Felix Samuel Pfefferkorn

In both his work and life, Felix Samuel Pfefferkorn exemplifies the development of German history and mindset after 1945: born in Berlin during the last months of the war in 1945, he loses his parents in a bombing raid on the city; American GIs take the orphaned child under their wing. At the age of 16, Pfefferkorn moves to Paris to learn painting and to explore the meaning of life alongside the existentialists. This is followed by years of wandering and teaching through Switzerland and Southern Germany, where he meets figures like Juliette Gréco and Rudi Dutschke, until he fully dedicates himself to painting in the early 1970s. Between 1970 and 1979, during a series of creative peaks, he produces a body of work that includes cycles of landscapes, still lifes, wild animals, circus motifs, and city scenes, culminating in the "Potatoland" paintings that address themes of German history and division. Since 1980, Felix Samuel Pfefferkorn has been missing.

His work, related in its neo-expressionist style and vibrant colors to that of the contemporaneous "Neue Wilden," captivates with its stylistic verve, intellectual autonomy, and subtle visual wit.