Bernard Schultze, Original Bigof, 1973, olio su tela firmato

Bernard Schultze

Schneidemühl 1915 - 2005 Cologne

sprawling Migof anatomy, 1973

oil (grisaille) on canvas

signed and dated (19)73 in the lower right corner

on the reverse titled, and again signed and dated

size: 80 x 100 cm

Frame: 90 x 110 cm

Catalog raisonné: Volume II, No. 73/17

Provenance: Lempertz Cologne Auction 749, 1997; Lempertz Cologne Auction 900, 2007; Private collection Wiesbaden

very good condition


Authenticity is guaranteed in writing.




Bernard Schultze was born on 31.5.1915 in Schneidemühl in West Prussia (today Pila in Poland). After graduating from high school, he studied 1934-1939 at the College of Art Education in Berlin and at the Academy of Art in Düsseldorf. from 1939 to 1945 Schultze was a soldier. In 1944 his entire early work was burned during the attack on Berlin.
from 1947 Schultze lives in Frankfurt am Main, where from 1951 the first informal paintings are created. Bernard Schultze develops a very personal style of gestural-abstract painting. In 1952 he participates in the Quadriga exhibition at the Zimmergalerie Franck in Frankfurt. In 1955 he takes part in the exhibition of the group "ZEN 49" as well as in the exhibition "Peintures et sculptures non-figuratives en Allemagne d'aujourd'hui" of the Cercle Volney in Paris. Bernard Schultze also participated in the exhibition "Lebendige Farbe - Couleur vivante" in Wiesbaden in 1957 and in the exhibition "Eine neue Richtung der Malerei" at the Kunsthalle Mannheim in 1957/58.
In 1955 Schultze marries the painter Ursula Bluhm. Around this time, the first relief paintings are created from various materials applied to the canvas. The so-called "tabuskris" (tabulae scriptae), created from 1957 and oscillating between painting and drawing, were followed in 1961 by the "Migofs". Schultze used this freely invented term for his sculptural formations, which depict artistic creatures and creatures of nature.
from 1951 Bernard Schultze regularly spent some time in Paris. In 1964 he made his first trip to New York, which was followed by others. In 1968 Schultze moved his residence from Frankfurt to Cologne. In 1972 Schultze became a member of the Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin. In the 1970s Bernard Schultze again concentrates increasingly on the panel painting. He also integrates the "Migofs", which had previously been sculptural, into them. from 1974 his works become increasingly large-format.
Bernard Schultze succeeded in creating an impressive work for his old age, on which he worked intensively until shortly before his death. He is one of the great German painters of abstraction in the second half of the 20th century. Bernard Schultze died on 14.4.2005 in Cologne.