Technique: Felt-tip pen on Paper

Date: 1962

Description: Born in Freiburg im Breisgau in 1896, Hans Hugo Wingler initially studied architecture at the Technical University in Karlsruhe and worked there as a government architect before increasingly turning to the fine arts from the 1930s onwards. It was not until after the Second World War that he took drawing and painting courses with Hermann Billing, who is best known for his cityscape-defining Art Nouveau buildings. Like Billing, Wingler also turned to painting and drawing, but did so primarily alongside his professional work as government building director of the state structural engineering office. His works are particularly dominated by architectural and landscape motifs, which he produced during domestic excursions - probably also on business trips - or on long journeys, for example to Brazil, Italy, Sweden and Switzerland. He experimented with various techniques such as watercolour, ink painting, felt and crayon drawings, and even charcoal and pencil drawings, all of which have in common a drawing style with free lines. The master builder's eye skilfully set the scene for architectural motifs in particular, whose perspective depiction, however, detaches itself from technical precision and achieves an abstracting effect. Wingler also created abstract landscape and mood paintings with an almost dreamy atmosphere, as his travel impressions from Sweden and Brazil impressively demonstrate. Last but not least, Wingler also worked on individual portrait and figure studies as well as depictions of his native Baden. Hans Hugo Wingler left behind a considerable oeuvre of drawings and watercolours, which not only illustrates his travels through Germany and to foreign countries, some of them far away, from the 1930s to the 1970s, but also provides an insight into the versatility of the artist, who came from an architectural background. The present sheet comes from a portfolio that the artist presented to his "dear wife Clara as a souvenir of our trip to Sweden" for Christmas 1962.

Keywords: Scandinavia, nature landscape, island, coastal landscape, Baltic Sea, Gotlands län, rocks, free line, travel, Sweden trip, 20th century, Modern, Nature, Sweden,