1945-2007
Jörg Immendorff was a German neo-expressionist painter known for his realistic figurative style and his use of symbolic imagery. Inspired by artists of the New Objectivity movement such as Georg Grosz, Max Beckmann and Otto Dix, his representations differ significantly from the abstract practices of his contemporaries such as Markus Lupertz and A. R. Penck. He claims that ‘one thing is beautiful if it’s honest’. ‘If you create a committed work, if it is sincere, then the concept of beauty meets the concept of truth’, he has also said.
Born in 1945 in Bleckede, Germany, Immendorff studied at the Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf under the guidance of the famous conceptual artist Joseph Beuys. His popular series ‘Café Deutschland’ mixes autobiography, social commentary and politics in the 1970s.
His first exhibition in the United States took place in 1982 at MoMA in New York. In 1997, he won the prestigious MARCO prize of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Monterrey, Mexico. In 1983, he received a merit from the Federal Republic of Germany. He had a long-time friendship with German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, who chose Immendorff to paint his official portrait. Following complications from Charcot’s disease, he died on May 28, 2007 in Düsseldorf at the age of 61.
