Peter Dreher: Hommage an die Malerei

"... and today there are 5000"

Peter Dreher celebrated his 80th birthday this summer. The diverse artistic work of the Mannheim-born emeritus of the Karlsruhe Academy of Art culminates in a series that has been ongoing since 1974. The panels, each measuring 25 x 20 cm and painted in oil on canvas or cardboard, always depict a single glass under the title "Tag um Tag guter Tag" (Day after good day), which summarises the series. On the occasion of his donation of over 400 works from this series to the Museum für Neue Kunst in Freiburg, the artist now writes in an article: "One idea I had in the late sixties and early seventies was to paint a picture that was invisible. That is, of course, an impossible brief. A requirement that seems impossible to realise other than to paint the simplest thing possible ... The simplest thing there is is the inescapable reality that surrounds us. I have always shied away from meaningful, narrative pictures. But the individual picture loses its connection to reality as soon as it is repeated. It is just painting. So I came up with the idea of painting the same thing over and over again ... I still remember it very clearly: the concept for the glass series - it was April 1974 and I was lying in a hot bath - was there within a second. I suddenly knew exactly: it had to be an object, and this object always had to be at the same distance from me, in the same artificial light ... At the time, I thought I would do five or six pictures like this, without changing the subject, so that people would understand what was meant. So at first there were six, and then I felt like painting another and another - and today there are 5000."

Exhibition:
Museum of Contemporary Art, Freiburg, 25/11/2012-7/4/2013