Will Ameln, German artist, who born in 1899 and lived in Düsseldorf. 

Before the 2nd WW he was in contact with the actor and theater director Leo König (link).

During the Second World War, Ameln served as a sergeant with the young Joseph Beuys on the Eastern Front in the Luftwaffe in 1942-1943, where they took side by side part in the air battle for the fortress city of Sevastopol in Crimea. 

Many pencil and chalk drawings by Ameln are known from this time. Including some that were shown in the exhibition “The Image of War” (exhibition of the Luftgaukommando IV) and published as postcards (like the drawing of "The emergency bridge over the Djepr River in Smolensk"). Ameln made later in the 50s some drawings of Joseph Beuys as a "Fighter Pilot" of which one was published in the “Digital Public Library of America” (link). 

Joseph Beuys is said to have later said that he would never have become an artist without the influence Ameln had on him.

In addition, Ameln had an enormous influence on other artistic personalities from Düsseldorf, Cologne and Krefeld such as Herbert Zangs, Heinz Mack, Otto Piene, Günther Uecker, Peter Brüning, Hal Busse, Karl Fred Dahmen, Johannes Geccelli, Rupprecht Geiger, Hermann Goepfert, Gotthard Graubner, Gerhard Hoehme, Herbert Kaufmann, Konrad Klapheck, Leo Erb, Georges Mathieu, Frei Otto, Bernard Schultze, Fred Thieler, who later founded the famous artist group ZERO in 1958, not least under the influence of Ameln.

According to legend, the name of the artist group “ZERO” came about when Heinz Mack and Otto Piene attended a discussion in which Ameln had to defend his painting “Zero F55/B1 (Opzorro #47)”. During the discussion, an exhibition visitor accused him of not dealing with the reality of the German war and instead creating a circle so banal that it not only looked like a zero but also had a zero as a statement and content. Ameln is said to have replied: “Perhaps art needs a zero first so that we can finally throw off the excess baggage and start again - and what is the best way to start over if not with a zero.” This statement was accepted Mack and Piene followed suit and then founded the artist group “ZERO”.

In the 1960s and 1970s, Will Ameln withdrew more and more, but he nevertheless managed to support other artists until the mid-1970s, such as the Kaarst artist Horst Schuwerack (link), and repeatedly caused scandal with his revealing nude drawings from the 1950s onwards. 

Will Ameln died in 1977 at the age of 78.