Maina Miriam Munsky

Short Biography

Maina-Miriam Munsky (* 24. September 1943 in Wolfenbüttel as Meina Munsky; † 26. October 1999 in Berlin ) was a German painter of the New Realism .Life [ Edit | Source Edit ]Munsky in 1943 as the daughter of the architect Oskar Munsky (* 1910 in Malbork ; † 1947 in a POW camp) and photographer Gertrude Schmidt (* 1912 in Darmstadt ; † 1986 in Wolfenbüttel ) was born. She completed her schooling at the Anna -Vorwerk High school in March 1962 with the high-school diploma. From the fall semester 1962, she studied in the class of Peter Voigt at the Municipal Art School in Braunschweig, the following year appreciation to the State Academy of Fine Arts learned. In 1963 Munsky an abortion, which can work as a trigger for their subsequent painterly subject. From 1964 to 1965 she continued her studies through a scholarship at the Accademia di belli arti in Florence in the class of Ugo Capocchini continued and made ​​in Italy qualified as a primary school teacher. In Florence changed Munsky her appearance, dyed her blond hair black, which they maintained from then until her death, dressed from then on only in black and has changed its registered on the birth certificate name of Meina in Maina, adding the name of Miriam, of Jewish origin, added. From 1966 to 1970 she studied at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin at Alexander Camaro and Hermann Bachmann . At the HdK developed Munsky her first painting of embryos in the womb.Looking for an exhibition opportunity she met the illustrator and graphic artist Peter Sorge know. Concern mediated her first solo exhibition in the artists' cooperative gallery Großgörschen 35 , which was opened in February 1968th The artists of Großgörschengruppe, showing walked the critical realists, the Company took a skeptical attitude towards one and based on models such as George Grosz , Hannah Höch or John Heartfield , the collage principle and Dada . 1970 married Maina-Miriam Munsky and Peter Sorge. In the same year she became a member of the German Association of Artists , at the large annual exhibitions she participated until 1984. In December 1972, the son of Daniel Ben was born. Munsky was one of the founding members of the group aspect which existed from 1972 to 1978. Members were the artist Hermann Albert , Bettina von Arnim , Ulrich Baehr , Hans-Jürgen Diehl , Arwed D. Gorella , Wolfgang Petrick , Joachim Schmettau , Peter Sorge and Klaus Vogelgesang . In the seventies were made ​​first purchases of museums. Also the Museum of Modern Art and the Collection of the Federal Republic of Germany took each a work of the painter in their holdings. About the stir that trigger Munskys work repeatedly, shifting the art historian Katrin Sello in the time of 2 May 1975: "This is not a criticism of the impersonal objectivity of modern gynecology, although Maina-Miriam Munsky is attributed to the critical realists in Berlin and the group "aspect" belongs. The Provocative images located in another area. In which they perform without any sublimation in mythology or Idyllic the real process of birth before our eyes, they violate taboos, mobilize all resistors of the viewer, to avert and abrupt rejection, because they touch on a traumatic limit. " [ 9]From participation in the exhibition "Artists International 1877-1977", which in the Orangery of Charlottenburg Palace took place, Maina-Miriam Munsky was excluded. The exhibition was considered until then most important inventory of female art. On display were more than five hundred works by a total of one hundred and ninety artists, including Louise Nevelson , Paula Modersohn-Becker , Meret Oppenheim , Georgia O'Keeffe , Eva Hesse , Bridget Riley , Käthe Kollwitz , Sonja Delaunay or Gabriele Münter . The jury, consisting of, founded in 1969. New Society for Visual Arts emerged and was composed entirely of women, Munskys justified exclusion by arguing their uninvolved formulated Birth pictures are not female. In addition, the painter was accused of doing with the sexist representations of her husband Peter Sorge common, the combine in his drawings photographs from pornographic magazines with scenes of violence. Since the early seventies of solidarity Munsky however distanced himself already to their fellow women. When asked how they see their position as women in the art world, the artist repeatedly voiced publicly that she was against the fact that unite women's groups, which creates only new insulation. From 1979 to 1981 found that excited by the Berlin inventory traveling exhibition "feminist art internationaal" in museums in Holland, Denmark and Sweden instead, was involved in the Munsky with several works. At the peak of her artistic recognition Munskys six-picture sequence was the red cloth , accompany an exhibition of Frida Kahlo and Tina Modotti , the Hamburg Kunstverein issued. From 1982 to 1984 had the painter Visiting Professor of basic teaching at the HBK Braunschweig . In 1984 she was awarded the art prize of the State of Lower Saxony . In 1988 she was a visiting professor at the International Summer Academy Pentiment the University of Applied Sciences in Hamburg. In 1990 she was a member of the Artists Sonderbund . 1991, Munsky a lecturer at the summer academy in Bremerhaven. The painter was from Berlin's Galerie Poll represented.Munsky died in 1999 at the age of 56 years in Berlin at the consequences of their drinking. The common grave of Maina-Miriam Munsky and Peter Sorge is located in the Old St. Matthaus Kirchhof Berlin in the district of Schöneberg. 2013 published a first inventory of Munskys work, Fear paint away , edited by January students and the Art Foundation Poll , Berlin. Work The works were Munskys the Critical Realism assigned. Here the painter-oriented rather to a new objectivity , the realism of the 1920s. Munskys picturesque subject turned to pregnancy, the process of birth, surgery and death. In her works as "emancipation" and "Twins I and II" are clinical facilities and medical equipment characteristic. The artist became known through the social psychological view of this Theme. It documented in precise, sober images from the delivery room impressively the potential of photorealism .From 1967 realized Munsky their first pictures of births, which touched on a taboo and encountered resistance. These early images of embryos Körperhaftem in hints, fetuses and birth scenarios painted in a soft, flowing style with which she was captured only by lattice-like structures, frameworks, cages and lines. Works from this period remember occasionally surrealistic forms from the images of Salvador Dali or works of Francis Bacon . 1970 could Munsky, after examination by a commission of the hospital management, for nine months in the Municipal Women's Clinic Berlin-Neukölln in Erich Saling photograph in the delivery room during births and operations. After the photographs made ​​there her paintings took more concrete, more stringent forms and showed recognizable situations. After Munsky had explained over two decades exclusively with birth and operational issues, they changed from 1989 for the first time their subject and painted a series of gloomy acting, deserted, dead quiet rooms, views of pale windows and facades.