Winfried Muthesius

Again we encounter the contradictory nature that is so characteristic for Winfried Muthesius’ attitude which we have already illustrated in numerous contexts; this time in the simultaneousness of the conscious and unconscious. Or in the state where unambiguousness and precision in architecture in his art of painting is described with transparent, mobile means ... On a spiritual level, he shows an entirely different territorial set – a terrain where he was the first to have researched it and the international abstract expressionism has not yet explored.

Muthesius has focused to monochrome images in gold, such as the Golden Fields (the tabula aurea in the State Collection of Antiquities and Glyptothek, Munich) and Der Himmel unter Berlin, since 2002. From this, he developed a "broken gold" technique. The support, decorated with gold leaf, is then partially destroyed and scratched on the surface. This illustrates brittleness and vulnerability in time.

The Star series of large-format images was created in 1995. The subject of the Star and Cross series is violence in the past and present. Stars of David, beaten in with an axe and a chainsaw, explore the expulsion of the Jewish communities over the centuries as a reminder of the need for respect.

Muthesius' first series of "cross pictures" and "skull pictures" date to 1991 and 1992, and he has continued them until the present. He began to develop the technique of pittura oscura in 1992. These are multi-layered pictures which give the effect of depth, combining photography and painting: Muthesius creates a painting, derived from a sketch. It is then positioned in a public room and photographed. The photograph is painted over, and again reproduced.

Muthesius' great-grand uncle and aunt were German architect Hermann Muthesius and fashion designer Anna Muthesius. Since the 2001 death of his wife, Marianne Muthesius, he has owned a real-estate company. Muthesius is the father of Laura Muthesius (born 22 February 1990), a blogger and photographer. He lives and works in Berlin and Brandenburg.

In 1982, he made the Brandenburg Gate in his home city of Berlin a motif in his works. These works demonstrate that Muthesius employs design through reduction, laying down the foundation of his present painting style. He received a working scholarship to the Künstlerhaus Salzburg [de] in 1987, and a series of Salzburg pictures dates to this time. In 1988 he visited New York City for the first time, and has returned regularly ever since. In New York, Muthesius sketched soaring room perspectives and architectural highlights, particularly of the World Trade Center. In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, he has been creating work relating to Ground Zero. When he received a working scholarship from the Berlin Senate in 1989, he continued using the Brandenburg Gate—the intersection of East and West—as his central motif.

Muthesius studied at the Berlin School of Arts (today the Berlin University of the Arts) from 1979 to 1984. He was a student of Hermann Wiesler [de] , whose designs influenced him. Muthesius' first artistic stay abroad led him to the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence in 1982–83. His work there focused on the city's architecture. Based on many sketches, Muthesius created his first works in Indian ink, watercolor, tempera and oil.

Winfried Muthesius (born 28 August 1957 in Berlin) is a German painter, photographer and installation artist.