Herbert Egl

Year of birth, place
1953, Stuttgart, Germany
Role at the ZKM
in the collection
Biography
Herbert Egl was born in Stuttgart in 1953. After initial training as a bank clerk, he studied (1973-75) at the Freie Kunstschule, Stuttgart and (1975-81) at the Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste, Karlsruhe. He then returned to Stuttgart. He has been awarded several prizes and study grants, most recently (1986) a grant from the 'Kunststiftung Baden-Württemberg'. Since 1986 he has taught at the Fachhochschule für Gestaltung, Pforzheim, and in the academic year 1992-93 he was Guest Professor at the Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste, Stuttgart.
 
Since the mid-1970s, Herbert Egl has produced a large body of work, notably paintings, and above all drawings, in which organic shapes and the structures of colour play an important part. Many of Egl's pictures are titled in allusion to natural organisms or scientific issues. Egl's early paintings were characterized by a rather pastose application of paint; and in the mid-1980s he produced series of over-painted photographs. During the 1990s, however, he has both primed his canvases and applied his paint increasingly thinly, so achieving a degree of transparency. As a draughtsman, meanwhile, Egl has produced a number of cyclical series, since 1991 working on an exceptionally large scale.

Individual exhibitions (selection)​
 
1979 Städtische Galerie Schwäbisch Hall
1981 Galerie Tilly Haderek, Stuttgart
1983 Galerie Liesbeth Lips, Delft
1984 Städtische Galerie Wolfsburg, subsequently at Museum Bochum
1990 Niederrheinischer Kunstverein, Wesel; Kunsthalle, Basle
1991 Städtische Galerie Weil am Rhein
1994 Städtische Galerie Göppingen, subsequently at Museum Commanderie van Sint-Jan, Nijmegen, Galerie am Fischmarkt, Erfurt
1995 Galerie Liesbeth Lips, Rotterdam
1997 Galerie Zimmermann, Mannheim; Galerie Epikur, Wuppertal; Galerie Michael Sturm, Stuttgart
 
Group exhibitions (selection)
 
1984 Württembergischer Kunstverein, Stuttgart
1986 »German Art 1945-85«, Taipei Fine Arts Museum Centre, Taipei
1992 »La Figure en Question. Peinture et Sculpture en Allemagne dans les Années 80«, Culture Bank, Sélestat-Cedric
1995 »Das Abenteuer der Malerei«, Württembergischer Kunstverein, Stuttgart, subsequently at Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Düsseldorf

​[Frauke Syamken, 1997]