Artist and author: journalist Bernard Winkler now lives in Haigerloch – Zollernalb

Haigerloch – The 70-year-old wants to enrich Haigerloch’s already complex art and artist scene with his motives and artwork. You cannot know his age in any way. He’s slim, still fully energetic professionally and is full of ideas and drive. “If I can’t do anything anymore, I’ll be dead,” he says lightly in an interview with our newspaper.

Came to Haigerloch more by chance

It was a coincidence that brought him to his new adopted country because, in his words, he had “no connection whatsoever” with Hegerloch. However, Winckler has learned that Rottenburg investor Roland Dürr is the new owner of Schlössle and is furnishing the apartments there. He found this interesting and had a chat with Dürr. Bernd Winkler was courting the scene anyway and wanted to leave his residence in Gäufelden near Herrenberg after many years, so he decided to move to Eyachtal.

His new home, a late medieval building at the entrance to the old town of Heigerloch, immediately impressed him. Because of its distinctive architecture, the building is a work of art in the artist’s eyes, and he liked the modern apartments within the old walls.

One of Mondrian and Miro’s role models

His new surroundings inspired the founder and honorary president of Herrenberger Kunstverein. Several new paintings have already been created in his artist’s studio on the ground floor. Their decorations are of course the historic inn of Eyach. Looking at them, you immediately realize that he studied painting and art. Pictures can be customized to expressive style and have a clear language of color and shape. Like lines drawn with a ruler, separate color fields. Recognizable models such as the Catalan painter Joan Miro or the Dutch Piet Mondrian.

The first small exhibition on Pentecost

Bernd Winkler would like to turn Schlössle into an art venue, for example with small exhibitions. In whatever form this is absolutely possible, he must of course agree with the owner and other Schlössle residents. However, he planned a studio exhibition for Pentecost. Meanwhile, Bernd Winkler also attempted initial contacts with the rest of Heigerloch’s art scene. At least he got into a conversation with Hermann Josef Speer, gallery owner and operator of “Black Staircase” in the upper town, at an exhibition there.

For a person:

“wic” is actually a native of Berlin, but spent his youth in Sigmaringen and graduated from high school there. “I got out into the world when I was 19,” he says. The world equals the United States, where Winkler has lived for three and a half years.

After returning to Germany, he began studying journalism at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich in the early 1970s, and soon began working for “Stuttgarter Nachrichten” and the trade magazine “Auto Motor und Sport”. Always having an interest in art and graphics, Bernd Winkler ended up in Italy in the late 1970s and early 1980s. He studied art in Verona, but also lived in Rome.

In a nuclear submarine to the North Pole

She then returned to the United States, where Winkler worked as a freelancer for NASA in Tampa Bay, Florida. During this time he realized what, in his words, “the world gave him.” For example, he was able to drive to the North Pole in the nuclear submarine “Skate”, which was the main actor in the 1968 action movie “Eisstation Zebra”, or take part in the legendary 1985 Camel Cup, an adventure rally of the cigarette brand of the same name SUV.

Graphic award winning

At the end of the eighties, Bernard Winkler returned to Germany and worked as a court correspondent. Together with Wolfgang Vols he authored the book “Gefahrliche Curves” and with Michael Mikli DSV Ski Atlas. In the 1990s he subsequently won several innovation awards for his graphic designs won in Switzerland. Among other things, Winkler designed the logo for the new sports center in Davos.

Finally, in 2002, Bernd Winkler founded the Herrenberger Kunstverein company with Professor Helge Bathelt. Despite moving to Haigerloch, Winckler wants to remain a member of his club.