Moering, Christa

Painter, Gallery owner

born: 10.12.1916 in Beesenstedt

died: 09.06.2013 in Wiesbaden

The daughter of a Protestant pastor, she attended her uncle Friedrich Ackermann's school of arts and crafts in Stettin from 1936, where Vincent Weber, a pupil of Adolf Hölzel, was her teacher. She then studied at the Academy of Art in Leipzig, continued her studies in Berlin and graduated from the Städelschule in Frankfurt in 1945.

Her marriage to the painter Alo Altripp brought her to Wiesbaden in 1942. Here she met Elisabeth (Lisa) Kümmel and Clemens Weiler, the director of the Wiesbaden Museum. She became friends with the patron Hanna Bekker vom Rath and the painters Ludwig Meidner and Otto Ritschl. It was with him that she met Ernst Wilhelm Nay, in whose studio she was allowed to work. In 1950, she founded the artists' group50; she also gave lessons and organized discussion groups. In 1956, she moved into her own studio in Martinstraße, and two years later she opened her gallery to other artists, the "unhoused", as she called them. Many of them, who later became known far beyond Wiesbaden, exhibited with her for the first time.

Atelier Moering existed for 43 years, at times also in Solmsstraße. Her friends in the "Christa Moering Studio Circle" supported her work, which also included teaching and working with juvenile prisoners. Moering enjoyed traveling, was impressed by foreign cultures and processed these impressions in colorful, atmospherically dense paintings. Since 1946, she has exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Germany and abroad, e.g. in Spain, India, the USA, Paris, Oslo, Gdansk, Israel, Japan and St. Petersburg.

Moering was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit in 1978, the Silver Citizens' Medal and honorary citizenship in 1996. In 2008, she lent her name to the "Christa Moering Prize", which is awarded in different categories. In the same year, the central square in the artists' quarter was named after Wiesbaden's only honorary citizen. Since 2009, a scholarship for female artists has been named after her. A catalog published in 2015 provides a comprehensive overview of Moering's artistic work. She was buried in a grave of honor at the Südfriedhof cemetery.