Erwin Pfrang, German Neo Expressionist Graphite Pencil Drawing Erwin Pfrang Nolan Gallery NYC 2001

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Erwin Pfrang, German (b. 1951)
Graphite Pencil on paper
Framed 20 X 20.5, sheet 12.5 X 13
Hand signed lower … Read more Erwin Pfrang, German (b. 1951)
Graphite Pencil on paper
Framed 20 X 20.5, sheet 12.5 X 13
Hand signed lower left

Erwin Pfrang (born 1951, in Munich) is a German painter and printmaker.
Pfrang studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich from 1974–79. Later he spent many years as an independent artist in Montepulciano, Val d’Orcia and Catania, Italy, interrupted by stays in Munich and Augsburg. He presently lives and works in Berlin. Erwin Pfrang is the grandson of the Munich folk comedian Konstantin Pfrang.
Carla Schulz-Hoffmann makes an attempt at characterising the painter: “An artist such as Erwin Pfrang inhabits an alternative world, a tiny microcosm of subjectivity, and lives that life uncompromisingly, with all the limitations and hardships that it entails. Among twentieth-century artists a comparable stance can be encountered perhaps in Jean Fautrier, but certainly in Otto Wols. His oeuvre relates in its figuration to Bosch or James Ensor and his oil painting to Lucian Freud in its painterly quality. Erwin Pfrang is represented by gallerists Fred Jahn, Munich (Exhibition: Don’t Forget Your Mask: Don’t (Part I: Don’t Forget Your Mask), Forget (Part II: Don’t Forget Your Mask), Your Mask (Part III: Don’t Forget Your Mask)Artists: Imi Knoebel, Barry Le Va, Karel Appel, Alexi Tsioris, William N. Copley, Isa Genzken, Konrad Klapheck, Gerhard Richter, Erwin Pfrang, Paula Rego,Hedwig Eberle, Hermann Nitsch, Stefan Vogel).
David Nolan, New York. (A prominent gallery who shows Richard Artschwager, George Grosz, Jim Nutt, Georg Baselitz, Robert Crumb and other German Neo Expressionist artists.) Pfrang’s lifelong passion for literature becomes particularly evident in his involvement with the works of the Irish writer James Joyce. The result being three cycles of signed drawings about Dubliners and Ulysses. The New York Times called his drawings for the Circe episode of the novel: "a brilliant solo debut." Other drawings are dedicated to the tale Tributsch by the German Expressionist writer Albert Ehrenstein and Gerald Barry's opera The Intelligence Park, libretto by Vincent Deane. This work has an Outsider art, Art Brut quality to it.

Museums
Albertina, Vienna
Busch-Reisinger Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Fogg Art Museum, Harvard
Morgan Library & Museum, New York
Museum Of Modern Art, New York MoMA (there are similar works online on their website)
Neue Pinakothek, Munich
Saint Louis Art Museum, Saint Louis, Missouri
Staatliche Graphische Sammlung München, Munich
Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven

Important Exhibitions
1984 Zeichnungen, Fred Jahn Munich
1991 Circe Drawings, David Nolan, New York
1995 Dubliners and Related Works, David Nolan, New York
1998 Odysseus und kein Ende, Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, Munich
1999 Bilder, Staatsgalerie Moderner Kunst, Munich
2000 Paintings and Drawings, The Norwood Gallery, Austin, Texas
2004 Circe Drawings, Bank of Ireland Arts Centre, Dublin
2004 Bilder, Zeichnungen und Graphik, Völcker & Freunde Galerie, Berlin
2006 Paintings, Daniel Weinberg Gallery, Los Angeles
2007 Hades, Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich
2007 Mostra di Erwin Pfrang, Università di Catania
2012 New Pictures, Fred Jahn, Munich
2015 New Pictures, Matthias Jahn, Munich
2016 Axel Pairon Gallery, Knokke
2018 Hope & Hazard, Curated by Eric Fischl
2019 Buchheim Museum, Bernried
2021-22 Katholische Akademie in Bayern, Munich

His work has been reviewed multiple times in the New York times including:
Smith, Roberta, review of Alberto Giacometti: Prints & Erwin Pfrang, Frank Günzel, Rudi Tröger: Drawings, David Nolan Gallery, New York, The New York Times, 6. Januar 1989
Bomb Magazine: Erwin Pfrang by Carroll Dunham See less