Markus Lüpertz was born on 25 April 1941 in Reichenberg, formerly of the Czechoslovakia, today Liberec in the Czech Republic. The son of a chef, he was interested in painting and drawing from an early age and began an apprenticeship as a painter of wine bottle labels, which he had to abandon as he was considered to lack talent, whilst a second apprenticeship as commercial artist failed due to the insolvency of the master.
(...) Continue readingLüpertz soon began a course at the Werkkunstschule Krefeld (today part of the Niederrhein University), and also spent a lengthy period in the Maria Laach Abbey where he studied religious themes intensively. During his studies, Lüpertz worked as a miner underground and in road construction to finance his training. A stunt at the Art Academy of Düsseldorf was unsuccessful as his professor did not like his submitted painting depicting cowboys around a fire. Following this rejection, Lüpert joined the French Foreign Legion, but deserted when faced with the departure to Algeria.
Markus Lüpertz - Professorships in Karlsruhe and Düsseldorf
Markus Lüpertz eventually moved to West Berlin where his artistic career finally began. There he joined the exhibition community, Großgörschen 35, together with other artists spurned by the art establishment such as Ulrich Baehr, Hans-Jürgen Diehl, Leiv Warren Donnan, Hans-Georg Dornhege, Karl Horst Hödicke, Franz-Rudolf Knubel, Wolfgang Petrick, Peter Sorge and Lambert Maria Wintersberge, whilst striving to disconnect himself from Pop Art and Abstract Expressionism with his ‘dithyrambic painting’ and simple, representational pictures. Following a study stay in Florence, Lüpertz took on a professorship at the Karlsruhe Art Academy which he considered a period of personal liberation. He often published poems on themes that interested him, including on the French landscape painter Camille Corot. In 1986 Lüpertz moved from Karlsruhe to Düsseldorf where he held the rectorship at the Art Academy until 2009. He lured many internationally well-known artistic personalities to the Düsseldorf Art Academy during his 20-year tenure, among them Michael Buthe, Tony Cragg, Peter Doig, Jörg Immendorf, Albert Oehlen and Rosemarie Trockel, and formed friendships with other contemporary artists such as Georg Baselitz, Anselm Kiefer and A.R. Penck.
International success as painter and sculptor
Markus Lüpertz converted to Catholicism and viewed God and the church as an integral element in all his pictorial creativity, thus valuing greatly the stained-glass windows he designed for churches in the French town of Nevers, and in Cologne and Lübeck. The church is where art finds its final place – not temporarily presented in museums and galleries. Despite everything, the artist retained his independence and free spirit, oscillating at will between painting, sculpture, and poetry, vehemently resisting any attempt of a superimposed dogma. He described the French artist Francis Picabia as a role model and precursor, who, like himself, cultivated an eccentric presence and did not accept any dogmas. Markus Lüpertz has received many prizes and awards for his work, including such renowned honours as the Villa Romana Prize (1970), the Essling Lovis Corinth Prize (1990), and the Leipzig International Mendelssohn Prize (2013).
Markus Lüpertz lives and works in Berlin, Karlsruhe and Düsseldorf. He is married and the father of five children.
Markus Lüpertz - Works that have already been sold at Kunsthaus Lempertz:
