Georg Vorhauer

Georg Vorhauer (1903-1987) was a German painter, draughtsman and sculptor.

Born in Paris, Vorhauer moved to Speyer with his family in 1905. He began an apprenticeship with a lithographer in 1917 and then learned the carpentry trade from his father until he obtained his master’s certificate as a cabinetmaker in 1929. In 1930, he began his studies at the Free Academy in Mannheim and moved to the Karlsruhe Academy in 1931, where he became a student of Albert Haueisen. After Haueisen’s resignation for political reasons, Vorhauer became his assistant and private master student in Jockgrim, Palatinate. In 1936, he completed guest studies at the Berlin Academy under Kurt Wehlte, where he studied mural painting. He received his first public commission for a mural in Berlin-Zehlendorf in 1937.

Vorhauer settled in Neustadt an der Weinstraße in 1937 and received further public commissions. He was a member of the SA and took part in the “Art Exhibition of the SA” in Dresden in 1942 as well as other exhibitions during the Nazi era.

He was drafted into military service in 1939 and only returned from captivity as a prisoner of war in France in 1948. Vorhauer was a founding member of the Pfälzer Künstlergenossenschaft (1953) and the Künstlerbund Rhein-Neckar (1963).

His artistic work includes paintings, graphics and sculptures. Initially influenced by late Impressionism, he later turned to large-scale painting and sculpture, inspired by the Dutch De Stijl group, the Cubists and the Ecole de Paris. From the 1970s onwards, his work was characterized by bright colours. In the 1960s, he began sculpting as a self-taught artist. He created large-scale wall and floor designs, mosaics and reliefs made of wood, stone, marble and copper for state, municipal and church buildings. Examples of his work include a 50 square meter mural made of wood and glass mosaic with gold for the town hall in Speyer and an almost 24.5 square meter wooden wall relief for the Oberfinanzdirektion in Neustadt an der Weinstraße. His free-standing sculptures, often made of concrete and aluminum, are biomorphic-vegetative, wall- or stele-like structures.

Georg Vorhauer died in Neustadt an der Weinstraße in 1987.