Biography

Jörg Immendorff was a German Neo-Expressionist painter known for his figurative style and use of symbolic imagery. Taking cues from New Objectivity artists such as Georg Grosz, Max Beckmann, and Otto Dix, his representations differed markedly from the more abstract paintings of his peers Markus Lupertz and A.R. Penck. “Something is beautiful if it is honest,” Immendorff had said. “If you do an engaged piece of work, which is sincere, the concept of beauty meets the concept of truth.” Born on June 14, 1945 in Bleckede, Germany, Immendorff studied at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf under the famed Conceptual artist Joseph Beuys. Immendorff’s popular painting series Café Deutschland from the 1970s, combined autobiography with social and political commentary, often including his former tutor Beuys within the painted scenes. Immendorff’s first exhibition in the United States was held in 1982 at The Museum of Modern Art in New York, and he died May 28, 2007 in Düsseldorf, Germany at the age of 61 from complications due to ALS. Today, the artist’s works are held in the collections of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum, the Weserburg Museum of Modern Art in Bremen, and the Art Institute of Chicago, among others.