1915 | born in Kaiserswerth near Düsseldorf |
1934-38 | Studies at the Düsseldorf Art Academy |
1939 | Completion of studies with the state examination in Berlin |
1939-41 | military service |
1941-44 | works as a technical draftsman in Berlin |
1944/45 | renewed military service |
1946 | works as a stage designer in Nordhausen |
1946 | studio in Bonn |
1952-55 | extensive travels to South America Colombia, Mexico, finally also in New York |
1955/56 | Lecturer at the Academy of Fine Arts in Hamburg |
1955 | Participation in documenta 1 |
1957-1980 | Professor and then director of the Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin |
1959 | Participation in documenta II |
1964 | Participation in documenta III |
1968 | Studio in Italy |
1989 | Cross of Merit of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia |
1999 | died in Castiglione/Tuscany |
In the mid-1950s Hann Trier, who had been retrained as a right-handed artist, became aware that the use of only one hand, accompanied by gestural impulses, could only ever bring in half of the body. Thus he arrives at working with two arms/hands and at the typical structures characterized by an axis of symmetry. After all, when dancing, a person does not hop on only one leg. Dancing, triggered in particular by his stay in Colombia from 1952 to 1955, became an important impulse for liberation for him. Hann Trier: "I wanted to give in to the impulse of these dances and dance with the brush on the surface like them".
From the end of the 1950s, the lines move on the same plane with the painting surface. From this develops the interweaving of gestural movement (line), painting ground (space) and color substance (matter) so typical of Trier's work. Matter and movement become identical and movement transforms matter.