Art stele Christian Hinrich

Caspar David Friedrich, the important painter of the early Romantic period, stated: "A picture does not have to be invented, but felt." This view has been Christian Hinrich's declared motto "from the very beginning of my painting career." After finishing school, he initially worked in a glass and pottery workshop, then studied for a considerable period at a Hamburg art school. In 1964, the freelance artist moved to Sylt, where he had spent several holidays as a child. Here he opened the "Kampen Gallery," shortening his actual birth name, Christian Hinrich Claußen, to his two first names from then on. Why Kampen? The painter answered the question himself: "Here it smells of salt water and seaweed, of rain-soaked dune sand and sun-baked heathlands. There is the sky, sometimes laughing, sometimes raging, above vast expanses of water. And everything is a symbol of infinity." The Sylt landscape, which means so much to Hinrich, becomes a central motif in his works. These develop a very unique visual language in their mystical-poetic motifs of Sylt's nature – often illuminated by moonlight. "Christian Hinrich sensitively merges landscapes and moods into stage sets without actors," wrote one journalist. The artist, however, is a determined personality. He and other Sylt residents campaigned vehemently and successfully against the gigantic "Atlantis" construction project – a 25-story skyscraper next to the spa center – and the demolition of the Old Post Office in Westerland. Most recently, Hinrich vigorously advocated for the renaming of Kampen's spa park to Avenarius Park in memory of the editor of the magazine "Kunstwart," who died in Kampen in 1923. In the 1970s, Christian Hinrich advocated for the conversion of a wartime industrial barracks into a Kampen art center. To his great regret, however, the project was never realized. As the initiator and co-founder of the Kampen Art Friends Association, Hinrich played a key role in stimulating the village's artistic perspectives with numerous exhibitions at the Kampen Kurhaus in 1975. In 1986, the association merged into what is now the Sylt Art Friends Association. The artist's final years were marked by a serious illness. Even in the hospital, he continued to paint with great effort – true to his motto: "Life is finding light, despite all the darkness."