HEDWIG SOUCHON VON HARPE
b. 1909, Viisu, Estonia
d. 2000, Bonn, Germany
WORKS | BIOGRAPHY | EXHIBITIONS
SELECTED WORKS
BIOGRAPHY
After graduating from high school in Tallinn, Estonia, Hedwig Souchon von Harpe studied painting in Stockholm, Sweden, and in Tallinn. She married in 1937 and had two children. In 1951 the family moved to Crailsheim, in Southern Germany. Hedwig Souchon von Harpe ran a small massage practice there.
In the 1960s, she met Karlfried Graf Dürckheim, the founder of Initiatic Therapy, and she became his student. Initiatic Therapy stresses the importance of discovering and working with an inner voice that calls us to set out for something which is deep inside and yet still ahead of us.
Souchon von Harpe embarked on a path of self-discovery using the creativity of drawing in order to find her own spiritual path. She developed a contemplative technique with oil paints, in which she increasingly switched off conscious and intentional processes and left herself to an automatism. Her artistic themes were the spiritual search and the transparency of transcendence. She once wrote, “ultimately the paintings are addressed to God – even if this is not visible, not always conscious to the outside.”
In 1989 Hedwig Souchon von Harpe was awarded the August Macke Medal of the City of Bonn in recognition of her complete works.
EXHIBITIONS
2008 Atelier 2neun2, Bochum, Germany
1991 Frauenmuseum, Wiesbaden, Germany
1982 Galerie Hansen, Süderschmedeby, Germany, 4/25/1982 – 5/22/1982
1960 – 1988 several exhibitions in Germany, including: Lüneburg, Duisdorf, Bonn, Siegburg, Tholey, Bad Honnef, Glückburg
1960 Bad Godesberg, Germany
1959 Crailsheim, Germany