prize of the Saxon capital, Dresden 2000: Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany 1st class 2009: Brandenburg Arts Prize for life's achievement 2010: Honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Philosophy Universität Potsdam 2012: Order of Merit of Brandenburg