Hermann Glöckner

Glöckner was born in Dresden-Cotta. He attended the vocational school in Leipzig in 1903 and worked as a designer for textiles. From 1904 to 1911 he attended the evening classes at the Kunstgewerbeschule Dresden, where he became friends with Kurt Fiedler. Their lecturer, Carl Rade, was later a renowned professor at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts and remained a friend of Glöckner for many years. Glöckner was mainly interested in drawings, but also in projections and geometry. From 1914 to 1918 he served in infantry divisions in France, Russia, and Poland.

After World War I Glöckner earned some money with the copying of paintings for the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister. At the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts he studied at Otto Gussmann from 1923 to 1924. Hans Grundig was among his fellow students. His experimental style, however, did not find everyone's appreciation and Glöckner left the academy again. As a freelancer he turned to constructivism ever deeper during the following years. In 1932 he became member of the re-founded Dresdner Sezession.

Glöckner lost his home during Bombing of Dresden in World War II and moved to Loschwitz. Because of his formalist style, the officials of the GDR refused him the appreciation he deserved for a long time. In 1979 he received a permanent visa for the Federal Republic of Germany. Finally, in 1984, he was awarded with the National Prize of the GDR and the DEFA dedicated a film to him. In his later years he regularly visited West Berlin, where his cohabitee lived and where he died in 1987. Glöckner's urn was entombed in Loschwitz.