Antes, Horst

Horst Antes studied under HAP Grieshaber from 1957-1959 at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Karlsruhe. He belonged to the most important representatives of the new figurative painting in Germany. His early work was strongly influenced by the American Expressionist Willem de Kooning and the atavistic art of non-European cultures such as the Pueblo Indians. In the 1960s, Antes developed the 'Kopffüßler' (Head Footer) which became his central motif in his painting, sculpture and graphic sheets. With the symbolic 'Kopffüßler' Antes reduced the human body – mostly depicted in profile and consisting of a monumental head without a torso onto which the limbs were directly attached – to an archaically elegant minimum. Antes participated many times at documenta (1964, 1968, 1977) in Kassel, and in 1966 received the Prize for Painting at the XXXIII Biennale in Venice. The artist lives in Karlsruhe, Berlin and Castellina in Chianti.