Joseph Beuys

Joseph Beuys (1921-1986), German artist, teacher, and political activist, considered one of the most influential of the European avant-garde artists of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. He was born in Krefeld and grew up in Kleve, Germany. In 1940, during World War II, he joined the Luftwaffe (German air force). In the winter of 1943 his plane crashed in Crimea, in the Ukraine. Tatars (people of Turkic origin) saved his life by wrapping his body in fat and felt, materials that later reappeared in his art. After further bombing missions he was a prisoner of war in Britain from 1945 to 1946.

Beuys studied painting and sculpture at the Staatliche Kunstacademie (state academy of art) in Düsseldorf, Germany, from 1947 to 1952. During the second half of the 1950s he worked as a farm laborer. In 1961 he returned to Düsseldorf to teach sculpture. He was dismissed in 1972 after giving his support to radical students but was reinstated six years later. His campaigns for direct democracy, the environment, and other causes involved, for example, using his booth at the famous Kassel Documenta art show in 1972 as an office that publicized a pro-democracy organization; running unsuccessfully for the Bundestag (parliament) in 1976; and planting numerous trees in Düsseldorf.

Beuys was best known for his so-called actions, which added elements of performance to visual art (see Performance Art). Well-known examples of his actions include Wie man dem toten Hasen die Bilder erklärt (How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare, 1965), in which he covered his face with honey and gold leaf and walked through a Düsseldorf gallery explaining various pieces of art to a dead hare he was carrying; and Coyote: I Like America and America Likes Me (1974), in which he lived, wrapped in a felt blanket, with a live coyote in a New York City art gallery. His other works include sculptures, such as Das Ende des 20. Jahrhunderts (The End of the 20th Century, 1983), composed of 21 pieces of basalt containing plugs of fat; and numerous drawings and watercolor paintings.