20th/21st Century: Amsterdam
Raimund Girke is a German artist known for his minimalist and monochromatic abstract paintings. He was at the origin of analytical painting, participated in the 1977 edition of Documenta VI in Kassel, Germany, and is widely known for his explorations of white.
Raimund Hirke belonged to a generation of young European artists who overcame the subjectivism of abstract expressionism and sought new, objective, reductive expressions based on scientific and mathematical principles. Girke's paintings were characterized by loose compositions and a limited colour palette, often with subtle variations in shades of white or grey.
Marlene Dumas is a Dutch artist of South African origin. She is known for her figurative paintings that explore themes of identity, race, gender, and sexuality.
Dumas studied at the University of Cape Town and later moved to the Netherlands, where she earned a degree from the Ateliers '63 in Haarlem. Her early work was heavily influenced by the political and social climate in South Africa during the apartheid era.
Dumas' paintings often depict people in various states of vulnerability, intimacy, and emotion. Her works are characterized by loose, gestural brushstrokes, and a limited color palette. She frequently draws inspiration from popular culture, news media, and art history, often appropriating and reimagining images from these sources.
Dumas has exhibited her work extensively, including at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, and the Tate Modern in London. She has also received numerous awards and honors for her work, including the Johannes Vermeer Award in 2012 and the Premium Imperiale in 2018.
Norbert Schwontkowski is a German painter. He studied freehand painting at the University of Design in Bremen and at the University of Fine Arts in Hamburg.
Norbert Schwontkowski's work lies between abstraction, realistic representation and caricature. He mixes the unconscious and surreal with the real, the figures and subjects in the artist's paintings resemble complex dreams.
Schwontkowski created his paints from hand-crushed pigments mixed with various materials to produce a multitude of textures.
Marlene Dumas is a Dutch artist of South African origin. She is known for her figurative paintings that explore themes of identity, race, gender, and sexuality.
Dumas studied at the University of Cape Town and later moved to the Netherlands, where she earned a degree from the Ateliers '63 in Haarlem. Her early work was heavily influenced by the political and social climate in South Africa during the apartheid era.
Dumas' paintings often depict people in various states of vulnerability, intimacy, and emotion. Her works are characterized by loose, gestural brushstrokes, and a limited color palette. She frequently draws inspiration from popular culture, news media, and art history, often appropriating and reimagining images from these sources.
Dumas has exhibited her work extensively, including at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, and the Tate Modern in London. She has also received numerous awards and honors for her work, including the Johannes Vermeer Award in 2012 and the Premium Imperiale in 2018.
Yoshitomo Nara is a Japanese artist. He lives and works in Nasushiobara, Tochigi Prefecture, though his artwork has been exhibited worldwide. Nara has had nearly 40 solo exhibitions since 1984. His art work has been housed at the MoMA and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA).
Yoshitomo Nara is a Japanese artist. He lives and works in Nasushiobara, Tochigi Prefecture, though his artwork has been exhibited worldwide. Nara has had nearly 40 solo exhibitions since 1984. His art work has been housed at the MoMA and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA).
Yoshitomo Nara is a Japanese artist. He lives and works in Nasushiobara, Tochigi Prefecture, though his artwork has been exhibited worldwide. Nara has had nearly 40 solo exhibitions since 1984. His art work has been housed at the MoMA and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA).
Abdoulaye Diarrassouba, also known as Aboudia, is an American-Ivorian contemporary artist.
Aboudia began his artistic career early and has drawn attention for his expressive and emotional style. His work reflects the complex realities of the city and the experiences of locals during political and social crises. The painter often uses bright colours, rough strokes and abstract shapes to convey the violence, chaos and hope that are present in his subjects' lives.
Aboudia's artistic style mixes elements of graffiti, street art, African folk painting and contemporary art.
Markus Lüpertz is a German painter, sculptor, graphic artist, and writer. He also publishes a magazine, and plays jazz piano. He is one of the best-known German contemporary artists. His subjects are characterized by suggestive power and archaic monumentality. Lüpertz insists on capturing the object of representation with an archetypal statement of his existence. His art work is associated to neo-expressionism. Known for his eccentricity, German press has stylized him as a «painter prince».
Stephan Balkenhol is a German artist known for his sculptures capturing the human form. Based in France and Germany, he specializes in wood sculptures, reliefs, drawings, and graphic techniques like lithography, woodcuts, and stencils. His distinct style features roughly carved and vibrantly painted wooden sculptures, often depicting people, animals, and architecture.
Balkenhol's subjects lack emotions, often gazing into emptiness, resulting in a distant and enigmatic aura. Wood is his primary medium, with softer woods allowing precise facial details while maintaining imperfections like chips, knots, and tool marks. The artist adds paint as a finishing touch, accentuating anatomy and vitality. The textured surfaces beneath the paint layer amplify the sense of life in Balkenhol's works.
Rainer Fetting is a German painter and sculptor.
Rainer Fetting was one of the co-founders and main protagonists of the Galerie am Moritzplatz in Berlin, founded in the late 1970s by a group of young artists (mainly painters) from the class of Karl Horst Hödicke at the former Berliner Hochschule für Bildende Künste (Berlin Art Academy, today known as Universität der Künste). Fetting is now one of the internationally best known contemporary German artists, having created a large oeuvre of expressive figurative paintings covering many different kinds of subject-matter, as well as many bronze sculptures.
Cornelius Völker is a German painter who lives and works in Düsseldorf and New York.
He studied at the Dusseldorf Academy of Arts and is a professor of painting at the Münster Academy of Art.
Völker's work is characterized by colorful, figurative representations of everyday situations and even insignificant everyday objects in part abstract, part figurative interpretations. The artist has a special method of working with paint and creates photorealistic paintings.
Rainer Fetting is a German painter and sculptor.
Rainer Fetting was one of the co-founders and main protagonists of the Galerie am Moritzplatz in Berlin, founded in the late 1970s by a group of young artists (mainly painters) from the class of Karl Horst Hödicke at the former Berliner Hochschule für Bildende Künste (Berlin Art Academy, today known as Universität der Künste). Fetting is now one of the internationally best known contemporary German artists, having created a large oeuvre of expressive figurative paintings covering many different kinds of subject-matter, as well as many bronze sculptures.
Jiří Georg Dokoupil is a Czech-German painter and graphic artist. He was founding-member of the German artist group Mülheimer Freiheit and the Junge Wilde Art movement, which arose in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Cornelius Völker is a German painter who lives and works in Düsseldorf and New York.
He studied at the Dusseldorf Academy of Arts and is a professor of painting at the Münster Academy of Art.
Völker's work is characterized by colorful, figurative representations of everyday situations and even insignificant everyday objects in part abstract, part figurative interpretations. The artist has a special method of working with paint and creates photorealistic paintings.
