Andreas Nottebohm, born in 1944, is an American/German artist whose work is associated with op art,

visionary art Visionary art is art that purports to transcend the physical world and portray a wider vision of awareness including spiritual or mystical themes, or is based in such experiences. History The Vienna School of Fantastic Realism, first estab ...

, and

space art "Space art" (also "astronomical art") is the term for a genre of modern artistic expression that strives to show the wonders of the Universe. Like other genres, space art has many facets and encompasses realism, impressionism, hardware art, scu ...

. He is considered one of the key innovators of metal painting.

Life

Born and raised in

Eisenach Eisenach () is a town in Thuringia, Germany with 42,000 inhabitants, located west of Erfurt, southeast of Kassel and northeast of Frankfurt. It is the main urban centre of western Thuringia and bordering northeastern Hessian regions, situat ...

East Germany East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...

, he moved to

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...

West Germany West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...

, as a teenager. From 1965 to 1969, he studied at the

Academy of Fine Arts The following is a list of notable art schools. Accredited non-profit art and design colleges * Adelaide Central School of Art * Alberta College of Art and Design * Art Academy of Cincinnati * Art Center College of Design * The Art Institute ...

under

surrealist Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to ...

painter Mac Zimmermann. In 1968, he studied

etching Etching is traditionally the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio (incised) in the metal. In modern manufacturing, other chemicals may be used on other types ...

Johnny Friedlaender Johnny Friedlaender (26 December 1912 – 18 June 1992) was a leading German/French 20th-century artist, whose works have been exhibited in Germany, France, Netherlands, Italy, Japan and the United States. He has been influential upon oth ...

's workshop in

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. From 1971 to 1974, he studied lithography in Salzburg, Austria. He returned to Munich in 1974. During the early 1970s, he first experimented with using metal as a canvas by utilizing used etching plates for his paintings. Nottebohm first visited the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

for a one-man exhibition in 1978. After traveling throughout the United States, he chose to make the

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Go ...

his home.

Career

Andreas Nottebohm first visited the United States for a one-man show with Galerie Ernst Hilger iennaat WASH-ART in Washington, D.C. in 1978. Starting in 1981,

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil List of government space agencies, space program ...

commissioned Nottebohm to create major works, including official paintings to commemorate the first launch of the Space Shuttle ''Columbia'' in 1981. His work has been featured in museums and galleries around the world including the permanent collections of the

Crocker Art Museum The Crocker Art Museum is the oldest art museum in the Western United States, located in Sacramento, California. Founded in 1885, the museum holds one of the premier collections of Californian art. The collection includes American works dating f ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

, the

Nevada Museum of Art The Nevada Museum of Art, is an art museum in Reno, Nevada. Located at 160 West Liberty Street in Reno, it is the only American Alliance of Museums (AAM) accredited art museum in the state of Nevada. The museum has chosen a thematic approach, placi ...

, and the Air and Space Museum of the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...

. He has had over one hundred one-man shows in Europe and the United States.

Critical assessment

* "These raw yet refined paintings on aluminum lend themselves to rich multi-layered metaphors capable of continual regeneration... Nottebohm will be seen as a pioneer in a field that has just begun to be mined." ( askArt) * "Nottebohm would have to be "hands down" the King of metal art. There are many artists using metal today, but Andreas' art has more than set the standard. He has raised the bar to the point that very few, if any who come after him, will ever achieve his success". ('' Sacramento Press'')

Selected museums and collections

Adonal Foyle Adonal David Foyle (born March 9, 1975) is a Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Vincentian-American former professional basketball Center (basketball), center. He was selected by the Golden State Warriors with the eighth overall selection of the 19 ...

, Oakland, California *Association of the Friends Haus der Kunst,

Bell Atlantic Verizon Communications Inc., commonly known as Verizon, is an American multinational telecommunications conglomerate and a corporate component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The company is headquartered at 1095 Avenue of the Americas i ...

Sacramento, California ) , image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg , mapsize = 250x200px , map_caption = Location within Sacramento ...

* Embassy of Germany, Canberra, Australia *

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(Congress),

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* Geico *

Hughes Aircraft The Hughes Aircraft Company was a major American aerospace and defense contractor founded on February 14, 1934 by Howard Hughes in Glendale, California, as a division of Hughes Tool Company. The company was known for producing, among other pro ...

Iomega Iomega (later LenovoEMC) produced external, portable, and networked data storage products. Established in the 1980s in Roy, Utah, United States, Iomega sold more than 410 million digital storage drives and disks, including the Zip drive floppy ...

, Utah *iSearch Media, Inc., San Francisco, California *Karl Kreuzer, Germany *

Kennedy Space Center The John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC, originally known as the NASA Launch Operations Center), located on Merritt Island, Florida, is one of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) ten field centers. Since December 1968 ...

Art Gallery *

Museum of Modern Art, Rio de Janeiro A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these ...

Reno, Nevada Reno ( ) is a city in the northwest section of the U.S. state of Nevada, along the Nevada-California border, about north from Lake Tahoe, known as "The Biggest Little City in the World". Known for its casino and tourism industry, Reno is the ...

*Collection of the

Free Library of Philadelphia The Free Library of Philadelphia is the public library system that serves Philadelphia. It is the 13th-largest public library system in the United States. The Free Library of Philadelphia is a non-Mayoral agency of the City of Philadelphia gover ...

*City of

Salzburg Salzburg (, ; literally "Salt-Castle"; bar, Soizbuag, label= Austro-Bavarian) is the fourth-largest city in Austria. In 2020, it had a population of 156,872. The town is on the site of the Roman settlement of ''Iuvavum''. Salzburg was founded ...

Satellite Business Systems Satellite Business Systems (SBS) was a company founded by IBM, Aetna, COMSAT (and later wholly purchased by IBM and then subsequently sold to MCI), that provided private professional satellite communications through its SBS fleet of FSS geosy ...

Schweinfurt Schweinfurt ( , ; ) is a city in the district of Lower Franconia in Bavaria, Germany. It is the administrative centre of the surrounding district (''Landkreis'') of Schweinfurt and a major industrial, cultural and educational hub. The urban ag ...

* Stephen W. Hawking: Portfolio A Brief History of My Time

Selected productions and credits

25th Anniversary CNN television special *"In the Stream of Stars", a Soviet-American space art book. *Painting "Dreams of Space" official poster of

EXPO 86 The 1986 World Exposition on Transportation and Communication, or simply Expo 86, was a World's Fair held in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada from May 2 until October 13, 1986. The fair, the theme of which was "Transportation and Communicatio ...

World's Fair in

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...

, British Columbia, Canada. *Painting "First Night Launch" used as center foldout by ''OMNI'' magazine for May 1986 issue dedicated to the memory of the ''Challenger'' Seven crew. *Lecture and slide show of photos from the launch of ''Columbia'' and paintings with astronomer Reinhard Breuer, from the

Max Planck Institute Max or MAX may refer to: Animals * Max (dog) (1983–2013), at one time purported to be the world's oldest living dog * Max (English Springer Spaniel), the first pet dog to win the PDSA Order of Merit (animal equivalent of OBE) * Max (gorilla) ...

*Article in ''Zoom Magazine'' on Space Shuttle ''Columbia'' launch and Closest Encounter with Saturn. *"Astropoeticon, Hommage a Pink Floyd", hardcover artbook with 39 original paintings and text by H.F. Franke

Current project

Nottebohm is currently completing a ten-year project with

Pete Sears Peter Roy Sears (born 27 May 1948) is an English rock musician. In a career spanning more than six decades, he has been a member of many bands and has moved through a variety of musical genres, from early R&B, psychedelic improvisational rock o ...

of Jefferson Starship, Hot Tuna, and

Moonalice Moonalice is an American rock band, formed from previous members of the Flying Other Brothers. The band has been touring since May 2007, and has come to the attention of music critics. The band is currently made up of ten musicians, and led by ...

, which combines twelve pure metal artworks with twelve "out-on-the-edge" pieces of experimental music.

30-year retrospective

Nottebohm's first museum retrospective opened at the

University of Arizona The University of Arizona (Arizona, U of A, UArizona, or UA) is a public land-grant research university in Tucson, Arizona. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, it was the first university in the Arizona Territory. T ...

Art Museum, on May 28, 2011, and ran through September 2011.Archived
New Gallery Exhibition, "Zenith II"

References

External links

* *

Modernism website

San Rafael Patch article "Phantasmagoria"

Laura Rathe Fine Art Galleries, Dallas and Houston

Wertheim Contemporary Art, Maui
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nottebohm, Andreas 1944 births Space artists NASA Artists from California Living people Op art German contemporary artists