60 km/h, 1974

Peter Klasen   Master Artists

German painter, photographer and sculptor Peter Klasen was born in Lübeck in 1935.

Peter Klasen grew up in a family sensitive to the arts: his uncle Karl Christian Klasen, a student of Otto Dix, was a landscape and portrait expressionist painter and his grand-father, a philanthropist and art collector, introduced him to many painters who were friends of their family. Peter Klasen started drawing and paining at a very young age. He learns the techniques of lithography and the airbrushing. He reads Dostoyevsky, Kafka and Thomas Mann and he is touched by their books.

Industrial themes mark his work. one can discover in his paintings elements such as pressure gauges, metal locks, tarpaulin sheets for trucks and cars, hoses for hydraulic circuits. Logos, numbers and pictures from magazines or posters are also present in his paintings.

A master of contrast, he is fascinated by the hostility of the modern city and by the representations of the body as merchandise.

Peter Klasen has recently started to produce prints, and thus the new figuration or the narrative figuration have entered the Lacan collection, adding to its diversity. We can discover the artist's interest in our society in his aquagravures. Industrial themes, body image, objects of consumption, advertisements, vehicles paintings etc - they all meet in his works that becomes a critical reflection of our social environment.

"Reality is no different than what I show you" - Peter Klasen