NORBERT SCHWONTKOWSKI

Norbert Schwontkowski (1949–2013) was long known for his earthy, subdued colours. It was not until late in his life that he began to use bright colors in some of his works. He initially worked with inexpensive materials, mixing pigments with linseed oil and other substances, and experimented, amongst other things, with metal oxides, whose chemical reactions altered the colours in unpredictable ways. In this way, Schwontkowski also deliberately incorporated an element of chance into his painting process.

From marshy backgrounds, painted wet-on-wet, stage-like landscapes develop, figures and objects – ‘dreamscapes’ that blend the fantastical with the everyday. Recurring motifs such as hotels, railway stations and ships allude to new beginnings, wanderlust and liminality, whilst abandoned places and undefined landscapes convey a sense of transience and nostalgia. The works are characterised by a lightness and a laconic humour, which are also reflected in Schwontkowski’s titles and define him as a person.

The exhibition shows 14 paintings from different creative phases of the artist’s career, which have been in private collections in Switzerland and Germany for many years. The eponymous work Der Erfinder der Tricolore (2009) was shown in 2013, shortly before his death, in the extensive solo exhibition Blind Man’s Faith at the Kunstverein Hamburg.

In United (2004), an aeroplane wreck lies amongst birch trunks in a barren, deserted landscape. The logo of the American airline United can be made out on what remains of the fuselage. The painting was created three years after the attack on the World Trade Centre in New York and the ensuing disastrous ‘War on Terror.’ This serves as a prime example of a painter who, whilst not taking an overtly political stance, did not create his work in a political, social or historical vacuum. On a symbolic level, the image could represent a failed journey or a dashed hope. The work was exhibited alongside the piece opposite, Video (2001), in his comprehensive solo exhibition Kino in 2004 at the Kunsthalle Bremen.

Schwontkowski grew up in the Blumenthal district of Bremen in a religious family steeped in the imagery of Catholicism. A feeling that always accompanied him was a longing for distant places. Maritime motifs, which appeared time and again in his work, reflected this. He undertook journeys lasting months and spent extended periods in Asia and Australia, yet he always returned to the center of his life and work, which lay between Bremen and Berlin.

From 1991 to 2001, Schwontkowski taught at the Braunschweig University of Art, followed by a professorship at the Hamburg University of Fine Arts from 2005 to 2009.

Numerous institutional retrospectives have been dedicated to the artist, including Three by Chance at the Kunsthalle Bremen (2024) and the exhibition Some of My Secrets, which debuted at the Kunstmuseum Bonn (2019), which was also shown at the Kunsthalle Bremen (2020) and later at the Kunstmuseum Den Haag (2020) under the title Everyone Wants to Go Home. Schwontkowki held further major solo exhibitions at the Kolumba Museum in Cologne (2013), the Kunstverein Hamburg (2013), the Rubell Family Collection in Miami (2006), the Brandenburg Art Collections in Cottbus (2005), the Kunsthalle Erfurt (2005) and the Kunsthalle Bremen (2004). In 2006, he took part in the acclaimed 4th Berlin Biennale Of Mice and Men, curated by Maurizio Cattelan, Ali Subotnick and Massimiliano Gioni.