The German artist Sigmar Polke died June 10 in Cologne at the age of 69 due to complications related to cancer, it has been reported. Born in 1941 in Oels, Lower Silesia, in what is now Poland, Polke is considered one of Europe’s most significant post-war artists. Together with Gerhard Richter and Konrad (Fischer) Lueg, in 1963 Polke founded the Capitalist Realism movement, which combined references to Communist Socialist Realism with a critique of Western consumer-driven society, and involved the appropriation of advertising and American Pop art imagery.
Known primarily as a painter, Polke was never limited to one particular style or medium; his works moved between figuration and abstraction as well as photography. In his later career, Polke was featured prominently in the 2007 Venice Biennale, where a suite of monumental new canvases provided a memorable centerpiece for artistic director Robert Storr’s curated exhibition at the Italian Pavilion in the Giardini, and in 2009 he completed a large-scale commission of stained glass windows for Zürich’s Grossmünster cathedral. In Japan, the survey exhibition “Sigmar Polke – Alice in Wonderland” was held in 2005 at the Ueno Royal Museum, Tokyo, and traveled the following year to the National Museum of Art, Osaka. Among numerous honors and recognitions, Polke was awarded the 2002 Praemium Imperiale Award by the Japan Art Association and this year was awarded the prestigious Roswitha Haftmann Prize by the private Roswitha Haftmann Foundation, Zürich.