Hannes Rosenow - Review

Every artist can only give what he owns. He has to have something in his heart, his eye and in his wrist; if he has something in addition to this in his head, so much the better. The art of painting is more than "weekend exuberance, amateur like, contemplative, discovery of imagination or release of stress ..." (Willi Baumeister) and because of that there have always been thoughout the ages less artists than canvas and paint consumers. Our confused, tortured and dulled eyes recover when they encounter true art. Hannes Rosenow belongs to the discernable group of adventurers who still dare to use binding testimony.

Rosenow was born 1925 in Ratibor/Upper Silesia. After graduating he studied at the academies in Duesseldorf, Berlin, Munich and at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris. 1948 to 1953 Rosenow worked in France. 1959/60 he spend time in Venetia and Tuscany. Study trips took him to Italy, Yugoslavia, Greece, commission work to the US. The artist is a member of the new Munich Artists'Association and has shown his work in numerous exhibits in and outside of Germany. Many of his paintings are in public and private collections.

Hannes Rosenow doesn't need to brood (as is customary today): with what style could I be a success? He carries his style internally, he couldn't compromise his signature. His paintings are modern in the sense that he is a child of our times and doesn't consciously imitate.

He doesn't need to pursue the pseudo modern and the seemingly modern, because he has the certainty of his personally developed potential for expression and his craftsmanship. In Rosenow's paintings there is nothing undefined and blurred. The subjects are standing clear and austere on the canvas, their grace is not sweetness but a balance between calmness and tension. The decorative is less important than color scheme or graphic outline. (...)

The painter Rosenow has never permitted himself to be categorized into one field of artistic depiction. His landscapes are fascinating portrayals of a slice of nature, not accidental snapshots, but rather ordered insights and interpretations that have been raised to a typical and generally valid level. One had prematurely declared painting to be dead, dead is only modernism. Painting is alive and Rosenow is a testimonial.