Gifting Pages
Artists found here were truly talented but not recognized in their time. ARM respects and preserves their work
Uli Zwar
Artists, as we all do, will take many turns along the road of life. It is probable, that more than others, the more artistic among us seem to need the trip to be an adventure, not conforming to, or satisfied with the usual journey. Hans Uli Zwar was born in the township of Neustreltz near Berlin in 1937, where the artist's talents and future were forged in the crucible of uncertainty and war.
A constantly changing political landscape would challenge him repeatedly in the decades to come, and necessity as well as talent begot a man of all seasons. Zwar would not only need to be able to meet with "business entities" to express his visions in practical and economic circumstance, but also translate his themes into Farsi, Spanish, and English as the adventure that would become his life unfolded. Coming from a home that nurtured both the cultural and the practical Uli exhibited natural talents that included mastering classical piano before he was a young teen, and graduating from the University of West Berlin at Karlsruhe as an architect in 1964.
Soon after graduation Zwar found success not only as an architect winning awards and commissions, but also soon directed his energies to fashion design in Copenhagen. By 1973 he had formed the Uli Design Movement with partner Hanne Nagnussen at the Danish Academy of Style in Copenhagen, winning critical acclaim as well as the attentions of royalty.
At 25 years of age Hans Uli Zwar had already achieved acclaim as a pianist and won awards in three major artistic disciplines, those of architecture, fashion, and sculpture. This catalog is the summation of the archive, of his sketchbooks, works of art, and proposals that span 40 years and include more than 3,200 documents and images.
As a painter, he was an idealist surrounded in dreams and visions, following his muse, a traveler exploring the landscape of color field theory. Zwar brought along another familiar rider with him on these journeys, the pattern-and-decorative movement he had developed in Copenhagen. His work would also be informed perhaps by a stroke or two of Op Art, and Pop on his large-scale canvases.
After his studies in large format ceramics at the Glassell Museum School in Houston, in the mid 1980’s Zwar moved to Monterrey Mexico to become immersed and inspired by Hispanic culture. The Hispanic culture with its mix of Catholicism, Aztec and Mayan history, enveloped in folk lore and superstation has proven to be an inspiring temptress for many artists.
During the 1990s the artist-architect would take-on some of the most ambitious projects of his life. Mexico afforded him the opportunity to apply his knowledge of architecture to grand scale projects while also perusing the powerful forms he had developed in ceramic at Houston's Glassell School, but now realized in the marble he found readily available in Mexico.
Uli Zwar spent more than a decade in Mexico before returning to the U. S. to set up a new studio and reside in LaGrange Texas where he continued to cast works in bronze and fabricate sculpture in the challenging medium of both cast and fabricated aluminum. The artist's final years were spent in Houston where he continued to paint until his passing in 2017.
Zwar left us with a legacy of both proposed and completed architectural projects, a significant body of realized 3-dimental artworks in bronze, marble, aluminum and Corian, and a body of paintings of compelling imagery and magic, glimpsed and understood by the viewer as one would recall a dream. Bring along your cultural Rosetta Stone, while some of his visions can be gleaned from this book, they are completely recalled in the recently completed archive used as the primary reference for this publication, of an utterly original, slightly mad, and always the captivating creator, Hans Uli Zwar.
As a painter, he was an idealist surrounded in dreams and visions, following his muse, a traveler exploring the landscape of color field theory. Zwar brought along another familiar rider with him on these journeys, the pattern-and-decorative movement he had developed in Copenhagen. His work would also be informed perhaps by a stroke or two of Op Art, and Pop on his large-scale canvases.
After his studies in large format ceramics at the Glassell Museum School in Houston, in the mid 1980’s Zwar moved to Monterrey Mexico to become immersed and inspired by Hispanic culture. The Hispanic culture with its mix of Catholicism, Aztec and Mayan history, enveloped in folk lore and superstation has proven to be an inspiring temptress for many artists.
Uli Zwar spent more than a decade in Mexico before returning to the U. S. to set up a new studio and reside in LaGrange Texas where he continued to cast works in bronze and fabricate sculpture in the challenging medium of both cast and fabricated aluminum. The artist's final years were spent in Houston where he continued to paint until his passing in 2017.
Zwar left us with a legacy of both proposed and completed architectural projects, a significant body of realized 3-dimental artworks in bronze, marble, aluminum and Corian, and a body of paintings of compelling imagery and magic, glimpsed and understood by the viewer as one would recall a dream. Bring along your cultural Rosetta Stone, while some of his visions can be gleaned from this book, they are completely recalled in the recently completed archive used as the primary reference for this publication, of an utterly original, slightly mad, and always the captivating creator, Hans Uli Zwar.