Heimrad Prem

Who was Heimrad Prem?

Heimrad Prem was a German painter born in Roding, Oberpfalz. From 1949 - 1952 he studied decorative painting at Schwandorf and then studied painting with Josef Oberberger and sculpture with Toni Stadler at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste, Munich until 1956. While studying painting with Ernst Schumacher at the Hochschule der Künste, Berlin, he formed Gruppe SPUR with Lothar Fischer, Helmut Sturm, and Hans-Peter Zimmer. After meeting Asger Jorn, SPUR joined the Situationist International.

In 1960 he won a scholarship of the Kulturpreises im Bundesverband der Deutschen Industrie, Cologne. From 1960 - 1962 he co-edited the magazine SPUR. In 1961 he visited Oerkelljunga, Sweden with Sturm, Zimmer and Dieter Kunzelmann staying with Jørgen Nash. In 1962 the SPUR group was expelled from the Situationist International, but they continued to work with Nash and others. In 1963 he worked on the SPUR collaborative works: "Canale Grande Crescente" for the exhibition "Visione e Colore" in the Palazzo Grassi, Venice, the SPUR-Bau joint contribution to the exhibition "Nouveaux Espaces", Biennale Paris, and the "SPUR room" in the country house of Willi Bleicher with Munich.