German artist Erwin Pfrang (1951 Munich) confronts us with his raw-realistic images, painted on canvas in tertiary, earthy colours or in loose graphite expressions on paper. The bizarre arrangement of elements and characters with disordered proportions and perspective evoke a striking emotional response. The oeuvre relates in its figuration to Bosch or Ensor and certainly to Lucian Freud in its painterly quality.
Earlier work among his many drawings are being associated with Informalism or Tachism, a European movement parallel to American abstract expressionism. Literature has often been an inspirational ground for Pfrang, with resulting series of work dedicated to the work by Irish writer James Joyce (Dubliners, Ulysses), German Expressionist writer Albert Ehrenstein (tale Tubutsch) or Irish composer Gerald Barry (opera The Intelligence Park).
With his more recent paintings Pfrang experiments even stronger with perspective, proportions, movement, depth and figuration in a masterly manner. The paintings and drawings appeal, hypnotize where they come alive as you enter in the artist’s alternative world.
Erwin Pfrang studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. He spend many years on different location in Italy and Germany before moving to Berlin where he currently lives and works. The work of Erwin Pfrang is included in different public collections such as the Museum on Modern Art, New York; Morgan Library, New York; Duerckheim Collection, London; Saint Louis Art Museum, Missouri; Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, München; Albertina, Vienna; Busch-Reisinger Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts; Fogg Art Museum, Harvard; Neue Pinakothek, Munich; Missouri; Staatliche Graphische Sammlung München, Munich and the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven.
Selected solo exhibitions include Erwin Pfrang: ‘Neue Bilder’, Galerie Fred Jahn, München; ‘Paintings’, Daniel Weinberg Gallery, Los Angeles; ‘Hades and Other Drawings’, Nolan/Eckman Gallery, New York and ‘Circe Drawings’, Bank of Ireland Arts Centre, Dublin, Ireland. Group exhibitions include ‘Deutsche Zeichnungen und Originalgrafik der Gegenwart’, Wolfram Völcker Fine Art, Berlin; ‘Joyce in Art’, Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin, Ireland and ‘Dreams 1900–2000’, The Equitable Gallery, New York and Passage de Retz, Paris.
