A.R. Penck “Selected Works from 1978-2011”

Stellan Holm Gallery

[Image: A.R. Penck "Tskrie 3" (1984) Dispersion paint on canvas 78.74h x 118.11w in.]

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Stellan Holm Gallery presents ‘A.R. Penck: Selected Works From 1978-2011’, which will feature a number of paintings spanning the artists career.

A.R Penck, born Ralf Winkler on October 5, 1939 in Dresden, Germany, is considered one of the foremost artists in the ‘Neo-Expressionist’ movement alongside contemporaries such as Sigmar Polke, Georg Baselitz and Jorg Immendorf. A reaction against Conceptual and Minimalist art, Neo- Expressionism returned to figurative representation in a raw, brutish manner using vivid colors and highly textural brushwork. Penck’s style, with its use of stick figures, neo-primitive iconography and graphic icons is evocative of both cave paintings and graffiti art. During his time in Dresden, Penck became a central figure in the underground art movement taking place at the time.

In 1980, after years of artistic censorship under the East German government, Penck made the decision to relocate to West Germany. Once there he was able to find a great deal of commercial success and was exhibited by several major galleries and museums. In 1981, the Goethe Foundation awarded him the Rembrandt Prize in Basel, Switzerland. In 1982, Penck’s work was included in ‘Zeitgeist’, which has come to be considered one of the most historically important exhibitions of painting in the 20th Century. Organized in Berlin by Christos M. Joachimides and Norman Rosenthal, ‘Zeitgeist’ brought together 45 of the worlds most esteemed artists of that time. In 1983, Penck moved to London and was later awarded the Aachen Art Prize for 1985. In 1988 he participated in the exhibition ‘Made in Cologne’, in the same year he was appointed professor of painting at the Academy of Arts in Düsseldorf.

At the time of his death in 2017 at the age of 77, Penck was living and working in Berlin, Düsseldorf, Dublin and New York City.