Untitled

Details

Provenance:

Private collection, North Rhine-Westphalia, acquired directly from the artist.

Description

– Intensely coloured, typical portrait from the important 1990s

– From the artist’s studio and on the art market for the first time

– After his expatriation in 1980, A.R. Penck was perceived in the West as the father of the “Neue Wilde”, and from 1988 to 2003 he was Professor of Painting at the Düsseldorf Art Academy

– His works can be found in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and the Hamburger Kunsthalle, among others

With bold, red brushstrokes, A.R. Penck develops a symbolically foreshortened, yet expressive portrait, whose right eye focuses on the viewer. As with Pablo Picasso’s cubist portraits decades earlier, Penck shows the head not only en face, but also in profile. This is not surprising, as Penck’s engagement with Pablo Picasso played an important role in his early work.

The heavy brushstrokes of the red-brown background remain clearly visible, creating a restless, flickering dynamic that lends the portrait a mysterious quality. It is precisely this mysteriousness of an ostensibly simple sign language that makes these works so fascinating. A.R. Penck’s preoccupation with portraits and self-portraits, as well as his ongoing exploration of his own identity, are themes that he has explored throughout his life.