Klaus Drechsler
Allegorien des Lebens

22. April 2023 — 17. June 2023

Klaus Drechsler looks back on a large and enduring body of work, always with an eye on the fragile beauty and transience of life. The upcoming exhibition brings together paintings, watercolours and drawings from over thirty years of creative work with the artist's current sculptures.

  • Klaus Drechsler – „Fang-Maske mit Anthurienblüte“
  • Klaus Drechsler – „Mulattin“
  • Klaus Drechsler – „Überreife Banane“
  • Klaus Drechsler – „Stillleben mit schwarzer Teekanne“
  • Klaus Drechsler – „Blauer Birnenteller“
  • Klaus Drechsler – „Stillleben mit Melonenstück“
  • Klaus Drechsler – „Granatapfel mit gedrehter Zinnflasche“
  • Klaus Drechsler – „Schreihals“
  • Klaus Drechsler – „Drei kleine Räucherfische“
  • Klaus Drechsler – „Draufgänger“
  • Klaus Drechsler – „Frauenmantel und Glockenblume“
  • Klaus Drechsler – „Kleines Stillleben mit Kaktusfrucht und Birne“
  • Klaus Drechsler – „Sehnsucht“
  • Klaus Drechsler – „Schnepfenstolz“
  • Klaus Drechsler – „Stillleben mit Mohnzopf“
  • Klaus Drechsler – „Zinnteller mit Granatapfel, Birne und Mandarine“
  • Klaus Drechsler – „Melonenstück, zwei Birnen, ein Apfel“
  • Klaus Drechsler – „Granatapfel und Schüssel IV“
  • Klaus Drechsler – „Blaue Hortensie I“
  • Klaus Drechsler – „Alter Philosoph II“
  • Klaus Drechsler – „Stillleben mit halber Melone“
  • Klaus Drechsler – „Das große Flohbegräbnis (Alptraum I)“
  • Klaus Drechsler – „Aufzug der großen Maske (Alptraum II)“
  • Klaus Drechsler – „Selbstbetrachtung“
  • Klaus Drechsler – „Spielkarten mit Apfelteller I“
  • Klaus Drechsler – „Die kleine Frau W.“
  • Klaus Drechsler – „Eiertiegel mit blauer Kanne“
  • Klaus Drechsler – „Rosa Hyazinthe“
  • Klaus Drechsler – „Vergeblichkeit“
  • Klaus Drechsler – „Schlammsichler“
  • Klaus Drechsler – „Suchende“
  • Klaus Drechsler – „Laufsteg (Alptraum)“
  • Klaus Drechsler – „Großer Kopf über grauer Masse (Alptraum)“
  • Klaus Drechsler – „Alternder Clown“
  • Klaus Drechsler – „Stillleben mit rotem Meeresfisch I“
  • Klaus Drechsler – „Alter Philosoph II“
  • Klaus Drechsler – „Hyazinthe mit Doppelblüte II“
  • Klaus Drechsler – „Torhaus Lochmühle“
  • Klaus Drechsler – „Kleiner Kultwagen II“
  • Klaus Drechsler – „Verfallenes Turbinenhaus (Liebethaler Grund)“
  • Klaus Drechsler – „Seitenflügel Gutshof Helfenberg“
  • Klaus Drechsler – „Häuser an der Seidewitz I (Zuschendorf-Pirna)“
  • Klaus Drechsler – „Gelbe Rhododendronblüten“
  • Klaus Drechsler – „Kleiner Kultwagen I“
  • Klaus Drechsler – „Weißbrot mit Birnenteller“
  • Klaus Drechsler – „Beschädigte Meeresschnecke“
  • Klaus Drechsler – „Stillleben mit Räucherfisch“
  • Klaus Drechsler – „Zitronenzweig auf großer Schale“
  • Klaus Drechsler – „Schnüffler“
  • Klaus Drechsler – „Kleines Stillleben mit Kaktusfrucht und Birne“
  • Klaus Drechsler – „Vanitasstillleben mit Spiegel II“
  • Klaus Drechsler – „Schwarze Teekanne mit Zitronenzweig“
  • Klaus Drechsler – „Eile“
Klaus Drechsler

Klaus Drechsler

Klaus Drechsler looks back on a large and enduring body of work, always with an eye on the fragile beauty and transience of life. His paintings, graphic works and sculptures grew steadily over five decades without any internal breaks, independent yet in constant friction with art history and his time.

Details

Introduction

The subtle tones resonate in Klaus Drechsler's highly cultivated watercolour paintings. It is no coincidence that still lifes and seemingly deserted rural habitats are among his main themes. Klaus Drechsler is a magician of light who brings forth a glow from the depths of his paintings that is scarcely believed possible. Klaus Drechsler was born into a family of farm workers who had to leave their home in Silesia after the end of the war. Drechsler's early years were overshadowed by the experiences of German and Soviet troops passing through, some of whom were completely brutalised. These experiences, some of them traumatic, left him with a vulnerability, a sensitivity and keen hearing that sharpened his senses and became a prerequisite for his artistic work.

Klaus Drechsler spent his childhood and youth in Lusatia. Later, he settled in idyllic Wachwitzgrund, on the outskirts of Dresden. It was in this environment that his distinctive work emerged. Drechsler's extensive paintings, graphic art and sculptures grew steadily over five decades, without any internal breaks, independently, yet in constant confrontation with art and contemporary history. The central theme is vanitas, the cycle of becoming and passing away, the relationship between beauty and transience. His basic motifs are conceivably unspectacular and taken from everyday life: Klaus Drechsler finds suitable metaphors for transience in the faces of elderly people, in the depiction of abandoned farmsteads, in bread and ripe fruit. Drechsler's pictures lead us to pause and question. Muted, gently glowing colours define his precious colour scheme, which corresponds to the light and shade of life and helps the subjects to take on a life of their own. Colourful yet subdued, with gentle transitions from light to shadow, a quiet tone emerges that testifies to a deep respect for the subject of the painting. Since the 1990s, he has also been working in sculpture, in which, as in his drawings, he grapples with the creative task of depicting human and animal figures. Literary, character portraits, human and all-too-human traits – all of these find an exploratory and at the same time revealing representation, even to the point of caricature and crude, drastic tones. Drechsler's sculptures are the creations of a brilliant designer who wants above all to tell stories with his figures. Light and shadow catch on the rugged, craggy surface of the bronze outer skin. The seemingly vibrating surfaces are given an almost painterly patina. Here, too, the painter in the sculptor reveals himself. All of Klaus Drechsler's creations, whether in painting or sculpture, possess a certain gentleness, a fundamental humanism, revealing his humility towards things, his love of humanity and his sacred wonder at the nature of the world.