Lothar Osterburg (born 1961) is a German-born, New York-based artist and master printer in '' intaglio'', who works in sculpture, photography, printmaking and video.Pfaff, Judy. "Timeless Constructions," ''Art On Paper'', November/December 2004, p. 46–7.Beeson, John
"Lothar Osterburg at Lesley Heller Gallery,"
''Bomb Magazine'', October 19, 2009. Retrieved August 10, 2020.Smithson, Aline
"Lothar Osterburg: at Sea,"
''Lenscratch'', April 14, 2017. Retrieved August 10, 2020. He is best known for

photogravure Photogravure (in French ''héliogravure'') is a process for printing photographs, also sometimes used for reproductive intaglio printmaking. It is a photo-mechanical process whereby a copper plate is grained (adding a pattern to the plate) and ...

s featuring rough small-scale models of rustic structures, water and air vessels, and imaginary cities, staged in evocative settings and photographed to appear life-size to disorienting, mysterious or whimsical effect.Cotter, Holland
"10 Galleries to Visit on the Lower East Side,"
''The New York Times'', April 16, 2015, p. C34. Retrieved August 10, 2020.Walde, Gabriela

''Berliner Morgenpost'', March 2, 2011, p. 19.Donohoe, Victoria. "Lothar Osterburg, Haverford College," ''The Philadelphia Inquirer'', March 10, 2002. ''New York Times'' critic

Grace Glueck Grace Glueck (July 24, 1926 – October 8, 2022) was an American arts journalist. She worked for ''The New York Times'' from 1951 until the early 2010s. Early life Glueck was born in New York City on July 24, 1926. Her father, Ernest, worked ...

writes that Osterburg's rich-toned, retro prints "conjur up monumental phenomena by minimal means";

Judy Pfaff Judy Pfaff (born 1946) is an American artist known mainly for installation art and sculptures, though she also produces paintings and prints. Pfaff has received numerous awards for her work, including a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundati ...

describes his work as thick with ''

film noir Film noir (; ) is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and motivations. The 1940s and 1950s are generally regarded as the "classic period" of American ' ...

''–like atmosphere, warmth, reverie, drama and timelessness.Glueck, Grace
"Lothar Osterburg 'At the Edge of the Real,'"
''The New York Times'', September 19, 2003, p. E39. Retrieved August 10, 2020. Osterburg has received a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

and awards from the

American Academy of Arts and Letters The American Academy of Arts and Letters is a 300-member honor society whose goal is to "foster, assist, and sustain excellence" in American literature, music, and art. Its fixed number membership is elected for lifetime appointments. Its headqu ...

and

New York Foundation for the Arts The New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) is an independent 501(c)(3) charity, funded through government, foundation, corporate, and individual support, established in 1971. It is part of a network of national not-for-profit arts organizations ...

,''Artforum''
"2010 Guggenheim Fellows Announced,"
News, April 17, 2010. Retrieved August 10, 2020.Rosenberg, Bonnie. "Photogravure Finish," ''CityArts'', April 7, 2010, p. 4.John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation
Lothar Osterburg
Fellows. Retrieved August 6, 2020. and his work has been acquired by the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...

and

Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 mill ...

, among others.The Metropolitan Museum of Art
''Piranesi State 1'', 2008, Lothar Osterburg
Collection. Retrieved August 12, 2020.Art Institute of Chicago
Lothar Osterburg
Artists. Retrieved August 12, 2020. He has exhibited at the

International Print Center New York International Print Center New York is a non-profit organization dedicated to the appreciation and understanding of fine art prints. It was founded by Anne Coffin and established in Chelsea, Manhattan, New York City in September 2000 as the only ...

, Instituto Cultural Peruano Norteamericano (ICPNA, Lima, Peru),

Museum of Fine Arts Boston The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 paintings and more than 450,000 works ...

, and Center for Photography at Woodstock (CPW).Pascale, Mark. "A Few Remarks," ''Anchor Graphics'', Columbia College Chicago, Spring 2008.Gereda, Ernesto Carlín. "Espacios Imaginados," ''El Peruano'' (Lima Peru), March 10, 2010. As a master printer, Osterburg has worked with artists including

Ida Applebroog Ida Applebroog (born November 11, 1929) is an American multi-media artist who is best-known for her paintings and sculptures that explore the themes of gender, sexual identity, violence and politics. Applebroog has been the recipient of multiple ...

Lee Friedlander Lee Friedlander (born July 14, 1934) is an American photographer and artist. In the 1960s and 1970s, Friedlander evolved an influential and often imitated visual language of urban "social landscape," with many of his photographs including fragm ...

Adam Fuss Adam Fuss (born 1961) is a British photographer. Early life Adam Fuss was born in England in 1961. His father manufactured women's coats and his mother was an Australian fashion model. Fuss's father suffered a stroke in 1963 and required cons ...

David Lynch David Keith Lynch (born January 20, 1946) is an American filmmaker, visual artist and actor. A recipient of an Academy Honorary Award in 2019, Lynch has received three Academy Award nominations for Best Director, and the César Award for Be ...

, McDermott and McGough, and

Lorna Simpson Lorna Simpson (born August 13, 1960) is an American photographer and multimedia artist. She came to prominence in the 1980s and 1990s with artworks such as ''Guarded Conditions'' and ''Square Deal''. Simpson is most well-known for her work in c ...

.Bard College
Lothar Osterburg
Faculty. Retrieved August 7, 2020. After working in Brooklyn for many years, he is now based near

Red Hook, New York Red Hook is a town in Dutchess County, New York, United States. The population was 9,953 at the time of the 2020 census, down from 11,319 in 2010. The name is supposedly derived from the red foliage on trees on a small strip of land on the Huds ...

in the

Hudson Valley The Hudson Valley (also known as the Hudson River Valley) comprises the valley of the Hudson River and its adjacent communities in the U.S. state of New York. The region stretches from the Capital District including Albany and Troy south to ...

and serves as Artist-in-Residence in printmaking at

Bard College Bard College is a private liberal arts college in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. The campus overlooks the Hudson River and Catskill Mountains, and is within the Hudson River Historic District—a National Historic Landmark. Founded in 1860, ...

Early life and career

Osterburg was born in

Braunschweig Braunschweig () or Brunswick ( , from Low German ''Brunswiek'' , Braunschweig dialect: ''Bronswiek'') is a city in Lower Saxony, Germany, north of the Harz Mountains at the farthest navigable point of the river Oker, which connects it to the Nor ...

, West Germany, in 1961.Klötzer, Gunter (ed)
''Germans in America''
Stuttgart, Germany: Arnoldsche Art Publishers, 2008, p. 102–3, 220–1. Retrieved August 10, 2020. In his youth, he trained as a musician, playing double bass and piano, but turned to art at

Hochschule für bildende Künste Braunschweig The Braunschweig University of Art (Hochschule für Bildende Künste Braunschweig, HBK) is the second largest College of Fine Arts in Germany. History The history goes back to the “Zeichnen-Instithut” (Drawing Institute) founded by the Brun ...

, earning a degree in printmaking and experimental filmmaking.Non-Native New York
Lothar Osterburg
2010. Retrieved August 10, 2020. After participating in a university exchange program in San Francisco, he immigrated to the United States in 1987 and worked as a printer at the

de Soto De Soto commonly refers to * Hernando de Soto (c. 1495 – 1542), Spanish explorer * DeSoto (automobile), an American automobile brand from 1928 to 1961 De Soto, DeSoto, Desoto, or de Soto may also refer to: Places in the United States of Ameri ...

Workshop (San Francisco) and

Graphicstudio Graphicstudio is an art studio and print workshop at the University of South Florida in Tampa, Florida, established in 1968 by Donald Saff. Graphicstudio with the Contemporary Art Museum and the Public Art Program form the Institute for Research ...

(Tampa) and as master printer at

Crown Point Press Crown Point Press is a long-established printmaking workshop, primarily creating and publishing etched, intaglio prints. Located in San Francisco since 1986, Crown Point Press was first established in 1962 in Richmond California by Kathan Brown. ...

in San Francisco, where he learned the process of photogravure on a project for artist

Christian Boltanski Christian Liberté Boltanski (6 September 1944 – 14 July 2021) was a French sculptor, photographer, painter, and film maker. He is best known for his photography installations and contemporary French Conceptual art, conceptual style. Early li ...

.Lenfant, Natalie. "Earth, crayon and burnt newspaper provide artistic media for Student Union exhibit," ''Golden Gater'', February18, 1988, p. 6.Crohn, Jennifer. "Out in the Open," ''San Francisco Bay Guardian'', November 6, 1991, p. 21. While in the Bay Area, Osterburg produced mixed-media landscape-and-architecture works that combined black-and-white photographs, gestural abstract drawing, scraps of burnt newspapers and small, linear wire sculptures;Brunson, Jamie. "Matching Material and Concept," ''Artweek'', April 2, 1988, p. 5. critics such as Kenneth Baker described their suggestions of devastation, war and decay as theatrical and bleak, yet bristling with energy, like the work of

Anselm Kiefer Anselm Kiefer (born 8 March 1945) is a German painter and sculptor. He studied with Peter Dreher and Horst Antes at the end of the 1960s. His works incorporate materials such as straw, ash, clay, lead, and shellac. The poems of Paul Celan hav ...

.Baker, Kenneth. "The Art of Social Criticism Back in Vogue," ''San Francisco Chronicle'', March 30, 1988.Thomas, Sherry Lee. "Ideals," ''Artweek'', February 21, 1991. Osterburg exhibited at Southern Exposure and the Show n' Tell and Hatley Martin galleries, as well as shows in Germany, Japan, Indonesia and the Philippines.Weichardt, Jürgen. "Ein junger Künstler stellt im Amtsgericht aus," ''Nordwest Zeitung'', February 6, 1989.Kato, Emiko. "Sincere Attitude for Art Market: Six New American Artists," ''Atelier Magazine of International Art'' (Japan), December 1991. In 1993, Osterburg started his own print studio specializing in photogravure, which he moved to New York City in 1994 (and Brooklyn in 2003). During an artist residency at

MacDowell Colony MacDowell is an artist's residency program in Peterborough, New Hampshire, United States, founded in 1907 by composer Edward MacDowell and his wife, pianist and philanthropist Marian MacDowell. Prior to July 2020, it was known as the MacDowel ...

in 1996, he met his wife and future collaborator, composer Elizabeth Brown.NewMusic USA
"A Bookmobile for Dreamers,"
April 2013. Retrieved August 10, 2020.Elizabeth Brown official website
Retrieved August 16, 2020. Since moving to New York, Osterburg has exhibited at Takara Gallery (Houston, 1996–8), Moeller Fine Art (New York and Berlin, 2003–11), Highpoint Center for Printmaking (2006), Fitchburg Art Museum (2007), Lesley Heller Gallery (2009–18), and

Rockland Center for the Arts West Nyack is a hamlet and census-designated place in the town of Clarkstown, Rockland County, New York, United States. It is located north of Blauvelt, east of Nanuet, southwest of Valley Cottage, southeast of Bardonia, and west of Central Nya ...

, CPW and ICPNA (all 2010), among others.Metzger, Michael. "Photogravure," ''Southwest Journal'', February 13–26, 2006, p. 29.Lama, Luis E. "Megaeventos," ''Caretas'' (Lima Peru), March 25, 2010. He has been a member of the Studio Art faculty of Bard College since 1998, and taught printmaking at

Cooper Union The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art (Cooper Union) is a private college at Cooper Square in New York City. Peter Cooper founded the institution in 1859 after learning about the government-supported École Polytechnique in ...

(2002–14),

Pratt Institute Pratt Institute is a private university with its main campus in Brooklyn, New York (state), New York. It has a satellite campus in Manhattan and an extension campus in Utica, New York at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute. The school was ...

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

and Lacoste School of the Arts in France.The Cooper Union
"Lothar Osterburg Exhibitions and Screenings,"
About. Retrieved August 7, 2020. He has conducted photogravure workshops at art programs and institutions throughout the United States.

Work and reception

Osterburg's work combines the authority of photography with fanciful, rough models and real outdoor settings to create images suspended between real, imaginary and lost that obscure scale and period.Freestone, Jenny. "About the Cover Artists – Lothar Osterburg," ''Washington Print Club'', Summer/Fall 2014, p. 2–4. He is a leading teacher and practitioner of photogravure, a 19th-century intaglio process combining printmaking and early photography techniques that was developed by

Henry Fox Talbot William Henry Fox Talbot FRS FRSE FRAS (; 11 February 180017 September 1877) was an English scientist, inventor, and photography pioneer who invented the salted paper and calotype processes, precursors to photographic processes of the later ...

and

Karel Klíč Karel Václav Klíč (sometimes written Karl Klietsch, 30 May 1841, Hostinné – 16 November 1926, Vienna) was a Czech painter, photographer, early comics artist, caricaturist, lithographer and illustrator. He was one of the inventors of photogr ...

and has remained largely unchanged and little-used.Morrish, David and Marlene MacCallum
''Copperplate Photogravure: Denystifying the Process''
Amsterdam, Boston: Focal Press, 2003. Retrieved August 17, 2020.Highpoint Center for Printmaking. "Strangely Familiar" Photogravures by Lothar Osterburg," ''Press Time'', Spring/Summer 2006, p. 1–2. Photogravure's rich, velvety blacks, continuous infinite tonality, and sensitivity to textural effects—scratches, dust and traces resulting from Osterburg's choice to sometimes print with the backs of used copperplates—impart qualities of timelessness, poignancy, mystery and the hand-made to images.Rochelle Feinstein, Rochelle. "Rethinking Genres in Contemporary Photography: Artifacture," ''Art On Paper'', January-February 1999, p. 30–5.Douglas, Sarah. "The photogravures of Lothar Osterburg: at the edge of the real," ''The Art Newspaper'', October 2003.Rodriguez, Juan. "Dennis Begg and Lothar Osterburg at Traywick Gallery," ''Artweek'', May 2000. Osterburg mines persistent images in his (and collective) memory, which he recreates in quick, intuitively built models devoid of people, stripped of superfluous detail, and made with humble, found materials: toothpicks, twigs, vegetables, glass doorknobs, broken umbrellas, books, refuse. He places the unpeopled models in carefully selected, sometimes far-flung settings (beaches, lakes or rivers, cities), then photographs them through a magnifying glass or macro lens so they appear life-size from a human vantage point, drawing viewers in as lone spectators.Spear, Peggy. "Ship Shape," ''Diablo Arts Journal'', January-March 2001.Beeler, Monique. "Prints charming at Kala Institute," ''The Oakland Tribune'', February 16, 2001.Tindall, Blair. "Set sail for Bedford Gallery's 'Adrift' exhibit," ''The Sunday Times'', January 28, 2001, p. C1. His subject matter has centered on moments of transit through time, space and imagination: sea, air and space vessels, books and art history, decaying and evolving urban scenes.Anderson, Maggie. "Reinventing Photography, with Memory," ''The Daily Iowan'', March 8, 2007, p. 5C.Robinson, Walter. Review, ''Artnet'', October 2003.Haber, John

''Haberarts.com'', February 27, 2012. Retrieved August 10, 2020.

Photogravures

In the mid-1990s, Osterburg moved into sculpture and photography via the wire models he had built for his paintings.Lampen, Liz. "Lothar Osterburg: Imaginary Places," ''Bi-College News'', March 5, 2002. Over the next decade, he began fleshing out incomplete but skillfully constructed miniatures out of found materials, which he staged, photographed, and printed as black-and-white photogravures. His earlier photogravures combine drama, whimsy and the mythic, depicting sea vessels in various states (''

Fram Fram may refer to: Ships * ''Fram'' (ship), an arctic exploration vessel from Norway * MS ''Fram'', expedition cruise ship owned by Hurtigruten Group Places and geography * Fram, Paraguay, a town in Itapúa, Paraguay * Fram Formation, a se ...

'', 1997; ''Cargo Ship in Storm'', 2002; ''Safe Harbor'' and ''Wreck of the Somerset'', 2004), rickety, rustic structures (''Thorn Boat Marina'', 1998; ''Vietnamese Waterwheel'', 2001), and interiors carved from bits of soap (''Soap Library'', 2001).Lynch, Kevin. "Visions of energy and hope," ''The Capital Times'', May 9, 2002. Reviews describe these images as beyond documentary or appropriated photography, baffling in their mix of mute, rough-hewn forms, deceptive composing and real settings, whose effects of mist, morning dew, fog, even wind, are captured by photogravure's infinite tonality. Works such as ''Tidepool Lighthouse'' (2000) or ''Floating Village in Halong Bay'' (2005) offer seemingly historic, rugged New England and Southeast Asian coastal scenes, only to be revealed as models resting on tidal algae or shallow pools.Tindall, Blair. "Old technique, new twist," ''Contra Costa Times'', February 19, 2001. Others portray vaguely convincing maritime dramas, as in '' Shackleton'' (2000) or ''Flat Earth'' (2006), which depicts a boat heading into a waterfall at the end of the world. After turning to new imagery for a decade, Osterburg returned to the sea in the show "Waterline" (2018), referencing rising seas, historic floods and geologic change through photogravures of imperiled boats and an installation of boat models, hung hip-high along an imaginary waterline.''Wall Street Art''. "Lothar Osterburg," November 20, 2018. In the early 2000s, Osterburg also explored images of flight (''

Zeppelin A Zeppelin is a type of rigid airship named after the German inventor Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin () who pioneered rigid airship development at the beginning of the 20th century. Zeppelin's notions were first formulated in 1874Eckener 1938, pp ...

over Timbuktu'', 2003; ''Channel Crossing with Hot Air Balloon'', 2005). ''Art Newspaper'' critic Sarah Douglas noted such works for the "humble strangeness" of their construction and dust-marked, scratched surfaces, which she compared to silent film stills or the "delightfully eerie" films of the

Brothers Quay Stephen and Timothy Quay ( ; born June 17, 1947) are American identical twin brothers and stop-motion animators who are better known as the Brothers Quay or Quay Brothers. They were also the recipients of the 1998 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding ...

. Osterburg's flight interests culminated in images of ancient-yet-futuristic vessels and spacecraft hovering over shadowy shanty and shack cities in his show, "Strangely Familiar" (2006, Highpoint Center), and his series of planets populated by gigantically scaled boats, bridges and condominiums (e.g., ''Babylon'', 2008), which were inspired by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's ''

The Little Prince ''The Little Prince'' (french: Le Petit Prince, ) is a novella by French aristocrat, writer, and military pilot Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. It was first published in English and French in the United States by Reynal & Hitchcock in April 1943 an ...

''.Plasse, Sabina Dana. "Take adventure in art at Ochi," ''Idaho Mountain Express'', July 1, 2009.

New media collaborations

Osterburg expanded into new media through collaborations with his wife, composer Elizabeth Brown, beginning in 2003. The video ''Watermusic'' (2004) joins Osterburg's imagery (including photogravures) of an ice-bound ship with music by Brown featuring the

Theremin The theremin (; originally known as the ætherphone/etherphone, thereminophone or termenvox/thereminvox) is an electronic musical instrument controlled without physical contact by the performer (who is known as a thereminist). It is named afte ...

.Moran. Macu. "Art Basel Highlights 2005," ''Artnet'', June 20, 2005.Curtis, Lisa J.
It's electric,"
''The Brooklyn Paper'', May 19, 2006. Retrieved August 10, 2020. Osterburg created video projections for Brown's chamber opera, ''Rural Electrification'' (2006)—which explores the effects of the advent of electricity on a young rural woman—and for her guitar-and-Theremin work, ''Atlantis'' (2008).Tudor, Silke. "Electric Dreams," ''The Village Voice'', July 18, 2006. They developed the multimedia chamber opera ''A Bookmobile for Dreamers'' (

Lincoln Center Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (also simply known as Lincoln Center) is a complex of buildings in the Lincoln Square neighborhood on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It has thirty indoor and outdoor facilities and is host to 5 millio ...

, 2013) during a Bogliasco Foundation residency; the dreamlike meditation on books, reading, libraries, culture and imagination combines live Theremin, recorded soundscape and Osterburg's imagery of a bookmobile making its rounds and offering entry into various worlds through books.Bogliasco Foundation. "A Bookmobile for Dreamers," News and Events, August 2013. Retrieved August 10, 2020. Brown also wrote music for videos in Osterburg's later projects ''Piranesi'' and ''Babel'', which were presented in conjunction with live performances.''Roll Magazine''. "December Art highlights," December 2010.Jaeger. William
"Artist reveals elements of process in 'Reaching for the Sky' at Massry,"
''Times Union'' (Albany), Oct 29, 2017. Retrieved August 10, 2020.

Later projects

Osterburg's later projects have increasingly explored imaginary architecture and cities inspired by speculation and memories of art, fiction, travel and reminiscences. This work freely mixes eras and styles to create fantastical, timeless forms and parallel "what-if" histories.''Woodstock Times''. "Piranesi," December 2, 2010. ''Piranesi'' (2008–10, comprising a model, prints and stop-action video) was inspired by 18th-century printmaker

Giovanni Battista Piranesi Giovanni Battista (or Giambattista) Piranesi (; also known as simply Piranesi; 4 October 1720 – 9 November 1778) was an Italian Classical archaeologist, architect, and artist, famous for his etchings of Rome and of fictitious and atmospheric ...

's ''Carceri'' etchings of imaginary subterranean prisons; its theatrical scene features a vaulted ceiling, stone-like towers, elaborate winding stairs and drawbridges, and crude machinery. Reviews compare the work to the '' mise en scène'' of early silent films, such as

F. W. Murnau Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau (born Friedrich Wilhelm Plumpe; December 28, 1888March 11, 1931) was a German film director, producer and screenwriter. He was greatly influenced by Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Shakespeare and Ibsen plays he had seen at th ...

's ''

Nosferatu ''Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror'' (German: ''Nosferatu – Eine Symphonie des Grauens'') is a 1922 silent German Expressionist horror film directed by F. W. Murnau and starring Max Schreck as Count Orlok, a vampire who preys on the wife ...

'', which conveyed passages of

gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

narrative in their detail and expressiveness. Osterburg repurposed parts of ''Piranesi'' in his "Alternative Brooklyn" photogravures—imaginative amalgams of classical forms, New York City anachronisms and modern elements, such as ''Vaulted Trailer Park'' and ''Downtown Transfer'' (both 2010), which depict mobile homes and elevated trains emerging out of dungeons, or ''Squatters'' (2010), which positions all three elements in a Manhattan-like cityscape.Feeney. Mark
"Images that temper the world's hard edges,"
''The Boston Globe'', October 2, 2011, p. N5. Retrieved August 10, 2020. ''Boston Globe'' critic Mark Feeney characterized the incongruous images as "marvels of deadpan hilarity"; others write that they grapple with the vulnerability of cities to change, simultaneously suggesting alternate histories and future archaeological excavations of contemporary civilization.Cheng, DeWitt. "Photodigitations," ''East Bay Monthly'', January 2012.Meier, Allison
"The Art of Fallen Cities,"
''Hyperallergic'', August 8, 2016. Retrieved August 10, 2020. Osterburg extended these themes with "Yesterday's Cities of Tomorrow," seeking to capture the mythical, longed for, and sometimes fantastical New York City imagined by

Ellis Island Ellis Island is a federally owned island in New York Harbor, situated within the U.S. states of New York and New Jersey, that was the busiest immigrant inspection and processing station in the United States. From 1892 to 1954, nearly 12 mi ...

immigrants or encountered in old books and movies.John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundatio
"Grand Central Terminal celebrates 100 years with Lothar Osterburg’s Zeppelins in Grand Central,"
Fellows News, February 3, 2013. Retrieved August 10, 2020. The series mixes history (old locomotives, zeppelins, mid-century cars, expressway on-ramps), fantasy, and familiar landmarks (the

Brooklyn Bridge The Brooklyn Bridge is a hybrid cable-stayed/ suspension bridge in New York City, spanning the East River between the boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn. Opened on May 24, 1883, the Brooklyn Bridge was the first fixed crossing of the East River ...

and

Flatiron Building The Flatiron Building, originally the Fuller Building, is a triangular 22-story, steel-framed landmarked building at 175 Fifth Avenue in the eponymous Flatiron District neighborhood of the Boroughs of New York City, borough of Manhattan in New ...

, elevated trains) in photogravures such as ''Twilight, 1984'' (2011) and ''Night'' (2012); ''Zeppelins docking at Grand Central'' (2013), described in ''The New Criterion'' as a remarkable " steampunk" image, was featured with its playful model in the MTA Arts show "On Time/Grand Central at 100."Emba, Christine
"Critic's Notebook,"
''The New Criterion'', March 23, 2015. Retrieved August 10, 2020.Bush, Christine
"Artist Lothar Osterburg Creates 'Zeppelins in Grand Central,'"
''Bklyner.'', January 29, 2013. Retrieved August 10, 2020.Meier, Allison
"The Persistence of Time at Grand Central Terminal,"
''Hyperallergic'', May 23, 2013. Retrieved August 10, 2020.Anders, Marjorie
"'On Time/ Grand Central at 100' Contemporary Artists Featured in New MTA Arts for Transit Gallery Show,"
''Mass Transit'', February 21, 2013. Retrieved August 10, 2020. Two series celebrating the printed word and cultural diversity grew out of ''A Bookmobile for Dreamers''. "Library Dreams" consists of photogravures of child-like wonder—bookmobiles, a locomotive bursting into a library (referencing Magritte's ''

Time Transfixed ''Time Transfixed'' (''La Durée poignardée'') is a 1938 oil on canvas painting by the Belgian surrealist René Magritte. It is part of the permanent collection of the Art Institute of Chicago and is usually on display in the museum's Modern Wing ...

''), or ''Literary City'' (2013), a book city floated on the East River and shot in scale against the Manhattan skyline. "Babel" includes photogravures, a stop-motion video, and the giant (28 feet in a 2017 installation) model ''Tower of Babel''; influenced by Bruegel's

The Tower of Babel The Tower of Babel ( he, , ''Mīgdal Bāḇel'') narrative in Genesis 11:1–9 is an origin myth meant to explain why the world's peoples speak different languages. According to the story, a united human race speaking a single language and mi ...

works, the spiraling sculpture built entirely from old books (in 25 languages, found in Brooklyn) dwarfs a model modern metropolis and is surrounded by floating dirigibles and satellites.

Awards and public collections

Osterburg has been recognized with fellowships from the

John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation was founded in 1925 by Olga and Simon Guggenheim in memory of their son, who died on April 26, 1922. The organization awards Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been ...

(2010) and New York Foundation for the Arts (2009, 2003) and awards from the International Fine Print Dealer's Association (2018), American Academy of Arts and Letters (2010), and AEV Foundation (2009), among others.Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation
"Jordan Schnitzer Award for Excellence in Printmaking."
Retrieved August 10, 2020.MacDowell Colony
Lothar Osterburg
Artists. Retrieved August 6, 2020. He has received artist residencies from

Cill Rialaig Cill Rialaig is a contemporary arts project, comprising the ''Cill Rialaig Artist Retreat'' and the ''Cill Rialaig Arts Centre'' with exhibition and retail facilities, founded by Noelle Campbell-Sharp in 1991 and managed by a registered charity ...

(Ireland), Navigation Press, the Bogliasco Foundation (Italy), Hui No'eau Arts Center, MacDowell Colony and the

Virginia Center for the Creative Arts The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (VCCA) is a residential artist community in Amherst, Virginia, USA. Since 1971, VCCA has offered residencies of varying lengths with flexible scheduling for international artists, writers, and composers at ...

. His work belongs to the public collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Library of Congress,

New York Public Library The New York Public Library (NYPL) is a public library system in New York City. With nearly 53 million items and 92 locations, the New York Public Library is the second largest public library in the United States (behind the Library of Congress ...

, The Art Institute of Chicago,

The British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It documen ...

,The British Museum
', Lothar Osterburg
Collection. Retrieved August 7, 2020. the China Printmaking Museum,

Chazen Museum of Art The Chazen Museum of Art is an art museum located at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in Madison, Wisconsin. The Chazen Museum of Art is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums. History Until 2005, the Museum was known regularly as th ...

,Chazen Museum of Art
''Soap Library'', Lothar Osterburg
Collection. Retrieved August 12, 2020. the

Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum The Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum (HAUM) is an art museum in the German city of Braunschweig, Lower Saxony. History Founded in 1754, the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum is one of the oldest museums in Europe. The museum has its origins in the art and nat ...

(Germany),Rilling, Stephanie. "Die stadt als Kerker," ''Braunschweiger Zeitung'', August 11, 2018.

Museum of Contemporary Photography The Museum of Contemporary Photography (MoCP) was founded in 1976 by Columbia College Chicago as the successor to the Chicago Center for Contemporary Photography. The museum houses a permanent collection as well as the Midwest Photographers Projec ...

,Museum of Contemporary Photography
''Regatta'', Lothar Osterburg
Collection. Retrieved August 10, 2020. Museum of Fine Arts, Houston,Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Lothar Osterburg
People. Retrieved August 12, 2020.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 paintings and more than 450,000 works ...

,Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Lothar Osterburg
Artists. Retrieved August 12, 2020. and

Spencer Museum of Art The Spencer Museum of Art is an art museum operated by the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas. Accredited by the American Alliance of Museums, the Spencer Museum seeks to "...present its collection as a living archive that motivates object-c ...

,Spencer Museum of Art
Lothar Osterburg
Artist. Retrieved August 12, 2020. among others.