Markus Lüpertz

The feeling of failure is his most important impetus: “The picture I have painted must leave open questions that warrant the next. I am always in a crisis. Always.” It was a fortune for the German art world that Lüpertz failed at his job as a label painter when he was 14 – career counselling had proposed him that job after he talked about his wish to become a painter. His next employer, a window dresser, went bankrupt. At the age of 15, Lüpertz packed his bags and said to his parents: “I am now a freelance artist!” But after his short time at the Art Academy in Düsseldorf he became at first a Foreign Legionnaire. Deserting before he could be sent to Algeria, he came to West-Berlin in 1962, were he established himself in the art scene around the gallery Großgörschen 35. With his neoexpressionistic paintings and sculptures, which repeatedly draws relations to mythical or historical motifs. After teaching at Staatlichen Akademie der Bildenden Künste Karlsruhe and Kunstakademie Düsseldorf until 2009, he currently works in his atelier near Berlin. In 2023 his work was shown at Diehl in Berlin, Kewenig in Palma de Mallorca and Tabakalera in Spain.