About Us

it de en

Home    Biography    The Rediscovery    Gallery    Recoveries    Exhibitions    Criticism    Espressionismo siciliano    Bibliography    Supporters

Video Campolmi 1974

Video Rai 1974

Video Bolzano 2008

Video Rai 2009

 ROME DISAPPEARED
BY CHRISTIAN HESS








This picture by Christian Hess, executed in Rome in 1930, reproduces a foreshortening of the “San Lorenzo quarter” that disappeared on July 19, 1943, following an air strike of the American bombers that caused three thousand victims. In fact, a study carried out in Rome by the Christian Hess Cultural Association succeeded in establishing that the only element of the picture that was still recognizable was the surviving smokestack that, in the postwar period, had been included, as an industrial archaeology relic, in the construction of the building of the Department of Genetics and Molecular Biology of the National
Research Center. The gigantic smokestack was a part of the Wuhrer (the former Patzkoski) beer factory, located at the corner between Via degli Apuli and Via dei Sardi, which was hit by incendiary bombs and destroyed by the flames. Therefore, the title of this painting by Christian Hess shown in the Catalogue of the Rediscovery Exhibition (Palermo, 1974) as "Piazza Navona" (an area that, after all, had been free from industrial smokestacks) should be considered incorrect, being instead a spot in the San Lorenzo quarter as the German painter saw it in 1930 and painted it on canvas.


 

Searching for the lost works

Established at the end of 2003 and named after the German painter and sculptor Louis Christian Hess (Bolzano 24.12.1895 - Schwaz 26.11.1944), the aim of the Christian Hess Association is to foster and carry out initiatives and projects in support of the European Ideal and of peace, freedom of expression and human rights, which were always the inspiring forces of the Artist’s work.In order to spread the ideas and works of this protagonist of German art between the wars, who was uprooted from his country by Nazism, went into exile in Sicily in the 1930s, and died at 48 years of age during an air raid over Innsbruck, the Association promotes:
exchanges of information with institutions, academies, museums, art galleries, art historians, critics and art magazines, auction houses, art collectors, and the world of art in general, with a view to putting together the largest and broadest archive of information on the artist’s output, with a view to furthering knowledge of his work among the public and thus complete the catalog of his works;
initiatives for search for and recover of finds documents and other examples of his work: for biographical purposes, for the archive and for supplement the catalogue of his works – many of which have been lost, including those he never signed to avoid being traced by the Nazis;
study and research projects, competitions, academic theses, exhibitions, the publication of multimedia works and various other events aimed at restoring the stature of the Artist - currently in danger of being forgotten - as one of the great exponents of 20th century art;
raising the awareness of European cultural institutions, Unesco and, above all, of the Federal Republic of Germany, to bring the Art of Christian Hess – now more than 60 years since the end of the war – out of the obscurity in which the Nazis would have wanted him to languish.

JOIN  US

The Christian Hess Cultural Association is open to everybody, regardless of nationality. Organisations can also join as associate members, provided that their activities and aims do not contrast with those of the Association

Aims Social activity Statute Credits Research

info@christian-hess.net

Copyright © 2001 -  2024
CULTURAL ASSOCIATION CHRISTIAN HESS. All rights reserved