Luise Kimme (1937 - 2013)
BIOGRAPHY
"YOU WANT TO START OFF IN LIFE AS YOU MEAN TO END"
(please click on the bold links in the text below to see photos or links to related websites)
I found myself in a valley in Tobago, looking around if anyone from England, U.S.A. or Germany could see me, leant a tall cedar tree against a cluster of breadfruit trees and began to carve 'Banana Lady'. I was 40.
When I was 16, I left for Plymouth, England to be an 'au pair' with a Vicar's family (see photo at left). Later I worked as a student trainee with a German car company in London, and while modelling at various art schools, I drew the other models in turn. These drawings were big and bold and I was told at the Berlin Academy that I had to study sculpture.
We carved stone and wood with Prof. Paul Dierkes. A fellow student, Thomas Darboven, my first love and long time friend, an architect and sculptor, persuaded me to study Brancusi instead of the beautiful Greek Apollo I had seen in Rome. He introduced me to a lot of architecture, particularly Le Corbusier's; I still prefer Palaces and Churches.
There was a tremendous surge into serious sculpture when I went to St. Martin's School of Art in 
London in 1966, with Sir Anthony Caro (see photo with me in Tobago- below) as the prime force. With me were lrmin Kamp, Gilbert and George, Jan Dibbets, Hamish Fulton, Richard Long, Wendy Taylor, David Evison and many others.
I stayed three years and made huge environmental fibreglass sculptures with titles like 'when Baby Charlotte passes through'. We listened to the Four Tops, the Jackson Five, Aretha Franklin, Al Green. I was not a fan of the Beatles or Rolling Stones. It was party time.
And then came Reggae like a shock, Bob Marley and the Wailers.
It was 1972, Norbert Kricke came to St. Martin's and Lutze arrived from New York. I got a job at the famous Rhode Island School of Design as instructor in the Sculpture Department for two years. I taught what I had learnt at St. Martin's, had experimented with at Wolverhampton Polytechnic, under my very encouraging Head of Department,
Norman Rowe, and all the projects we had traded on the trains to our various teaching assignments in England. I lived with Lutze in New York and life began.
Blinki Palermo was painting his 'Coney Island series', Rebecca Horn prepared 'La Ferdinanda', I painted patterns from Guatemala and made floppy papier mâché sculptures. Lutze worked in the Onnasch Gallery, Beuys lived with the Coyote at Rene Block's. We went to posh uptown openings, afterwards descended to the Frogpond downtown. I loved Toby. Two years later, I became Associate Professor at the University of California, Turlock, where I painted Navaho carpets and cast big ceramic pots based on early Inca ceramics.
I owe the freedom to make pots and decorate them lavishly to Dale Chihuly and his exuberantly beautiful glass works, June Kaneko's big very colourful ceramic sculptures, both taught at RISD, and Palermo who encouraged me in N.Y.
There was absolutely no fear of beauty, colourful embellishment or whatever. I had sent 150 applications all over the world, and Norbert Kricke, Director of Düsseldorf Academy, called to offer the position of Head of Foundation Studies. My mother was glad. The pressure to do modern and abstract art was strong in Düsseldorf, I escaped to New York whenever I could, then to Haiti and Jamaica.
at left: Early bronzes
I stayed in Tobago and carved cedar trees with Albert Prince. We became quite well known in Trinidad and Tobago. He then left for New York.
The Carnival Mas' Designer Peter Minshall and his fantastic wonderful work for Trinidad Carnival has been the most inspiring influence for me in Trinidad.
Every year we went with the students to Kronenburg, 6 km from the Belgium border, to do nature studies. In 1990 a big storm felled forests in Northern Europe and I bought 59 oak trees, was able to lease a hilltop and a barn and used to chop out dancers. (If I need wood now, I phone Moses and he gets it for me: Cedar, Cypress, Mahogany.)
After one year of drying, I shipped them to my Tobago studio for completion. It takes 3 to 5 years from start to finish. What is that in the face of 300 year old giants who stand 2m high in the barn. It is love on first sight, and then I make mistakes. Of course I add. No matter how I plan, the tree dictates. I carve strictly in profiles, first the head to set the mood, the body follows. Colour and form belong together like in all ancient sculpture.
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Michelangelo, Maillol, Lehmbruck, Kolbe, Barlach all had their own one face. I love the beautiful Tobagonians. They look like Egyptian paintings, tiny waists, broad shoulders, long necks. Stately walk, velvet voices, they sing like angels and crack up with laughter. My father took us to the Kunsthalle in Bremen almost every Sunday. Awestruck, I watched Rodin's 'L'age d'airain', and Maillol's Venus, thinking then, as I do now: "This is what I want to do".
Luise Kimme
Time-line Biography
1939 |
Born in Bremen, Germany (Died 19 April 2013, Tobago) |
1957 |
Student trainee -apprentice secretary, London |
1959-65 |
HfBK, Berlin- Sculpture class of prof. Dierkes, Meisterschüler (master student) |
1966-67 |
Airlift memorial Fellowship, Postgraduate Course at St. Martin's School of Art, London, with Sir Anthony Caro, Philip King, Isaac Witkin |
1967-68 |
British Council Scholarship, Sculpture Department - St. Martin's School |
1968-72 |
Part-time lecturer Wolverhampton Polytechnic Sculpture Department, England; Studio in London, large fibreglass sculptutes |
1973-75 |
Instructor for Sculpture, Rhode island School of Design, Papier-mâché sculpture and painting |
1975-76 |
Associate Professor for Sculpture, University of California, Turlock, cast ceramics and painting |
1976-2002 |
Professor, Head of Foundation Department, Kunstakademie Düsseldorf- Works in Wood |
Since 1979 |
Studio in Tobago |
Publications |
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1978 |
Luise Kimme, Bilder und Keramik |
1977-81 |
Luise Kimme, Die Tropen |
1980-86 |
Luise Kimme, Sculpture-Escultura |
1987-91 |
Luise Kimme, Sculpture |
1985 |
Chachalaca, Robinson Crusoe isle, by Luise Kimme |
2002 |
Halcyon Days, Catalogue of Works from 1982-2001 |
2003 |
Resurrection to Dance, Catalogue of an Exhibition of Religious Sculpture and Bronze Dancers |
2010 |
Bolero |
2012 |
Seven Sculptors |
Magazines |
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1990 |
Galeri,Vol.I - Art and Design Magazine of the Caribbean- "Luise Kimme, Native Wood" |
1991 |
Düsseldorfer Hefte- 6.Mai - Ein Portrait der Düsseldorfer Bildhauerin Luise KImme, die auf Tobago lebt |
1991 |
Düsseldorfer Illustrierte -Nr.6, 6.Juni - Bildhauerin Luise Kimme |
1994 |
National Geographic- March - pages 78 and 79 - The Wild Mix of trinidad and Tobago- Palette of people |
1995 |
art Nr. 5 Mai- Bildhauerei im Rhythmus von Raggae |
1997 |
Caribbean Beat - Jan./Feb. - Blue doors in the sky, "Luise Kimme creates unique wooden sculptures" |
1999 |
A D Architectural Digest - Aug./Sept. - "Tanz im Paradies der Rhythmen" |
2000 |
Brigitte- Sommer 2000, Portrait der Bildhauerinn Luise Kimme |
2003 |
Caribbean Travel & Life - July 2003 - http://www.caribbeantravelmag.com Article by Julie Feiner: "Larger than life, Luise Kimme", 3 pages. Photos: Stefan Falke ( the artistic expressions of Trinidad and Tobago spring from a cultureal mix of more than 40 nationalities.) |
2003 |
Island Life No. 20, Issue 2. 2003 - "Princess with a Chainsaw". |
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Maco- Caribbean Living - vol 5 Issue 2 - Beyond the Pink Flamingos- pages 58/59 and 64 |
Films/Videos |
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1985 |
Documentary- 21 March 1985- Albert Prince and Luise Kimme on Gayelle I |
1990 |
Sculpture Class at U.W.I. - Gayelle, 6th September |
1991 |
Caribscope - April 1991- Luise Kimme Tobago |
Deutsche Welle TV- Bildhauerei, Luise Kimme |
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1996 |
WDR-Film - Von Susanne Bohnet 1996, Weltkulturspiegel |
1997 |
Wolkenlos, Vox TV - 12 April 1997 |
2001 |
Vox Tours, Vox TV - 8 April - Portrait Kimme in Tobago |
© The Kimme Museum of Art and Sculpture - all rights reserved - last updated February 21, 2018