Peter Dreher (26 August 1932 – 20 February 2020) was a German artist and academic teacher. He painted series of landscapes, interiors, flowers and skulls, beginning his series ''Tag um Tag guter Tag'' in 1974. As a professor of painting, he influenced artists including

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 ...

. His works have been exhibited internationally.

Life

Dreher was born in Mannheim, Baden-Württemberg. He began to draw at age seven, determined to become an artist. When Dreher was twelve years old, his father was killed fighting in Russia in World War II. Dreher studied at the Academy of Fine Arts, Karlsruhe in the 1950s, when the artistic trend was leaning towards figurative, with

Karl Hubbuch Karl Hubbuch (21 November 1891 – 26 December 1979) was a German painter, printmaker, and draftsman associated with the New Objectivity. Life Hubbuch was born in Karlsruhe and baptised in the Roman Catholic church. From 1908 to 1912, he studie ...

and Wilhelm Schnarrenberger, who stood for the New Objectivity movement, and with Erich Heckel, one of the founders of Die Brücke. He had his first solo exhibition in 1954 at the Städtische Kunsthalle Mannheim. Dreher became known for his series ''Tag um Tag guter Tag'' which he began in 1974, painting the same glass more than 5,000 times. He also created series of landscapes and interiors, flower pieces and skulls. While Dreher admired some ideas of Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns,

Robert Rauschenberg Milton Ernest "Robert" Rauschenberg (October 22, 1925 – May 12, 2008) was an American painter and graphic artist whose early works anticipated the Pop art movement. Rauschenberg is well known for his Combines (1954–1964), a group of artwor ...

and Claes Oldenburg, he opposed various artistic trends of the 1950s and 1960s, such as

abstract expressionism Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York City in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York at the center of the ...

minimalism In visual arts, music and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in post–World War II in Western art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with minimalism include Don ...

postminimalism Postminimalism is an art term coined (as post-minimalism) by Robert Pincus-Witten in 1971Chilvers, Ian and Glaves-Smith, John, ''A Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Art'', second edition (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), p. ...

and pop art, remaining a realistic and figurative painter. Dreher was a lecturer of painting at the Academy of Fine Arts, Karlsruhe from 1965 at the Freiburg location, and from 1968 a professor there. Among his students were

, Klaus Merkel and Eva Rosenstiel. He retired from his position as a professor in 1997. Dreher died in February 2020 at age 87.

Work

''Tag um Tag guter Tag''

In a series begun in 1974, Dreher painted the same empty glass. Called ''Tag um Tag guter Tag'' (''Day by Day, Good Day''), he painted it more than 2,500 times at night and more than 2,500 times during the daytime, in a process similar to meditation. At first, Dreher had only intended to paint the glass five or six times, but found he did not want to stop. He painted the glass at least fifty times a year, and was still painting it in the 2010s, (see subheadigns for 2010s) saying he would stop "when the motivation stopped". He always painted it centered on a 25 x 20cm neutral grey ground, from the same distance and at life scale.

Self-portraits

From 1977 to 1979, Dreher painted on-site several self-portraits as decoration for the library of the University of Freiburg. When the building was demolished, the portraits found a new location.

Exhibitions

Dreher's works were shown in international exhibitions including: * 1954: Städtische Kunsthalle Mannheim * 1974: Museum Folkwang, Essen * 1975: * 1976: , Düsseldorf * 1977: * 1982: Von der Heydt-Museum, Wuppertal * 1990: * 1993: , Karlsruhe * 2002: Patricia Sweetow Gallery, San Francisco, California * 2008: * 2011: Musée d'art moderne et contemporain in Geneva * 2013: MK Galleries, U.K.

Awards

Among Dreher's awards were: * 1965: Villa Massimo * 1976:

Reinhold-Schneider-Preis The Reinhold-Schneider-Preis (Reinhold Schneider Prize) is the cultural prize awarded by the German town of Freiburg im Breisgau. It has been awarded biennially since 1960, alternating between literature, music and art. In addition to the main prize ...

of Freiburg * 1979: of Baden-Württemberg * 1995: Erich-Heckel-Preis of Künstlerbund Baden-Württemberg * 2000: Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany

References

External links

* *
Künstlerbund Baden-Württemberg

Peter Dreher
artnet.de
Peter Dreher
Galerie König * Lynne Tillman
Peter Dreher
(interview) bombmagazine.org * Yidan Zhang

(in German) in ''100 Sekunden Kunst'', SWR {{DEFAULTSORT:Dreher, Peter 1932 births 2020 deaths Recipients of the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany Artists from Mannheim