1927-2010

Paul Wunderlich was one like no other creative artists of our time to the really stylish visual artists of modernity. In 1960, confiscated the Hamburg public prosecutor of his works as "offensive". Three years later, the fledgling Paul Wunderlich as a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts is appointed. Numerous awards such as the Edwin-Schaff Prize honours the Graphic Biennials in Ireland, Taiwan and Bulgaria have made Wunderlich international acclaim. As the only German artist, he was elected into the French "Académie des Beaux Arts". Paul Wunderlich lived and worked until his death in June 2010, alternately in Hamburg and France.

Sculptor and painter born in 1927 in Eberswalde near Berlin, studied painting at the art school in the Orangery of Eutin Castle. Immediately after the war, he went to the Hamburg Academy of fine arts and studied graphics. After completing his education, he stayed there just as a drawing teacher and became a professor in 1963.

At the beginning of the 50s he met Emil Nolde and Oskar Kokoschka and expressed under their guidance the reproductions of their works. He even developed a very unconventional style, the Mannerist and surreal, but also elements of the Art Nouveau and Art Deco. His themes was referring to the German history, for example in the cycle "20.July 1944 ". Later it was erotic and has sexual motives, the more important it with delicacy and also a track morbidity items. In 1960, such print series for alleged immoral pursued by the public prosecutor's office.

In the 60s, he began to work for photographs by Karin Szekessy. In 1968 he gave up his Professorship, he made several study trips to New York and in the Switzerland. Since then he worked at commemorated aestheticized everyday objects, which were in line with the cleverly elaborated imagery of his paintings.

"His works are recognized all over the world, appreciated, and purchased by a wide audience", writes Paul Wunderlich biographer Jens Christian Jensen, "art connoisseurs agree: Paul Wunderlich is the main master of fantastic realism, and one of the few seminal artists of our time."

"From the platitudes that are spread about his life's work has only a substance: the knowledge that Paul Wunderlich was the unmatched after Picasso masters of lithography." (Prof. Heinz Spielmann)

If one looks for the greatest masters in the control of the lithographic technique in its ways, no doubt. Deserved the laurel Paul Wunderlich "(Carl Vogel)

Designation for an art object (sculpture, installation), which is produced according to the will of the artist in multiple copies in a limited and numbered edition.

Artist's multiple contributed to "democratization" of art as the work was made available and affordable for a wider audience.

Directions of contemporary art, in which objects are exhibited as themselves and used for artistic composition.

Object art was a means of expression of Cubism, Dadaism and Surrealism, and in the course of their development to the present day had spawned various presentation techniques.

A plastic work of sculptural art made of wood, stone, ivory, bronze or other metals.

While sculptures from wood, ivory or stone are made directly from the block of material, for bronze casting a working model is prepared at first. Usually it is made of clay or other easily shaped materials.

The prime time of sculpture after the Roman antiquity was the Renaissance. Impressionism gave a new impulse to the sculptural arts. Also the contemporary artists, such as Jorg Immendorf, Andora, and Markus Lupertz enriched the sculpture with outstanding works.

Collective term for the painters and sculptors of the 20th century, such as Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí, Joan Miró, Marc Chagall and others, whose works are the most recognized in our times.

Collective term for all casting processes that ars mundi carries out with the help of specialized art foundries.

Cast stone
Equivalent of artificial marble, with the difference that the substitute stone in powder form is used instead of marble powder.

Cold cast bronze
Bronze powder bound by a polymer. By special polishing and patination techniques the surface of the casting gets a look that corresponds to the bronze.

ARA wooden copy
In order to guarantee absolute fidelity to the original, an artificially manufactured imitation wood is used as a base material which has typical wood characteristics: density, workability, color and surface structure.

Ceramic casting
As a rule castable clay is used in ceramic casting, which then is fired and possibly glazed. Plaster molds are often used instead of the usual rubber molds in ceramic casting and in porcelain production.

Bronze casting
In this case, the thousand-year-old lost-wax technique is used. It's the best, but also the most complex method of producing sculptures.

Related links:
ARA Kunst
Bronze casting
Lost-wax casting technique