Werner Tübke. Metamorphoses

Werner Tübke’s (1929–2004) outstanding contribution to post-war German art was recognized early on by the West German art critic Eduard Beaucamp. In 2023, Barbara and Eduard Beaucamp donated to the Städel Museum an impressive and representative collection of forty-six drawings and watercolours by Tübke, spanning all the creative phases of the painter and graphic artist. The Städel Museum is exhibiting this special gift, tracing Tübke’s metaphorical pictorial language, characterized by transformations and alienations.

His watercolours and drawings in graphite, pen and chalk are an essential part of his artistic œuvre, demonstrating a great deal of creative freedom and independence: in them he collected ideas, explored formal considerations and developed a wide variety of themes. Tübke, who lived in Leipzig all his life, was one of the most important painters of the former German Democratic Republic. Along with Bernhard Heisig and Wolfgang Mattheuer, he is considered one of the main representatives of the so-called First Leipzig School and occupies a unique position in German post-war art.