CLEMENS-SELS-MUSEUM in Neuss

                The Paul Loskill speech 1980

Do not worry about boring you with a long speech, but a few words to reference the man and work of Will Hall have allowed me, after more than 60 years of friendship.

For Will Hall, all art had to be linked to man, as shown by the history of man, which also carries the history of art, through the millennia. Art is born from man and his experience of creation. If this immediate experience no longer exists, for example, overwhelmed by the demands of civilization or supplanted by the epigonal adoption of a language of forms, only a sterile, at best ornamental, conception remains. The recent abundance of abstract art after the last war, especially in the fifties, is a good example of this.

Will Hall refused to classify himself within any "movement" and only showed relentless maneuvers in the search for points of reference or reference people. He was also very reluctant to any recipe. He never joined a group with a program; he wanted to remain free, always alone in all relationships. He saw the spiritual elevation of the Faustian man of his time, but he also appreciated anew the power of contemplation, and he knew that even if the spirit is locked in a retreat, one day it will blow again when, where, and how it wants.

From a young age, perhaps in 1913 or 1914, he became acquainted with Alfred Flechtheim, an art dealer and gallery owner already active in Düsseldorf through Mr. Geller, the famous collector of modern painting from Neuss. Flechtheim was versed in French modern art and championed it very early on. He had a taste for young creative talents and saw them also in the early works of Will Hall; he believed that Paris was a launching pad for a young painter and especially that "Painting" with its cultivated sense of "values," sound values, was unique and a good school for him. Will Hall said to himself, "Why does he want to change me? Why doesn't he accept me as I am? I am Will Hall, and I will remain so!" And that's how his work became a unity, despite its multiplicity. Don't be fooled by the fact that you find in his work this multiplicity that gives you the right to wonder why, why sometimes his "absolute painting," an independent conception of the object, as in "The Rider's Song," sometimes the human figure, certainly mastered by naturalism, but used metaphorically.

The form of an artistic statement, the choice of that form, was essentially linked for him to the content. A dialogue, a conversation, a discussion, for example, almost immediately led him to his "absolute painting," that is, to abstract form, whose spiritual content seemed predestined to him. A walk through the landscape prompted him to do so, expressing the diversity of this experience: sun, clouds, wind, bird voices, encounters with animals, the smell of plowed earth, walks in the forest, etc., in abstract form. On the other hand, during the war, the experience of Russia was very much linked for him to the appearance of the Russian people, to their movements, their actions, to folklore and landscape, which he had to preserve all of this in a conception that best expressed these characteristics. For this, he created a series of figurative pastels, some of which are very impressive and count among his best figurative works.

From a young age, his deepest problem, his deepest concern, was and remained throughout his life his "absolute painting" without object. It underwent developments and changes, but there was never an interruption. However, there was a serious gap that was created with the bombing destruction in 1943, which also led to the disappearance of all his literary work created up to that point. There is little evidence of this cruel period of creation until 1943, but even little evidence shows the creative touch of a connoisseur. A common thread runs through this work, which testifies to a continuity, that is, an evolutionary continuation until the end. There is nothing to subtract, nothing to add. Art history should catch up with the fact that he, Will Hall, was a pioneer in the field of art, 25 years before those who received the recognition that was due to him. So, two lines run through his work, the abstract and the object. It can be said that this is a parallelism in which the two go hand in hand. Moreover, this is not an isolated case in modern art: in Picasso, you will also find it! I will conclude by quoting a brief excerpt from his literary legacy:

"What you do yourself,

It's not always right.

What you don't like,

It's not always bad.

People's dreams,

Are they all true?

To live courageously,

To die with dignity,

Is considered the wisdom of the greatest

For us, the aspirants."

Will HALL

Source: Translation from the exhibition catalog: WILL HALL 1897 – 1974, Clemens-Sels-Museum Neuss, October 6th – November 10th, 1991.

Photo of Paul Loskill, Clemens-Sels-Museum exhibition, 1980