Neo Rauch is the shining star of the New Leipzig School. His paintings, drawings and prints are hot in demand on the international art market. Key works are currently on show in Berlin.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/J. Wolf
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The Leipzig School: A history of art
The term 'Leipzig School' referred to famous painters who lived in the eastern German city when communist East Germany still existed. After 1989, the next generation - the New Leipzig School - quickly shot to fame.
Image: picture-alliance/ZB/P. Endig
The birth of the 'new'
Neo Rauch, 55, is regarded as one of the most important contemporary German painters. His large-format works and graphics have a surreal feel, a trademark of the Leipzig-born artist's style.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/J. Wolf
Art from the East
Rauch's paintings conquered the art market in the 1990s. Gerd Harry Lybke (pictured here with Rauch), the Leipzig art dealer who signed Rauch and other artists after reunification, was an important mediator for the new movement. Lybke has a colorful history: his gallery was under observation by the East German secret Police: the much feared Stasi.
Image: picture alliance/dpa/W. Grubitzsch
What's in a name
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Leipzig became a center for contemporary art once again. Neo Rauch was actually the movement's only native East German, while Tim Eitel, Rosa Loy and David Schnell (pictured) were West German. The name stuck, however, and New Leipzig School works became immensely popular.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/C. Jaspersen
Global images
Tim Eitel's figurative paintings hang in many private collections around the world. His connection with the New Leipzig School helped him to fame. Often based on newspaper clippings or photographs, his works comment on our society.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/M. Murat
From artist to mentor
Arno Rink,75, studied at the Leipzig Academy for Visual Arts, and he also taught at the academy in the early 1970s. His early works are influenced by Picasso, Dix and Beckmann, and many echo mythical themes. Rink is the link between East Germany's Leipzig School and today's New Leipzig School.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/B. Wüstneck
Founding fathers
In terms of a specific genre, the Leipzig School didn't really exist. The name evolved when several painters from Leipzig - Bernhard Heisig (pictured), Wolfgang Mattheuer and Werner Tübke - were invited to the documenta 6 exhibition in 1977. These artists had increasingly moved away from State-sanctioned art and socialist realism from the 1960s.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/F. Bruns
Walls of perception
The trio was labeled the "artistic miracle" of the East. Werner Tübke - regarded as a Traditionalist and a critical realist - was famous in East Germany for numerous large scale wall paintings. His works disappeared after reunification.
Image: picture-alliance/ZB
Never to be silenced
Wolfgang Mattheuer used strong images from ancient mythology in his works, that often focused on the fears and desires harbored by his fellow East Germans. Like the other Leipzig painters, Mattheuer wouldn't be silenced by East German authorities. The artists also didn't want to belong to a "School," and refused the label Leipzig School.
Image: picture-alliance/ZB/P. Endig
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When MoMa Director Glenn Lowry went shopping in Germany in January 2008 for the New York Museum of Modern Art collection, he purchased works by Joseph Beuys, Martin Kippenberger, Andreas Gursky - and a painting by Neo Rauch.
The Leipzig artist is one of Germany's leading stars. His figurative, neo-Socialist, retro-style works have put the quality stamp on the New Leipzig School - a brand that is almost as well-known as Volkswagen or BMW.
New German art shows the way
Feature writers call the phenomenon a "German painting miracle." At the turn of the century, the term New Leipzig School made waves for the first time, with collectors and museum curators at the world's most prestigious art fairs vying for works by young Leipzig art students.
Neo Rauch, a native to the eastern German city, studied at the Leipzig Academy for Visual Arts from 1981 to 1986. He spent the next four years as a master student to Bernhard Heisig, a pioneer of the "old" Leipzig School.
The term 'New Leipzig School' emerged as a new generation of young artists followed in Neo Rauch's tracks, daring once again to represent reality - a sensation at the time, as the 1990s were dominated by installations that took a critical view of the market and the museum.
Oil on canvas
Neo Rauch's works are exhibited at many of the world's leading galleriesImage: Neo Rauch/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2015, Courtesy Galerie EIGEN+ART Leipzig/Berlin, David Zwirner, New York/London
Rauch skyrocketed to stardom. His art dealer, Gerd Harry Lybke, helped open the US market to the Leipzig artist's works. Today, Rauch's works hang in museums in Miami, Los Angeles and, of course, MoMA in New York.
The 'individual under threat' is a central motif in Rauch's art. The 55-year-old artist skews everyday themes, and puts them together in unusual combinations charged with symbolism. The clothing worn by the people he depicts are from different eras. He creates mysterious images that have a touch of the surreal: there is no clear-cut interpretation. The colors Neo Rauch uses tend to be dull, which gives the works the feeling of belonging to a different era.
"Im Schlaf der Welt" at Bötzow Berlin - Rauch's first solo exhibition in six years - shows key works from his oeuvre: large-format oil paintings, graphics and two bronze sculptures. The exhibition runs until March 15, 2016.
