Markus Lüpertz turns 80

Even though the painter cannot complain about the international recognition he's obtained over the years, he does regret the fact that the pandemic "stole one or two years" from him. Throughout his career, he deliberately worked to get everyone talking about him.

The painter, born on April 25, 1941 in the Bohemian town of Liberec, is a master of self-portrayal, which is manifest in his eccentric style. He always wears eye-catching rings and a gold Rolex; he has a chauffeur drive him to exhibition openings in a Rolls Royce. He is said to own several more luxury cars as well.

Germany's tumultuous history as art

He also likes to cultivate the image of the eccentric rebel as an artist.

When the young Lüpertz was developing his style, abstract art was the prevailing trend, whereas he focused on simple but expressive figurative motifs. A central theme of his work is Germany and its 20th-century history.

From 1968 onward, Lüpertz started including in his paintings references to steel or Wehrmacht helmets, flags, antlers, shovels and uniforms — developing a visual language dealing with war, death and fear.

In 1973, the Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden presented his first solo exhibition.

Painting as the supreme discipline

Schwarz Rot Gold I (Black Red Gold, i.e. the colors of the German flag) is the name of a painting from 1974. A green steel helmet hovers over a uniform and a military tank, like a beheaded ghost. A bright yellow battlefield rises in the background. The subdued colors he uses are also at times reminiscent of the military: green, brown or ocher.

Markus Lüpertz's images do not portray reality, but rather create associations that aim to arouse memories and spark ideas. His paintings can be unsettling, yet they are also celebrated for breaking taboos.

This is also due to the monumental size of his works, with many canvases reaching up to five or six meters (16 – 20 feet).

He has dubbed his style as "dithyramic," a reference to the wild choral hymns of ancient Greece, "dithyrambos."

As of 1985, he increasingly explored older motifs, including references to art history in his work, reinterpreting and quoting French classics such Baroque artist Nicolas Poussin or landscape painter Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot.

Displaced by war

As a child, Markus Lüpertz fled Bohemia with his family, settling in the Rhineland region in 1948. At the age of 20, he moved to Berlin, immersed himself in painting and the wild lifestyle of the 1960s. Coming from a modest background, he worked his way up to artistic fame.

At the age of 33, he became a professor at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Karlsruhe. Shortly thereafter, he switched to the Düsseldorf Art Academy, initially as a professor, and then became the institution's rector from 1987 to 2009. At the university's annual open house, Lüpertz's class would turn into a work of art as well, with students dressing in their professor's striking style, and painting like him.

The artist describes himself as religious, which doesn't necessarily fit with the image Lüpertz conveys to the world. He said that he converted to Catholicism following a visit to the Maria Laach monastery (in Germany's Eifel region) to study images of crucifixion.

In 1989/90, he designed his first church window, for the French cathedral of Nevers in Burgundy. He also created 11 stained glass windows for the Church of St. Andreas in Cologne. In 2018, former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder donated a lead-glazed Lüpertz window to the city of Hanover. An heir of the architect, however, launched a court case, claiming that the designs did not correspond to the architect's original creative concept. But two years later, the Hanover Regional Court ruled in favor of Markus Lüpertz.

The sculptor of the German Federal Republic

Lüpertz, the former rebel, has also became one of the favorite sculptors of the German government. His Philosopher, an enormous sculpture from 1998, welcomes visitors to the Federal Chancellery. In 2001, he also created a sculpture of the federal eagle for the Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe.

That same year, the citizens of Augsburg protested against the installation of his sculpture Aphrodite, which they found too ugly. Lüpertz's Mozart statue in Salzburg was also adamantly rejected in 2005.

His sculptures are neither portraits nor monuments, but above all abstract forms that have also enabled him to develop a new way of painting. The bulky, colored works, mostly made of bronze, are several meters high.

Disappearance of Lüpertz' works in China

Markus Lüpertz's works of art are exhibited worldwide. When more than 150 works of art by various German artists mysteriously disappeared from an exhibition tour in China in 2018, Lüpertz himself traveled to China to try to track them down. Some of them resurfaced two years later, but most of them remain lost.

His work, which includes paintings, drawings, sculptures, church windows, music and even poetry, reflects the great versatility of the artist. Markus Lüpertz is an artist who never wanted to commit to one style. And so it seems logical that even at the age of 80, he says that he still hasn't found what he's looking for.