A. R. Penck (b. 1939)

‘With his signs, symbols, metaphors and even allegories [Penck] made use of an aesthetic range of instruments which had been neglected or disposed in modern art. At the same time, however, he also used radical simplification and linearity to form a completely new style which differed markedly from the language of forms based on antiquity, which had prevailed throughout the centuries from the Renaissance to Art Nouveau. He also included the energetic, informal brushwork and the serial methods of Op Art, and equally happily added Expressionist figures. Perhaps we can see in the art of A.R. Penck the beginning of Post-Modernism.’
(Prof. W. Schmidt in conversation with Dr. G. Porstmann, in Being and Essence. The Unknown A.R. Penck: Works from the Jürgen Schweinebraden collection, exh. cat., Dresden Municipal Gallery, Dresden, 2008, pp. 14-15).