Sigmar Polke - vendere e comprare opere

Born 13 February 1941 in Oels (Lower Silesia), Sigmar Polke was a German painter and photographer. He died in Cologne on 10 June 2010.

Polke’s entire family escaped from East Germany to West Berlin in 1953 and then settled in Willich. Polke completed an apprenticeship as glass painter in the Imperial Shipyards in Dusseldorf from 1959–1960. He then studied under Gerhard Hoehme and Karl Otto Götz at the Dusseldorf Art Academy from 1961–1967.

Polke co-founded ‘Capitalist Realism’ in 1963 with Gerhard Richter and Konrad Lueg. The trio staged their first public exhibition in Kaiserstraße 31A in Düsseldorf in collaboration with Manfred Kuttner.

Polke was a visiting professor at the University of Fine Arts Hamburg in 1970/71, and was awarded a full professorship in 1977, which he held until 1991.

Before moving to Cologne, he was a member of the Willicher Gaspelshof artists’ commune from 1972–1978.

He used photographs taken during his frequent travels in the 1970s and 1980s as a basis for many of his paintings.

Polke exhibited as an artist at the Documenta V, Documenta VI and Documenta VII. His last major work was to refurbish the glass window of Großmünster church in Zurich. He died of cancer in 2010.