Reflections on my grandfather Hans-Jürgen „Hänner“ Schlieker’s artistic journey, as seen through the continuously developing „Geneva Collection“ of his works.
Hans-Jürgen Schlieker – affectionately known to most people as “Hänner” – has always been a presence in my life, not only as a beloved grandfather but also as an artist.
One of his typical works from the late 1960s hang on the wall of my first studio apartment in Berlin in 2000. Later, in my student flat in the small town of Witten, it was joined by a large diptych (a painting that stretches across two separate panels), which accompanied me throughout my studies.
The anchor of today’s Geneva collection is a diptych from 2003 (see below). It was the centrepiece of my first apartment in Geneva, where it remained within sight through hundreds of sometimes inspired, sometimes arduous hours I spent writing my doctoral thesis.
After, it greeted visitors in the first home in the city centre my wife Miao and I moved in together, and where we welcomed our first daughter Luna. Later, its energy would radiate across the beautiful, generous open spaces of our Champel flat, where Clea completed our family.
Today, the painting holds pride of place over the dining table in our home in Conches, a position of honour for one of my grandfather’s last works, and yet so full of energy, completed shortly before his passing in 2004.
"13.5.03", 2003
As my grandfather’s works have always been so close and familiar, they speak to me in a deeply personal and probably subconscious way; they are silent companions, sometimes soothing, sometimes stimulating, and sometimes just there to reassure this is home.
However, as I began photographing and cataloguing his works for his centenary, I found myself stepping back intrigued and seeing them with fresh eyes. Here are three things I learned about the journey of an extraordinary artist – a journey that only now, with time and perspective, I feel ready to unpack and explore.
1 Abstraction means liberation
My grandfather belongs to the second generation of abstract painters in Germany – one whose formative years unfolded in a land of barbarism and a world at war.
In the post-war era, these artists pioneered a distinctly German style of abstract expressionism, in the art world also called „action painting“, Tachism, or Informel (I will use the term Informel as it is most commonly used in relation to Schlieker).
The style embraced non-objective, gestural, and spontaneous expression, freed from formal constraints, and focused on the tactile, material quality of colour itself.
No longer subject to the aesthetic dictatorship of the Nazi regime, where such art was banned and called “entartet”, painting should exist purely as painting: free from the illusion of perspective, unburdened by didactic content, unencumbered by untruths. An artwork should require no hidden mythology, and it should only reach completion in the mind of the viewer.
While my grandfather’s artistic expression remained primarily figurative until the late 1940s, the 1950s marked a decisive shift to abstraction. That decade was also one of significant personal transitions: he married, relocated from Hamburg to the beating industrial heart of Germany – the Ruhrgebiet – and welcomed his first and only child, Claudia, my mother.
It was during this transformative period that some of the earliest works in the Geneva collection were created, including a small, vibrant oil-on-canvas painting from 1958, and several works on paper produced between 1957 and 1959.
To truly understand my grandfather’s art (if that is possible at all), and that of many artists of his generation, it is essential to grasp the profound longing for – and lived experience of – liberation and new beginnings that defined their time.
But of course, none of this was evident to me as a child. Born more than twenty years after his first foray into abstraction, my memories of him are primarily those of a man who spent hours creating a joyful chaos in his studio – at times, one could wade knee-deep through piles of colourful kitchen paper – and of someone who delighted in slipping in an inappropriate joke, much to the dismay of the “normal” adults trying to teach us proper behaviour. My grandfather’s firm yet light-hearted defiance of convention extended far beyond the brush and canvas. My siblings and I loved being around him.
And yet, to attribute his work solely to the“Zeitgeist“ would be to tell only part of the story. A comparison between his 1957 painting “San Pol” – created on the small island San Pol off the coast of Naples in Italy – and his predominantly black-and-white work from 1959, likely painted on a winter day in his hometown of Bochum, highlights how profoundly his art was influenced by the environment and atmosphere in which it was conceived.
Critics would later frequently observe that my grandfather’s ability to perceive, internalize, and reinterpret nature and landscapes through his works was a defining hallmark of his creative process. This brings me to my second learning.
2 Seeing, un-seeing, re-seeing
In the 1950s and early 1960s, the Informel style captivated art audiences, challenging not only classic realism but also the formal constraints of geometric abstraction styles.
However, although widely recognized for its historical significance as the „last international style“, and despite – or perhaps rather because of – its immense popularity and rapid adoption, the movement’s prominence already faded from the late 1960s. Known artists quietly abandoned or even explicitly rejected Informel, many swiftly reorienting their artistic trajectories as the movement collapsed.
But my grandfather doubled down. To understand why, Dieter Ronte, the long-time director of the Bonn Museum of Art, provides a clue in an essay where he describes Schlieker’s art as a form of “visual basic research”. By that he meant that the artist’s goal was not to “dismiss” the object but to observe and then distill its essential qualities or aspects.
Indeed, my grandfather often cited impressionists like Corinth and Kokoschka as formative influences, viewing the Informel simply as a contemporary vehicle for capturing the intensity of human experience.
Grounding the genesis of his work in his intent to see, un-see, and re-see the world liberates it from being merely a product of its time. For artists who interpreted the Informel not just as freedom from oppression, but as the freedom to engage with the world anew, it became a gateway to true innovation. Schlieker was one of them.
"Procida", 1978
The visual basic researcher in Schlieker weathered the crisis of the Informel by re-immersing himself in the real world and nature in particular – recalibrating his approach, re-confronting his subject, and re-discovering its essence.
The works on paper “Garmisch 77” (below) and “Procida” (above) embody this period, about which my grandfather himself would later recount the “inner necessity to renew my way of painting, to escape the risk of routine”.
While his previously cited 1959 work might best be described as „abstract interpretation of a winter landscape“, “Garmisch 77” approaches the subject from the other side, resulting in what might be circumscribed as „winter landscape-infused abstraction“.
The significance of immersing oneself in the environment cannot be overstated. As a young boy, my interests did not lend themselves to deep conversations about art. Still, I vividly recall my grandfather insisting that one cannot master “Informalism” without first mastering “Realism” in all its facets.
It is well possible that this life lesson was first delivered with a mischievous smile as we compared our own childhood doodles to his masterful canvases (he would sometimes take those doodles and pin them to the studio stairs; his interest in how we perceived the world was always genuine).
At the time, I viewed his stance as a comment on the craft of painting, like: “You first need to earn the right to play with colour the way I do”. Today, I wonder if his words were less about the “doing” and more about the “seeing”. But of course, knowing what you’re doing – mastering the craft – is a big piece of the puzzle, too. And that brings me to the final point.
3 Finding Clarity on the Edge of Chaos
When my sister and I were teenagers, my grandfather once invited us to Art Cologne, a big German art fair. There, he would point to various artworks, confidently naming their creator from just a glance, then sending us off to check if he was correct. We were quite impressed – he was almost always right. From that day forward, I remember looking at him with a new kind of admiration. Before, I had somewhat thought of his painting as more of an elaborate hobby; from that day, I realized it was a craft he mastered in theory and practice.
In fact, my grandfather was a teacher throughout his life. Just as his encounters with nature shaped his perception, working with students offered him the opportunity to step back and reflect on his craft – an experience I relate to deeply, as I myself use university lecturing to refine and improve my own practice. His students later remembered him as unrelenting in exposing flaws and disproportions, rigorously questioning the visual and, in doing so, opening their eyes – and his own – to new perspectives.
His recurrent immersion in visual basic research and the classroom set important impulses in the evolution of his art. Until the early 1970s, intellectual composition dominated emotional expression in his approach. Across his works, a primacy of formality – a kind of artistic score – still guided his brush.
Formality appeared for instance in geometric shapes that structured his compositions, as seen in a work from 1959/60, the 1968 series of etchings, and a painting from 1969.
Interestingly, he later returned and added a playful twist to this by cutting out fragments from earlier works, mounting them onto a new canvas, and then layering colour on top – see, for instance, his two collages from 1998 and 2002.
Formality was also evident in organic forms still sitting firmly “within” the physical frame, as in the gouaches from 1960 and 1961. In later works, one would note that the action stretched beyond the frame, with centres that felt positioned outside its boundaries.
The artistic rationale for using constructive counter-elements in a gestural painting reflects an idea that is both simple and philosophical: a concept only gains meaning in relation to its opposite.
The counter-element injects a tension between process and structure, chance and control, emotion and calculation, and in that way helps transform seemingly arbitrary gestures into a cohesive image. Much like inflating a balloon, the aim is to build tension without letting the structure collapse. In that sense, getting to visual clarity and quality requires not only to act but also to know intuitively when to stop.
While this foundational idea endured, its realization shifted profoundly in the 1970s. Geometric shapes and other formal tools no longer seemed necessary to create the tension that transforms the application of colour into a painting.
Although this was precisely the period when my grandfather re-immersed himself in nature, it is too simplistic to suggest that organic elements replaced geometric ones; something more profound was at play. His process moved beyond depiction or concealment, seeking instead to re-enact nature itself – the relentless, merciless interplay of emergence and entropy, the antagonistic forces that define every aspect of life.
Captured by Christoph Böll’s camera, which left an invaluable record of this process, we see how, in one moment, small, carefully drawn details are washed away while, in another, spontaneous bursts of colour develop into central forms.
Genesis of a Painting
The focused, restless oscillation between chaos and order not just aims to “see”, it aims to “be”, thus setting new boundaries from which visual clarity and intensity emerged.
It was a leap which would define the artistic approach for which Schlieker became ultimately known and is celebrated today – a unique stance beyond prevailing trends and the at times polarized positions of figurative versus abstract art.
"Untitled", 1999
In complexity theory, there is a paradigm called “edge of chaos”: in a system containing perfect internal order, such as a crystal, there can be no further change. At the opposite extreme, in a very chaotic system such as a boiling liquid, there is little order left to change.
The system that will evolve most rapidly must fall between, and more precisely on the edge of chaos: possessing order but with the parts linked loosely enough to be easily altered.
From the 1980s, Schlieker’s paintings truly began to occupy this space.
The oil-on-canvas paintings in the collection from 1985, 2002, and of course the diptych from 2003 are examples of the fascinating visual worlds that emerged that way.
An extensive body of „etching“ works—a printmaking technique involving the acid-incised design of metal plates, inked and pressed onto paper to produce intricate prints—epitomizes this innovative approach. A notable example is the acclaimed “Sylt” series from 1997, represented in the collection by three prints.
Most „etchings“ typically begin with a bold, direct intervention on the printing plate surface, employing an array of unconventional tools—metal brushes, drills, scrapers, screws, nails, chisels, and even pastry wheels.
The fine grooves collect the ink, which is then transferred on paper. But here the work only begins; what follows is the technique which gives this class of works its name – etching – to accentuate the image with big, counterpointed tonal areas – often documenting stages of the process in individual prints – as seen in two pairs of works from 1999.
Further refinements emerge through color variations, plate combinations, and changes in the printing process. This evolution is vividly exemplified by a vibrant, joyful series from the late 1990s, juxtaposed in the collection with the 2003 diptych that resonates with a darker, deeper, more existential tone. (Look closely to discern which plates and combinations were employed…)
My grandfather’s „etching“ process was as well captured by Christoph Böll who documented the work of Schlieker in his last years before his passing. It is a fascinating testament to the philosophy and craft behind the visual worlds he created.
Etching is a Sacred Act
In the end, my grandfather’s art, much like his presence in my life, remains a continuous source of inspiration and wonder.
His legacy lies not only in the works he left behind but in the guiding idea that shaped his approach – one of both seeing and acting out the essence of life.
In that regard, his works are not just remnants of an era but timeless testaments to humanity’s pursuit of clarity and connection.