Markus Lüpertz

(German, born 1941)

Markus Lüpertz is a German Neo-Expressionist whose idiosyncratic paintings and sculptures seamlessly blend figuration and abstraction. Seeking to simplify forms while also magnifying details, the artist often employs close up views of heads and faces within the picture plane. “Whenever you paint something abstract the eye leads you to search for a figurative element, and vice versa,” he once reflected. Born on April 25, 1941 in Liberec, Czech Republic, his family moved to Rheydt, West Germany in 1948. He went on to study at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, graduating in 1961 and moving to Berlin a year later. While in Berlin, Lüpertz worked alongside other German artists, including Georg Baselitz, A.R. Penck, and Jörg Immendorff to strive for a different approach to artmaking that didn’t parallel the dominant artistic lexicons of Pop Art and Abstract Expressionism. Through the following decades, Lüpertz has sought a more emotional, representative form of painting, considering Francis Picabia’s varied style as a precursor to his own. The artist currently lives and works between Düsseldorf and Karlsruhe, Germany. Lüpertz’s works are held in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and the Von der Heydt-Museum in Wuppertal, Germany, among others.