Herbert Siebner,German-born expressionist painter, muralist and printmaker
Hyfler/Rosner
Victoria Times Colonist
BYLINE: Michael D. Reid
Herbert Siebner, the colourful German-born expressionist painter, muralist
and printmaker considered by many to be one of the biggest names in
Vancouver Island art history since Emily Carr, died Sunday in Victoria of
apparent heart failure. He was 78.
Siebner, a founding member of The Limners, a group of artists formed in 1972
that was initially devoted to the human figure and would include such
luminaries over the years as Myfanwy Pavelic, Austrian artist/filmmaker Karl
Spreitz, Carole Sabiston, Pat Martin Bates and Nita Forrest, was as well
known for his generosity, carousing and unbridled pursuit of pleasure as
well as his award-winning art.
"He brought modernism to Victoria," recalled Times Colonist art critic
Robert Amos. "When he arrived from Berlin, he turned the page to a new world
of art here."
Amos says Siebner did for aspiring modern artists what Carr had done for a
previous generation.
In an interview with the Times Colonist about the early days of the Limners,
Spreitz, former editor of Beautiful B.C. Magazine, recalled an address Carr
made to the Victoria Women's Club after she had returned from Europe, where
she saw the work of the expressionists.
"She warned the women there was something new coming and said, 'Don't let it
alarm you,'" Spreitz was quoted as saying. "Then guys like Herbert Siebner
and Richard Ciccimarra showed up."
Siebner's abstract paintings were recognizable from his use of shifting
shapes like circles, semi-circles and domes, with dramatic colours such as
flaming orange, ochre and cobalt blue. Fertility, freedom and solitude were
recurring images in works that often sprang furiously from his subconscious,
in media that included watercolours, oils, acrylics, sculpture and woodcuts.
Siebner, whose high-profile art included murals he designed for the Art
Gallery of Greater Victoria, the University of Victoria's Maltwood Museum
and Paul's Crown House restaurant, was born April 16,1925 in Stettin,
Germany.
The Paul's Crown House mural, described by Sabiston as "an exuberant piece
of ecstatic humanity," was later acquired by the late art collector,
restaurateur and developer Michael Williams and now sits in a breezeway
behind the lobby of Swans Hotel.
According to Herbert Siebner: A Celebration (Morriss Publishing, Victoria,
1993), the budding artist was captured by the Russians after serving in the
German army as a gun-shy teenager. He spent his post-war years studying
expressionism in Berlin.
"The idea that he was studying art in Berlin in 1946 is unbelievable,"
observed Amos. "They would trade their art to American soldiers for
cigarettes. That was his art education."
Siebner moved to Victoria in 1953 and became an honorary citizen and a
member of the Royal Canadian Academy.
The award-winning artist's work has been showcased in museums, art galleries
and private collections around the world.
He also taught at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria and the universities
of Victoria, B.C., Alberta and Washington.
The internationally known artist was an outspoken critic of the art
establishment and, in 1972, he recalled hundreds of his paintings, graphics
and sculptures from galleries in Canada, the U.S. and Europe. He lashed out
at art dealers who charged commissions as high as 50 per cent to sell or
exhibit an artist's work, and urged boycotts of galleries that charged
commissions.
Siebner, whose works have been exhibited at the Royal B.C. Museum and the
Fran Willis, Winchester and other local galleries, also vociferously
objected to the federal government's tax on valuable art objects.
"The real motive behind my move is to get away from valuation," he told the
Daily Colonist in a 1972 interview. "A piece of bread you can tax because it
has a use, a function, but art matters according to how much joy or sadness
or feeling you get from it."
Two years later, the fiery artist also launched a protest against the Art
Gallery of Greater Victoria for removal of a mural that he painted for the
institution in 1958. While gallery officials differed, he said they removed
it without informing him.
Never once to mince his words, Siebner said: "This act comes close in
resemblance to the book burning of the Nazi period."
Of Siebner, the late poet and artist Robin Skelton once wrote: "His vision
ranges from the tragic to the whimsical, and from the lyric to the
monumental, and his works owe much to both expressionist and non-figurative
traditions, while invariably revealing a highly personal idiom and an
originality in the handling of colour, form and texture that place him among
the most significant painters of our time."
In her 1996 book A Passion for Art: The Art and Dynamics of The Limners,
former AGGV director Pat Bovey was no less complimentary.
She wrote that Siebner "had the ability to link humour, symbolism and
mythology. Like Spreitz and Robert Skelton, he had artistic connections with
the surrealists."
Siebner's longtime friend and frequent travelling companion Vagn
Herforth-Madsen remembers Siebner as being "a very generous man to his
friends, but also very complex," an artist as passionate about hunting and
fishing and travelling as his art.
"He was an exhausting travelling companion," said Herforth-Madsen with a
chuckle. "He'd always be up to something."
Siebner, he added, was also "a bohemian at heart all his life."
Sabiston described Siebner as a "unique, exuberant, irreverent and highly
amusing man -- the consummate artist."
Amos said Siebner's works would surely become more popular with collectors.
Siebner is survived by his wife Hannelore Siebner, daughter Angela Nielsen,
son-in-law Rene Nielsen, granddaughter Tanis Nielsen-Rhoads; her husband
John Nielsen-Rhoads and great-granddaughter Anya Rene Nielsen-Rhoads.
No memorial service has been announced.