Editing Joseph Beuys (section)

=== Studies and beginnings (1945–1960) ===
{{more citations needed section|date=May 2017}}
After returning to [[Kleve]], Beuys met local sculptor Walter Brüx and painter Hanns Lamers, who encouraged him to take up art as a full-time career. He joined the Kleve Artists Association, which had been established by Brüx and Lamers. On 1 April 1946, Beuys enrolled in the monumental sculpture program at the [[Kunstakademie Düsseldorf|Düsseldorf Academy of Fine Arts]]. Initially he was assigned to the class of [[Joseph Enseling]], who had a more traditional, representational focus,<ref name="Adriani_79"/> but he managed to change his mentor after three semesters, joining the small class of [[Ewald Mataré]] in 1947, who had rejoined the academy the previous year, after having been banned by the Nazis in 1939. The [[anthroposophical]] philosophy of [[Rudolf Steiner]] became an increasingly important basis for Beuys's philosophy. In his view it is "...an approach that refers to reality in a direct and practical way, and that by comparison, all forms of epistemological discourse remain without direct relevance to current trends and movements."<ref name="Adriani_79" /><!-- de 33 --> Reaffirming his interest in science, Beuys re-established contact with [[Heinz Sielmann]], and assisted with a number of nature- and wildlife documentaries in the region between 1947 and 1949.

In 1947 Beuys, along with other artists (including [[Hann Trier]]), founded the group 'Donnerstag-Gesellschaft' (''Thursday Group'').<ref name="SSJ25">Stiftung Museum Schloss Moyland, Sammlung van der Grinten, Joseph Beuys Archiv des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen (eds.) (2001) [https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/beuys-joseph-beuys-ewald-matare-and-eight-cologne-artists-museum-schloss-moyland-ar00932 ''Joseph Beuys, Ewald Mataré and Eight Cologne Artists'']. B.o.s.s Druck und Medien, Bedburg-Hau. p.25.</ref> The group organised discussions, exhibitions, events and concerts between 1947 and 1950 in Alfter Castle.

In 1951, [[Ewald Mataré|Mataré]] accepted Beuys into his master class{{efn|Cf. {{Interlanguage link|Meisterschüler|de}}}} where he shared a studio with [[Erwin Heerich]],<ref>Invar Hollaus, "Heerich, Erwin". In ''Allgemeines Künstler-Lexikon'', vol. 71 (2011), p.44.</ref> that he kept until 1954, a year after graduation. Nobel laureate [[Günter Grass]] recollects Beuys's influence in Mataré's class as shaping "a Christian anthroposophic atmosphere".<ref>[[Günter Grass]], (2006) [[Peeling the Onion]] (autobiography).</ref> He read [[James Joyce|Joyce]], impressed by the "Irish-mythological elements" in his works,<ref name="Adriani_79" /><!-- de 38 --> the [[German romantics]] [[Novalis]] and [[Friedrich Schiller]], and studied [[Galileo Galilei|Galileo]] and [[Leonardo da Vinci|Leonardo]], whom he admired as examples of artists and scientists who are conscious of their position in society and who work accordingly.<ref name="Adriani_79" /> <!-- de 40 --> Early shows include participation in the Kleve Artists Association annual exhibition in Kleve's [[Barend Cornelis Koekkoek#Haus Koekkoek, Kleve|Villa Koekkoek]], where Beuys showed aquarelles and sketches, a solo show at the home of {{Interlanguage link|Hans van der Grinten|de|lt=Hans}} and {{ill|Franz Joseph van der Grinten|de}} in [[Kranenburg, North Rhine-Westphalia|Kranenburg]] as well as a show in the [[Von der Heydt Museum]] in [[Wuppertal]].<!-- continue with van der Grinten -->

Beuys finished his education in 1953, graduating at age 32 as master student from Mataré's class. He had a modest income from a number of craft-oriented commissions: a gravestone and several pieces of furniture. <!-- continue rewrite here: '56 Ausschwitz memorial, '57 depressions ... --> Throughout the 1950s, Beuys struggled both financially and from the trauma of his wartime experiences. His output consisted of drawings and sculptural work. Beuys explored a range of unconventional materials and developed his artistic agenda, exploring metaphorical and symbolic connections between natural phenomena and philosophical systems. Often difficult to interpret in themselves, his drawings constitute a speculative, contingent and hermetic exploration of the material world, myth and philosophy. In 1974, 327 drawings, the majority of which were made during the late 1940s and 1950s, were collected into a group entitled The Secret Block for a Secret Person in Ireland (a reference to Joyce), and exhibited in Oxford, Edinburgh, Dublin, and Belfast.

In 1956, artistic self-doubt and material impoverishment led to a physical and psychological crisis, and Beuys entered a period of serious depression. He recovered at the house of his most important early patrons, the van der Grinten brothers, in Kranenburg. In 1958, Beuys participated in an international competition for an [[Auschwitz-Birkenau]] memorial. His proposal did not win and his design was never realised. In 1958, Beuys began a cycle of drawings related to Joyce's ''[[Ulysses (novel)|Ulysses]]''. Completed in around 1961, the six exercise books of drawings would constitute, Beuys declared, an extension of Joyce's seminal novel. In 1959, Beuys married Eva Wurmbach. They had two children, Wenzel (born 1961) and Jessyka (born 1964).