Markus Lüpertz Set For First US Retrospective in May

Czech Republic-born German artist Markus Lüpertz is scheduled to have his first US retrospective on May 24, opening with “Markus Lüpertz: Threads of History” at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C. The 75-year-old’s pair of shows is the first-ever formal collaboration between two prominent institutions in the nation’s capital.

As noted by Art News, the May 24 show at Hirshhorn will focus on the neo-expressionist’s work from 1962 to 1975, when Lüpertz worked under the violent cloud of World War II. The show at the Phillips Collection, “Markus Lüpertz,” for its part, will showcase a more expansive view of the artist’s career. Art News points out that a catalog will be published by Sieveking Verlag in Germany to accompany the U.S.’ first comprehensive treatment of the flamboyant Lüpertz.

“Every step of the way we have been working together,” Phillips Collection Director Dorothy Kosinski told Art News of the collaboration. “Lüpertz is a prolific artist who lives for artmaking, as a painter, printmaker, sculptor, set designer, poet, and provocateur.” According to Kosinski, the tandem exhibitions at the Phillips Colelction and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden aim to do a “better and more thorough job of making Lüpertz’s work available and understandable.”

In his 30 years as an artist, Lüpertz has seen varying degrees of acceptance, with some celebrating the German as a genius, while getting more lukewarm reviews from critics. Despite his polarizing stature in the art world, his oversized paintings in expressive neo-Romantic style sell for six figures, DW.com, notes.

Michael Werner Gallery partner Gordon VeneKlasen calls Lüpertz “one of the best pure painters who were part of the generation who came of age in broken Germany and found their own visual language.” Lüpertz is scheduled to have a show at the Michael Werner Gallery in New York around the same time as the Washington retrospective.

TagsMarkus Lüpertz, Hirshhorn Museum, Phillips Collection