Famous sons and daughters of the region: The provocateur with a brush

Created: 02/16/2022, 11:02 am

By: Ulrike Osman

His drawings are a screaming accusation against everything that is going wrong in the world: the well-known Brucker artist Guido Zingerl in his studio.

© Weber

When it comes to art in the district, there is no getting around him: Guido Zingerl.

He has lived in Fürstenfeldbruck for over 40 years.

Fürstenfeldbruck – Things went pretty smoothly at the beginning.

But he was always able to get by.

Like when he drove a truck to survive as an artist.

His paintings and drawings are screaming accusations against everything that is going wrong in the world.

Guido Zingerl (89) - born in Regensburg but living in Bruck with his wife Ingrid for more than 40 years - deals in his pictures with topics that hurt - injustice, oppression, environmental destruction, hatred, racism, violence.

His style is unmistakable, his attitude inflexible.

That this has always been the case becomes clear in an interview with the daily newspaper.

Mr. Zingerl, your real name is Heinrich Scholz.

How did you come up with the stage name Guido Zingerl?

It's a nickname given to me by one of my mountaineering friends.

I used to be an extreme mountaineer.

This Zingerl was said to be a Tyrolean freedom fighter.

When I got the nickname, I was still a mechanical engineer.

Later I officially adopted it as my stage name.

You can't become a painter as Heini Scholz (laughs).

How long have you and your wife lived in Bruck and how did you both end up here?

We moved here in 1979.

At that time we had to leave our Munich apartment for our own needs and found out about the house here in Bruck from friends, which we then bought.

The agent thought it had to be demolished.

He was shocked when he heard that we wanted to move in here.

But we prepared the house and did a lot ourselves.

It was built around 1908. When we moved here, it was still right on the outskirts.

At that time I painted a picture, "Bruck's Last House", which the city bought.

It hangs in the city library.

So I was involved here from the start.

How did you actually perceive Bruck back then?

Culturally, it was total desert.

The opinion in the city was that you don't need a lot of money for culture.

When I applied to join the artists' association, the then cultural officer - he was a supporting member - said we couldn't accept Zingerl.

Firstly, he doesn't paint like we do and secondly, he's a communist.

Nevertheless, the board of the artists' association voted unanimously for my admission.

So actually a pretty good start?

At first there were no difficulties in the artists' union.

But then the then chairman of IG Kultur (in addition to the artists' association, the second supporting association of the Kulturwerkstatt Haus 10, ed.) invited the city councilors to a joint evening because he wanted to maintain contact with politics.

Not much came out of it, only two city council members showed up.

I took this as an occasion for a nasty caricature - the IG Kultur chairman as a baby in the playpen, surrounded by a few city councilors and the caption "We're all with you, little one".

He blamed me for that - he couldn't afford to be ridiculed in public.

And how did you react to that?

Then I said: Well, then just found a Reich Chamber of Culture, but without me.

Since then I am no longer a member of the KV.

What always worked very well was the cooperation with the museum.

However, an important public figure did not want to appear in my pictures.

And then the person was very small on one picture.

The museum director called me excitedly, the picture was taken away.

I hung a white piece of paper in its place with a sentence from Article 5 of the Basic Law: "There will be no censorship."

By the way: Everything from the region is now also available in our regular FFB newsletter

Wikipedia writes that you “abruptly became an artist on July 1, 1960”.

What was the trigger?

I first studied mechanical engineering with a very good Abitur.

Because I didn't want to go to the drawing board afterwards, I became a fire protection trainee in Düsseldorf and Berlin.

But the firefighters I dealt with were all terrible Nazis back then.

I was uncomfortable.

While looking for a topic for a doctoral thesis in the field of wood technology, I suddenly thought: Either you do what you want now, or you die.

I had always painted and drawn on the side.

As a freelance artist, I initially had no contacts, nothing.

Somehow I got by, as a truck driver and construction worker.

It wasn't easy, but I persevered.

In 1969 I received the cultural advancement award from the city of Regensburg, and in 1985 from the district of Fürstenfeldbruck.

Do you actually have an artistic education?

No.

I'm a layman.

But that's a good thing.

Because I never learned to paint, I was able to develop my own style.

In 1973 you had a teaching position for political cartoons at the University of Applied Sciences in Bielefeld.

How did that happen?

Those were the times of the 1968 awakening.

The students had heard that there was a left-wing cartoonist in Munich and were keen to have him as a lecturer.

I showed them how to draw political heads and got along great with them.

But that only lasted one semester.

What are you working on at the moment?

I'm currently working on a drawing cycle on the subject of "My Fears".

That includes everything that bothers me - from the nights of the bombings in World War II, when I was buried for three hours, to my fears of operations, environmental destruction, war.

I'm pretty busy right now.

You are celebrating your 90th birthday next year.

That would be an occasion for an exhibition.

Maybe there will be an exhibition in the Olchinger Kulturwerkstatt am Mühlbach.

But you have to see how everything develops.

You can hardly plan at the moment.

Also interesting from the series "Famous Sons and Daughters of the Region":

You can find more current news from the district of Fürstenfeldbruck here.