Neo Rauch

Biography

Born in 1960, Neo Rauch is a contemporary painter who continues to work and reside in his hometown Leipzig, Germany. He is best known for his characteristic figurative imagery combined with surreal abstraction.

Rauch paints from the heart. Every painting starts out without a preconceived idea of the end result. Painterly intuition, virtuoso brushstrokes, and a vast array recurring subjects and motives populate the often romantic, yet existential, landscapes and settings of his paintings.

Marked by enigma, his compositions often consist of various human characters, animals or art historical references. His palette is uniquely recognizable, using strong contrasts and complementary colors. Rauch breaks open the perspective, which would almost make you dizzy by staring through these paintings as windows to another world.[1]

Career Facts

Neo Rauch studied at the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst. Especially since the turn of the millennium, Rauch is being represented by industry leading art galleries such as David Zwirner, establishing himself as one of the most important painters today.

As a result, the German artist has participated in numerous group and solo exhibitions at renowned institutions across the globe. Rauch has had solo shows at the Palazzo Pitti in Florence, Italy; the Des Moies Art Center in Iowa, the United States of America; the Museum de Fundatie in Zwolle, the Netherlands; the Centre for Fine Arts (BOZAR) in Brussels, Belgium; the Museum der Bildenden Künste in Leipzig, Germany; the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich, Germany; the Zacheta National Gallery of Art in Warsaw, Poland; the Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz, Germany; the Museum Frieder Burda in Baden-Baden, Germany; the Essl Museum in Klosterneuburg, Austria; the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the United States of America; the Galerie Rudolfinum in Prague, Czech Republic; the Musée d’Art Contemporain de Montréal, Canada; the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Germany; the Centro de Arte Contemporaneo de Malaga, Spain; the Albertina in Vienna, Austria; or the Bonnefantenmuseum in Maastricht, the Netherlands.

As a result, his works feature in major public collections, including the Des Moines Art Center in Iowa, the United States of America; the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague, the Netherlands; the Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart in Berlin, Germany; the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Germany; The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the United States of America; the Museum der Bildenden Künste Leipzig, Germany; the Museum Ludwig in Cologne, Germany; The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the United States of America; the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich, Germany; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, the United States of America; and the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam.[2]

Neo Rauch Books

For further reading on Neo Rauch, we strongly recommend the following titles:

• Neo Rauch: Dromos: Paintings 1993–2017. Hatje Cantz, 2018.
• Neo Rauch HANDLAUF: New and Earlier Works. Seemann Henschel, 2020.
• Neo Rauch (Contemporary Painters Series). Lund Humphries, 2019.

Artworks

Notes:

[1] David Zwirner, Neo Rauch at https://www.davidzwirner.com/artists/neo-rauch/biography consulted 3/02/2022.
[2] Ibidem.

Last Updated on May 8, 2023