The German ‘painting prince’ takes on works from ‘the painter of France’ through exercises of homage, figuration, and abstraction.
Painter, sculptor, writer, graphic artists, and free jazz pianist, Renaissance man Markus Lüpertz has been styled as the ‘painter prince’ in Germany, for he’s one of the most enduring popular and respected contemporary painters of his country.
Working mainly in neo-expressionism, his distinctive paintings and sculptures blend figuration with abstraction, breathing new life into post-war painting and sculpting. Forms undergo simplification, details face enlargement, and the familiar becomes grotesque, the recognisable takes on new forms, an ethos befitting the title of his manifesto, ‘Art That Disturbs’.
Engaging with Puvis de Chavannes, who Van Gogh called ‘the master of us all’, Lüpertz honours the proto-modernist by incorporating figures and objects into his own abstraction, again toying with the familiar, or otherwise mirroring the mysticism and classicism that runs through Chavannes work.
Markus Lüpertz - Pierre Puvis de Chavannes opens to the public on 14 November with a private view on 13 November from 6-8 PM. A catalogue with text by art historian Aimée Brown Price will accompany the exhibition. The exhibition will remain on view through 1 February 2025. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 10 AM to 6 PM.