My Story
A drawing I made as a hobby artist in Fairlie, Scotland
As a child I was constantly drawing, a talent that lay in the family, and always knew I wanted to become an artist. But the suggestion of a girl from the west coast of Scotland going to art school with no promise of a job was not considered realistic by my teachers. So I took up a job in a technical drawing office and continued with art in my spare time. After years as a hobby artist and many organisational and funding struggles, I did though fulfil a lifelong ambition when, as a single mother of two children, and without the required academic qualifications I secured a coveted place at the acclaimed Glasgow School of Art in my early thirties.
Detail from my painting 'Derek' completed while I was a student at the Glasgow School of Art
Travelling to the art school from Fairlie was a round trip of eighty miles; departing home after the children left for school and leaving the GSA early to return home. It was an immeasurable privilege to study there and I loved it but I knew I had a way to go and needed postgraduate study. On an Art School visit to the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, I was bowled over by an exhibition of large impressive paintings by the German artist Georg Baselitz. When I discovered he was a Professor at the Universität der Künste in Berlin I became determined that my further study had to be with him.
Attaining that opportunity in the Berlin Universität der Künste with one of the most venerated artists world-wide at that time was fraught with obstacles. Unreasonable age limits, official intransigence, language and finance. However with some hard-won grants, a Glasgow School of Art prize and my teenage children temporarily looked after by my family I set off in October 1985. Initially it was a jump in at the deep end; I didn't know anyone in Berlin; had no accommodation and only the barest knowledge of the language.
My paintings which were shown in an exhibition at the Glasgow School of Art after my study with Georg Baselitz in Berlin
The first teaching session I experienced with Baselitz was when he came to the flat where I rented a room. He brought along several serious looking students. They formed a row sitting on the ledge of the large window and turned out to be my jury when der Meister asked me questions about my paintings. His influence was invaluable but eventually, I felt I had to look where he had looked and so began visits to the Museum of Ethnology, making many small drawings. This experience took me back to my life as a child in Nigeria. The influence of Berlin and split between East and West also became more important echoing the split in my life between home and family in Scotland and artwork in Berlin.
There was a great feeling of personal liberty in West Berlin, a contradictory situation surrounded as it was by the inescapable Wall. No matter which direction you took in West Berlin you always came up against it. It was the symbol for the Iron Curtain during the Cold War years; it was the buffer between East and West. To leave West Berlin and cross the border involved strict, unfriendly control. In 1988 however I was fortunate to receive a particularly interesting invitation to take part in an exhibition in Poland organised by the opposition group Solidarność (Solidarity).
Detail from my painting 'Holding the Snail'
During my early time in Berlin, I was still struggling to master the German language and drawing became my main means of expression. Animal symbols began to appear, and took on meaning; I saw myself as the snail carrying its home within. Other animals like the hedgehog reminded me of occasional prickly retorts I received. Symbols like torch, wedge, arrow and spiral repeatedly appear; they belong to the work, first the form and then the meaning.
Replying to the “Toast to the Lassies” at a Burns Night Supper in the British Embassy, Berlin
Although I gained German citizenship in 2018, my Scottish roots have always been important to me. At one of my first exhibition openings in Berlin I was introduced during the opening speech as Margaret Hunter the English artist. I held up my hand and protested, ‘No, no I’m Scottish’. After a stunned silence there were smiles, aha’s and knowing nods as most remembered the traditional antipathy between Scotland and England.
On 9 November 1989, only months after I had been to Poland and East Germany, totally unexpectedly and unbelievably the Wall fell, prompted by an almost spontaneous remark by the GDR Minister for Foreign Affairs to Europe’s journalists that people in the GDR would be allowed to travel. ‘When will it be effective’, interrupted a journalist. ’Well’ he looked around uncertainly, ‘from now’ the Minister answered. It transpired that I was actually in Scotland on 9 November 1989 for a brief visit to my family. I returned to Berlin a few days later and subsequently went through the opening of the Brandenburg Tor still with GDR guards. I laughed, sang and cried with the huge crowd on that wonderful emotive evening.
A few months after the Fall of the Wall I received an invitation to make a painting on a part of the Wall on the previously inaccessible East side where initial permission had been granted by the DDR and the East German Government. In the early stages as I began to paint, the nearby Oberbaum Brücke was still controlled by East German soldiers. However I felt privileged to be invited, to take part in something that was such a profound worldwide symbol, and to have the opportunity to express my feelings about unification through my painting. The site became known as the East Side Gallery.
My main painting at the East Side Gallery is Joint Venture (East/West buzz words at the time). I depicted two large stylised heads with lines criss-crossing from one head to the other to suggest communication, exchange and partnership. As the large heads lay side by side my initial thought was also of ‘strange bedfellows‘. The reality for most GDR citizens at the time was huge uncertainty with which I could identify during my first days in Berlin. I represented them as small figures stretching and bending to suit their new situation.
Soon after my studies, I gained significant recognition especially after acceptance by established galleries. Inclusion in public collections of art followed. A notable achievement was receiving a European Woman of Achievement Award in the Arts Category in 1998. I’ve participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions particularly in London and Berlin and also in many other countries. My artwork itself also developed to include making sculptures in wood which enabled me to express myself figuratively in three dimensions. Teaching both formal and private groups together with other projects have been sources of stimulation throughout and I have enjoyed the opportunity of working residencies in various countries. Two of these I refer to in the following milestones in My Story.
“The Maiden’s Chambers” series of sculptures I made at Lorbottle Hall
My work has featured in numerous exhibitions including in 1995 an exhibition entitled Skulpturen, Bildern, Zeichnungen, in the Portal Galerie, Bremen, Germany. The gallerist and her husband owned Lorbottle Hall, a grand house and country estate in Northumberland. They subsequently offered me a residency there to make sculptures. I was provided with the wood from their estate to carve and a studio. More residencies took place in the following years and they became supportive collectors of my paintings and sculptures as well as good friends.
In 1998 and 2000 I had work residencies, open to artists from abroad, in the Ateliers of respected Mallorcan landowner Margareta Negorra, in Santanyi, Mallorca. During these visits, I developed a love of the island and for eighteen months in 2012-2013 lived in Port Andratx. I had the opportunity of a studio in the Sa Taronja Cultural Association’s Ateliers there culminating in a solo exhibition Ports of Call at Sa Taronja in 2013. During this period, I also took the opportunity to work in ceramics and made sculptures using the Raku techniques.
The spacious studio I had at the Neues Atelierhaus Panzerhalle, Gross Glienicke on the outskirts of Berlin
My links to Scotland remain strong especially through my family but I regard Berlin as my home. There has always been a lot more interest and sales of my work in Germany where in the past it was sometimes described as ‘challenging’; it pleases me that the content has meaning and that it is open enough for others to make their own interpretations. And although I have sometimes worked elsewhere, my main studios have been in Berlin and are now located in my Laden Wohnung in Charlottenburg. This has enabled me to actively engage in Berlin life including the 30th anniversary of the Fall of the Wall in 2019 and the current development of the East Side Gallery.
In recent years the East Side Gallery has become a magnet for tourists in Berlin with over 4 million visitors annually. In 2018 it came under the auspices and protection of the Berliner Mauer Stiftung and in their safe hands its continuation and future are assured. A new park is being designed and landscaped between the ESG and the river. It will be for local people and visitors alike with information references and quiet spaces. I have been involved with the Berliner Mauer Stiftung in this development as one of the Wall artists. In 2020 I was also involved in the professional conservation of the painting Hands which I also painted together with another Scottish artist; it is the only completely original work from 1990 at the East Side Gallery.
Wanting to be an artist
As a child I was constantly drawing, a talent that lay in the family, and always knew I wanted to become an artist. But the suggestion of a girl from the west coast of Scotland going to art school with no promise of a job was not considered realistic by my teachers. So I took up a job in a technical drawing office and continued with art in my spare time. After years as a hobby artist and many organisational and funding struggles, I did though fulfil a lifelong ambition when, as a single mother of two children, and without the required academic qualifications I secured a coveted place at the acclaimed Glasgow School of Art in my early thirties.
Glasgow School of Art
Travelling to the art school from Fairlie was a round trip of eighty miles; departing home after the children left for school and leaving the GSA early to return home. It was an immeasurable privilege to study there and I loved it but I knew I had a way to go and needed postgraduate study. On an Art School visit to the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, I was bowled over by an exhibition of large impressive paintings by the German artist Georg Baselitz. When I discovered he was a Professor at the Universität der Künste in Berlin I became determined that my further study had to be with him.
To West Berlin
Attaining that opportunity in the Berlin Universität der Künste with one of the most venerated artists world-wide at that time was fraught with obstacles. Unreasonable age limits, official intransigence, language and finance. However with some hard-won grants, a Glasgow School of Art prize and my teenage children temporarily looked after by my family I set off in October 1985. Initially it was a jump in at the deep end; I didn't know anyone in Berlin; had no accommodation and only the barest knowledge of the language.
Study with Georg Baselitz
The first teaching session I experienced with Baselitz was when he came to the flat where I rented a room. He brought along several serious looking students. They formed a row sitting on the ledge of the large window and turned out to be my jury when der Meister asked me questions about my paintings. His influence was invaluable but eventually, I felt I had to look where he had looked and so began visits to the Museum of Ethnology, making many small drawings. This experience took me back to my life as a child in Nigeria. The influence of Berlin and split between East and West also became more important echoing the split in my life between home and family in Scotland and artwork in Berlin.
East Berlin – and Poland
There was a great feeling of personal liberty in West Berlin, a contradictory situation surrounded as it was by the inescapable Wall. No matter which direction you took in West Berlin you always came up against it. It was the symbol for the Iron Curtain during the Cold War years; it was the buffer between East and West. To leave West Berlin and cross the border involved strict, unfriendly control. In 1988 however I was fortunate to receive a particularly interesting invitation to take part in an exhibition in Poland organised by the opposition group Solidarność (Solidarity).
Symbols
During my early time in Berlin, I was still struggling to master the German language and drawing became my main means of expression. Animal symbols began to appear, and took on meaning; I saw myself as the snail carrying its home within. Other animals like the hedgehog reminded me of occasional prickly retorts I received. Symbols like torch, wedge, arrow and spiral repeatedly appear; they belong to the work, first the form and then the meaning.
Being Scottish
Although I gained German citizenship in 2018, my Scottish roots have always been important to me. At one of my first exhibition openings in Berlin I was introduced during the opening speech as Margaret Hunter the English artist. I held up my hand and protested, ‘No, no I’m Scottish’. After a stunned silence there were smiles, aha’s and knowing nods as most remembered the traditional antipathy between Scotland and England.
The Fall of the Wall
On 9 November 1989, only months after I had been to Poland and East Germany, totally unexpectedly and unbelievably the Wall fell, prompted by an almost spontaneous remark by the GDR Minister for Foreign Affairs to Europe’s journalists that people in the GDR would be allowed to travel. ‘When will it be effective’, interrupted a journalist. ’Well’ he looked around uncertainly, ‘from now’ the Minister answered. It transpired that I was actually in Scotland on 9 November 1989 for a brief visit to my family. I returned to Berlin a few days later and subsequently went through the opening of the Brandenburg Tor still with GDR guards. I laughed, sang and cried with the huge crowd on that wonderful emotive evening.
The East Side Gallery
A few months after the Fall of the Wall I received an invitation to make a painting on a part of the Wall on the previously inaccessible East side where initial permission had been granted by the DDR and the East German Government. In the early stages as I began to paint, the nearby Oberbaum Brücke was still controlled by East German soldiers. However I felt privileged to be invited, to take part in something that was such a profound worldwide symbol, and to have the opportunity to express my feelings about unification through my painting. The site became known as the East Side Gallery.
Joint Venture
My main painting at the East Side Gallery is Joint Venture (East/West buzz words at the time). I depicted two large stylised heads with lines criss-crossing from one head to the other to suggest communication, exchange and partnership. As the large heads lay side by side my initial thought was also of ‘strange bedfellows‘. The reality for most GDR citizens at the time was huge uncertainty with which I could identify during my first days in Berlin. I represented them as small figures stretching and bending to suit their new situation.
Life as a Professional Artist
Soon after my studies, I gained significant recognition especially after acceptance by established galleries. Inclusion in public collections of art followed. A notable achievement was receiving a European Woman of Achievement Award in the Arts Category in 1998. I’ve participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions particularly in London and Berlin and also in many other countries. My artwork itself also developed to include making sculptures in wood which enabled me to express myself figuratively in three dimensions. Teaching both formal and private groups together with other projects have been sources of stimulation throughout and I have enjoyed the opportunity of working residencies in various countries. Two of these I refer to in the following milestones in My Story.
My Sculptures
My work has featured in numerous exhibitions including in 1995 an exhibition entitled Skulpturen, Bildern, Zeichnungen, in the Portal Galerie, Bremen, Germany. The gallerist and her husband owned Lorbottle Hall, a grand house and country estate in Northumberland. They subsequently offered me a residency there to make sculptures. I was provided with the wood from their estate to carve and a studio. More residencies took place in the following years and they became supportive collectors of my paintings and sculptures as well as good friends.
Mallorca
In 1998 and 2000 I had work residencies, open to artists from abroad, in the Ateliers of respected Mallorcan landowner Margareta Negorra, in Santanyi, Mallorca. During these visits, I developed a love of the island and for eighteen months in 2012-2013 lived in Port Andratx. I had the opportunity of a studio in the Sa Taronja Cultural Association’s Ateliers there culminating in a solo exhibition Ports of Call at Sa Taronja in 2013. During this period, I also took the opportunity to work in ceramics and made sculptures using the Raku techniques.
My Working Life
My links to Scotland remain strong especially through my family but I regard Berlin as my home. There has always been a lot more interest and sales of my work in Germany where in the past it was sometimes described as ‘challenging’; it pleases me that the content has meaning and that it is open enough for others to make their own interpretations. And although I have sometimes worked elsewhere, my main studios have been in Berlin and are now located in my Laden Wohnung in Charlottenburg. This has enabled me to actively engage in Berlin life including the 30th anniversary of the Fall of the Wall in 2019 and the current development of the East Side Gallery.
The East Side Gallery Today
In recent years the East Side Gallery has become a magnet for tourists in Berlin with over 4 million visitors annually. In 2018 it came under the auspices and protection of the Berliner Mauer Stiftung and in their safe hands its continuation and future are assured. A new park is being designed and landscaped between the ESG and the river. It will be for local people and visitors alike with information references and quiet spaces. I have been involved with the Berliner Mauer Stiftung in this development as one of the Wall artists. In 2020 I was also involved in the professional conservation of the painting Hands which I also painted together with another Scottish artist; it is the only completely original work from 1990 at the East Side Gallery.
Listen to more of the story
Unmasked #1
An interview with Margaret Hunter, Berlin
Margaret Hunter in interview with curator and gallery owner Irina Ilieva Exhibition: OFFLINE+ONLINE
Credit: aquabitArt Gallery Berlin · 18 Jun 2021
Against All Odds: Scottish Women Can Paint
An interview with Margaret Hunter, Berlin
Margaret Hunter in interview with art critic and former gallery owner Andrew Brown in a project proposed by Beyond Borders Scotland
Credit: Beyond Borders Scotland
Joint Venture
A story told by Margaret Hunter, Berlin
I talk here about the ideas behind my major painting Joint Venture on the East Side Gallery.
Credit: Stiftung Berliner Mauer
Hands
An interview with Margaret Hunter, Berlin
I painted Hands together with a Scottish artist colleague. It has been conserved several times and is now the only original work at the East Side Gallery.
Credit: Stiftung Berliner Mauer