Atelier

Painting improves creativity, is fun and pro­motes entre­pre­neur­ship

What characterizes a successful entrepreneur? Turning visions and entrepreneurial thinking into customer success. We have been committed to this principle in the Körber Group since our founding in 1946. Did you know that artistic activities such as painting boost many of the qualities that characterize a successful entrepreneur? Besides making fun, painting also has a positive effect on creativity as well as concentration and problem-solving skills. It is not only about the ability to depict body proportions, natural landscapes or colors as realistically as possible. Rather, painting is about putting one's own ideas and visions on the canvas. In other words, exactly the skills that are needed to be a successful entrepreneur. Have you already discovered your creativity? No? Then grab a paintbrush and give free rein to your ideas and visions.

The Name of the Flowers

Kurt A. Körber loved nature and drew artistic inspiration from it. Therefore, flowers often served as “models” for his paintings. Did you know that flowers have different symbolic meanings in different cultures? Roses for instance represent love and passion in the western hemisphere and violets express humility and modesty. With this background, each painting of Kurt A. Körber suddenly can mean a lot more than its unique character prevails at first sight.

Of being an artist and innovator…

Kurt A. Körber was a passionate amateur artist: he loved painting and playing instruments and was a keen innovator who loved experimental approaches even in these fields. So one can probably state that his strive for better and innovative solutions did not stop in the R&D department. It certainly was a driver for his creative passions as well. Studies show, that being active in arts boosts you creativity in problem solving in general – be it with regard to technology, in science or even for a tricky economical question.

When we look into Kurt A. Körber’s art activities, there are two main reoccurring themes: One is his can-do-mentality that was also powerful for all his entrepreneurial approaches and the other certainly is his ongoing search for the new, for the exciting. He tried to teach himself playing instruments - in Kurt’s case it was the violin, piano and later the mandolin. However, the result was rather mediocre, as good friends of him told at that time :-)

His efforts in painting were much more successful. Kurt A. Körber also ventured new steps in this field. Out of a love of experimentation, he used cow skins as the background for his paintings and painted them with landscape views. However, he also liked to immortalize with his art on house walls and canvases. His portraits of friends and esteemed customers developed in a sort of “personal trademark” over time.

Feel free to look around Kurt's atelier to learn more about his artistic activities.

Kurt A. Körber, the portrait artist

Art was very important to Kurt A. Körber – he described it as the "wine of life". He was particularly fascinated by portrait painting. Moreover, portraying became a “personal trademark” of Kurt A. Körber's artistic efforts. While creating the portraits, he used a technique developed by himself to make his paintings appear authentic. In addition to friends and family members, business partners and customers also modeled for him. In this way, Kurt A. Körber used his passion for marketing efforts of the company. Even today, numerous companions and former employees praise his skill in managing customer relationships. Kurt A. Körber had selected customer portraits printed in a publication called “Portraits of my Friends in the International Tobacco Industry”, thereby expressing his appreciation. You can look inside the book in Kurt's office. Curious? Then off you go to the office.

Kurt A. Körber improving the art(ist)s

Kurt A. Körber was a great admirer of famous artists like Renoir, Degas or Chagall and collected numerous posters and reprints of their paintings. One day he began to experiment with the posters. Using a varnish-like emulsion, he developed a special technique to make them look like originals. Kurt A. Körber describes this method (which he called “kaktieren” – literally translated: using my name’s acronym as fingerprint to sign them k(urt) – a – k(örber)) in his autobiography as follows:

"I coated the posters with this emulsion and then let them dry. In the process, the emulsion bonds so firmly with the color of the poster that, after a water bath, the poster paper can be carefully peeled off. The emulsion then forms a film with the color of the poster, which I pasted onto a canvas, the texture of which becomes visible on the surface of the image, giving the impression of 'authenticity'. To enhance the originality of the painting, I put oil paint on the painting in the original shades with a palette knife."

Fun fact: To make it clear that these “paintings” were fake, Kurt A. Körber added his initials "+KAK" to the artworks. Because every entrepreneur knows how important intellectual property protection is.