top of page

Ralph Fleck

Recent Paintings on view in Montecito December 2024 - January 2025

Ralph Fleck’s canvases play up the relationship between paint, with its formless, viscous, potentiality, and the real world, with its set lines and surfaces. Though at any moment, he seems to suggest, one world may morph into the other. He even paints images generated by art-making itself, depicting color swatches that double as geometric color fields, or the dabs and smears on his palette, which winkingly mirror works of expressionism—paintings of paint that shift between abstraction and literal reality.

Biography

Patterns of life and art proliferate in German artist Ralph Fleck’s densely textured paintings—flower fields, packed bookshelves, piles of papers and boxes, aerial cityscapes, and churning water. Even more than observations of our physical environment, they are explorations of order and human production, the kinds of patterns nature and people create, and how those patterns intersect with art. As German art historian Wolfgang Längsfeld has said, he is a "painter who delves passionately into the structures of physically explorable reality.”

Fleck’s canvases play up the relationship between paint, with its formless, viscous, potentiality, and the real world, with its set lines and surfaces. Though at any moment, he seems to suggest, one world may morph into the other. He even paints images generated by art-making itself, depicting color swatches that double as geometric color fields, or the dabs and smears on his palette, which winkingly mirror works of expressionism—paintings of paint that shift between abstraction and literal reality.

In a subtle way, his paintings are concerned with the technology of seeing. His images of fields and interiors often recall zoomed-in photographs, a quality that German editor and critic Hans-Joachim Müller, in a catalog essay on Fleck’s work, traces back to Walter Benjamin’s ideas about art in the era of mechanical reproduction. It’s as if Fleck’s paintings are an act of resistance against the imagery that has flooded the modern world, “substituting narrow reproductions of reality with his own strong pictures.” Meanwhile, his cityscapes take a zoomed-out perspective, as if from an airplane or drone. Winifred Wang, a prominent art critic and architect, notes that they are about “ambience,” the essential character of the cities themselves.

Fleck's process centers on moment-by-moment interactions with the canvas. A painter obsessed with capturing the raw essence of his subjects, he is concerned with the immediacy of brushstrokes and the tactility of paint. Whether he’s painting a field of golden flowers or a wall of urban apartments, his colors create a shimmering fabric of shadows, highlights, and splashes of unexpected hues. Lothar Romain, a Berlin-based critic and curator who authored monographs on Andy Warhol and Joseph Beuys, compares Fleck’s use of impasto and changing color patterns to late-period Monet: “The rich impasto application becomes the inner structure of the painting, but never totally lets it representational origin out of sight.”

Born in Freiburg, Germany, Fleck studied at the State Academy of Fine Arts and has been widely collected throughout Germany and Europe, including at the MKM Küppersmühle Museum of Modern Art in Duisburg, Germany; the German Embassies in Brussels, Lima, Madrid, and Paris; the Museum of Contemporary Art in Freiburg, Germany; the Royal Bank of Scotland Art Collection in London; and the United Nations building in The Haugue, Netherlands.

Born

1951 Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany.


Education

1973-1978  State Academy of Fine Arts, Karsruhe, Germany.

1981 Scholarship to study at Villa Massimo, Rome (1984-85)

2003-2014  Professor at the Akademie der Bildenen Kunste, Nuremberg


Selected Solo Exhibitions

2022   Caldwell Snyder Gallery, St. Helena, CA

2021 313 ART PROJECT Paris
            Galerie Brennecke Berlin

2020 Caldwell Snyder Gallery, San Francisco

            Purdy Hicks Gallery, London England

            Galerie Boisseree, Cologbe Germany

2019  Stadische Gallery, Karlsruhe, Germany

2015 Ralph Fleck, MKM Küppersmühle Museum of Modern Art,  Duisburg, Germany.

            Purdy Hicks Gallery, London.

2014 Galerie Boisserée, Köln, Germany.

2013 313 Art Project, Seoul, South Korea.

2012 New Paintings, Purdy Hicks Gallery, London.

            Forum Kunst, Rottweil, Germany.

            Galerie Baumgarten, Freiburg, Germany.

2011 Schloss Bonndorf, Bonndorf, Germany.

            Galerie Josine Bokhoven, Amsterdam. 2010 Galerie 313, Seoul, South Korea.

            Waldshut, Schloss Bonndorf, Baden-Wuerttemberg, Germany.

2009 Marburger Kunstverein, Marburg, Germany.

2008 Purdy Hicks Gallery, London.

2007 Kunstverein Kirchzarten, Germany.

            Giverny, Purdy Hicks Gallery, London.

2006 Galerie Josine Bokhoven, Amsterdam.

            Galerie Brennecke, Berlin, Germany.

2005 Deutschlands Galerien zu Gast bei Lamy, Heidelberg, Germany.

            Galerie von Braubehrens, Munich, Germany.

2004 Purdy Hicks Gallery, London.

2003 Galerie Brennecke, Berlin, Germany.

2002 Galerie Josine Bokhoven, Amsterdam, Netherlands.

            Kunstverein Kirchzarten, Germany.

            Kunstverein Augsburg, Germany.

2001 Städtische Galerie Schwäbisch Hall, Germany.

            Galerie von Braunbehrens, Germany.

            Purdy Hicks Gallery, London.

2000 Galerie Brennecke, Berlin, Germany.


Selected Public & Private Collections

Augustinermuseum Freiburg • Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlung München • Bayerische Versicherungsbank AG München • Bouwfonds Kunstcollectie Hoevelaken • Bundesbildungsministerium Bonn • Deutsche Bank Collection Frankfurt - London - New York • Deutsche Botschaft Brüssel - Lima – Madrid – Paris – Windhoek • Deutsches Fleischermuseum Böblingen • ESMoA El Segundo Museum of Art Los Angeles California • Galerie der Stadt Sindelfingen • Goldmann Sachs Frankfurt • Hessische Landesbank London • HypoVereinsbank Kunstsammlung München • Kulturhaus der Bayer AG Leverkusen • Kultusministerium Baden-Württemberg Stuttgart • Kunsthalle St. Annen Lübeck • Kunsthalle Mannheim • Kunsthaus Zürich • Kunstmuseum Celle • Kunstmuseum Singen • Kunstmuseum Stuttgart - Galerie der Stadt Stuttgart • Kunstsammlung der Deutsche Bahn Stiftung Nürnberg • Kunstsammlung Landkreis Waldshut • Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz • Kunstsammlung Provinzial Rheinland Düsseldorf • Kupferstichkabinett Karlsruhe • Land Niedersachsen Hannover • MKM Museum für Moderne Kunst Sammlung Ströher Duisburg • Museum der Brotkultur Ulm • Museum der Stadt Rüsselsheim • Museum für Neue Kunst Freiburg • Museum Morsbroich Leverkusen • Museum Schloß Moyland Bedburg-Hau • Museum Sinclair-Haus ALTANA Kulturstiftung Bad Homburg • Museo Municipal de Arte Contemporáneo Madrid • Osthaus Museum Hagen • Regierungspräsidium Freiburg • Royal Bank of Scotland Art Collection London • Sammlung des Deutschen Bundestages Berlin • Sammlung Landesgirokasse Stuttgart • Sammlung von Metzler Frankfurt • Sprengel Museum Hannover • Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe • Staatsgalerie Stuttgart • Stadt Kornwestheim • Stadt Ravensburg • Städtische Galerie Fruchthalle Rastatt • Städtisches Museum Salzgitter • Stadtsparkasse Augsburg • Ständige Vertretung der BRD bei der Europäischen Union Brüssel • Strauss Family Foundation Solana Beach California • Ulmer Museum • United Nations, Den Haag / Washington • West LB Düsseldorf • Wilhelm Lehmbruck Museum Duisburg • ZDF Mainz – Lerchenberg

Press

PRESS

Selected Artworks

Stadion 17 II

Stadion 17 II

Oil on Canvas

47.5 x 39.5

24408

Rau See 5/II

Rau See 5/II

Oil on Canvas

24 x 31 inches

24326

Raue See 3/II

Raue See 3/II

Oil on Canvas

24 x 31 inches

24325

Feldstuck 31 XII

Feldstuck 31 XII

Oil on Canvas

39 x 79 inches

24324

Feldstuck 24 XII

Feldstuck 24 XII

Oil on Canvas

63 x 63 inches

24323

Feldstuck 9 XI

Feldstuck 9 XI

Oil on Canvas

31 x 31 inches

24321

Feldstuck 5 VIII

Feldstuck 5 VIII

Oil on Canvas

31 x 31 inches

24320

Feldstuck 5 V

Feldstuck 5 V

Oil on Canvas

31 x 31 inches

24319

Espresso Macchiato 21 VIII

Espresso Macchiato 21 VIII

Oil on Canvas

14 x 16 inches

24318

Cortado 23/XII

Cortado 23/XII

Oil on Canvas

16 x 16 inches

24317

Cortado 3 VII

Cortado 3 VII

Oil on Canvas

16 x 16 inches

24316

Cappuccino 10 III

Cappuccino 10 III

Oil on Canvas

16 x 16 inches

24315

Austern 1 X

Austern 1 X

Oil on Canvas

20 x 24 inches

24314

Athen 25 IV | SOLD

Athen 25 IV | SOLD

Oil on Canvas

31 x 31 inches

24313

Athen 23 IV

Athen 23 IV

Oil on Canvas

31 x 31 inches

24312

London 15 IV 23 | SOLD

London 15 IV 23 | SOLD

Oil on Canvas

79 x 79 inches

23729

Stadtbild 23 XI

Stadtbild 23 XI

Oil on Canvas

79 x 79 inches

220359

Pizza 3/VI/21

Pizza 3/VI/21

Oil on Canvas

35 x 35 inches

210520

Pizza 2/VI/21

Pizza 2/VI/21

Oil on Canvas

35 x 35 inches

210519

Pizza 1/VI/21

Pizza 1/VI/21

Oil on Canvas

35 x 35 inches

210518

Auster 5/XII/20

Auster 5/XII/20

Oil on Canvas

16 x 24 inches

210506

Auster 1/XI/20

Auster 1/XI/20

Oil on Canvas

16 x 24 inches

210505

Alpen Stuck 29/IV/21

Alpen Stuck 29/IV/21

Oil on Canvas

16 x 24 inches

210504

Born

1951 Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany.


Education

1973-1978  State Academy of Fine Arts, Karsruhe, Germany.

1981 Scholarship to study at Villa Massimo, Rome (1984-85)

2003-2014  Professor at the Akademie der Bildenen Kunste, Nuremberg


Selected Solo Exhibitions

2022   Caldwell Snyder Gallery, St. Helena, CA

2021 313 ART PROJECT Paris
            Galerie Brennecke Berlin

2020 Caldwell Snyder Gallery, San Francisco

            Purdy Hicks Gallery, London England

            Galerie Boisseree, Cologbe Germany

2019  Stadische Gallery, Karlsruhe, Germany

2015 Ralph Fleck, MKM Küppersmühle Museum of Modern Art,  Duisburg, Germany.

            Purdy Hicks Gallery, London.

2014 Galerie Boisserée, Köln, Germany.

2013 313 Art Project, Seoul, South Korea.

2012 New Paintings, Purdy Hicks Gallery, London.

            Forum Kunst, Rottweil, Germany.

            Galerie Baumgarten, Freiburg, Germany.

2011 Schloss Bonndorf, Bonndorf, Germany.

            Galerie Josine Bokhoven, Amsterdam. 2010 Galerie 313, Seoul, South Korea.

            Waldshut, Schloss Bonndorf, Baden-Wuerttemberg, Germany.

2009 Marburger Kunstverein, Marburg, Germany.

2008 Purdy Hicks Gallery, London.

2007 Kunstverein Kirchzarten, Germany.

            Giverny, Purdy Hicks Gallery, London.

2006 Galerie Josine Bokhoven, Amsterdam.

            Galerie Brennecke, Berlin, Germany.

2005 Deutschlands Galerien zu Gast bei Lamy, Heidelberg, Germany.

            Galerie von Braubehrens, Munich, Germany.

2004 Purdy Hicks Gallery, London.

2003 Galerie Brennecke, Berlin, Germany.

2002 Galerie Josine Bokhoven, Amsterdam, Netherlands.

            Kunstverein Kirchzarten, Germany.

            Kunstverein Augsburg, Germany.

2001 Städtische Galerie Schwäbisch Hall, Germany.

            Galerie von Braunbehrens, Germany.

            Purdy Hicks Gallery, London.

2000 Galerie Brennecke, Berlin, Germany.


Selected Public & Private Collections

Augustinermuseum Freiburg • Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlung München • Bayerische Versicherungsbank AG München • Bouwfonds Kunstcollectie Hoevelaken • Bundesbildungsministerium Bonn • Deutsche Bank Collection Frankfurt - London - New York • Deutsche Botschaft Brüssel - Lima – Madrid – Paris – Windhoek • Deutsches Fleischermuseum Böblingen • ESMoA El Segundo Museum of Art Los Angeles California • Galerie der Stadt Sindelfingen • Goldmann Sachs Frankfurt • Hessische Landesbank London • HypoVereinsbank Kunstsammlung München • Kulturhaus der Bayer AG Leverkusen • Kultusministerium Baden-Württemberg Stuttgart • Kunsthalle St. Annen Lübeck • Kunsthalle Mannheim • Kunsthaus Zürich • Kunstmuseum Celle • Kunstmuseum Singen • Kunstmuseum Stuttgart - Galerie der Stadt Stuttgart • Kunstsammlung der Deutsche Bahn Stiftung Nürnberg • Kunstsammlung Landkreis Waldshut • Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz • Kunstsammlung Provinzial Rheinland Düsseldorf • Kupferstichkabinett Karlsruhe • Land Niedersachsen Hannover • MKM Museum für Moderne Kunst Sammlung Ströher Duisburg • Museum der Brotkultur Ulm • Museum der Stadt Rüsselsheim • Museum für Neue Kunst Freiburg • Museum Morsbroich Leverkusen • Museum Schloß Moyland Bedburg-Hau • Museum Sinclair-Haus ALTANA Kulturstiftung Bad Homburg • Museo Municipal de Arte Contemporáneo Madrid • Osthaus Museum Hagen • Regierungspräsidium Freiburg • Royal Bank of Scotland Art Collection London • Sammlung des Deutschen Bundestages Berlin • Sammlung Landesgirokasse Stuttgart • Sammlung von Metzler Frankfurt • Sprengel Museum Hannover • Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe • Staatsgalerie Stuttgart • Stadt Kornwestheim • Stadt Ravensburg • Städtische Galerie Fruchthalle Rastatt • Städtisches Museum Salzgitter • Stadtsparkasse Augsburg • Ständige Vertretung der BRD bei der Europäischen Union Brüssel • Strauss Family Foundation Solana Beach California • Ulmer Museum • United Nations, Den Haag / Washington • West LB Düsseldorf • Wilhelm Lehmbruck Museum Duisburg • ZDF Mainz – Lerchenberg

Patterns of life and art proliferate in German artist Ralph Fleck’s densely textured paintings—flower fields, packed bookshelves, piles of papers and boxes, aerial cityscapes, and churning water. Even more than observations of our physical environment, they are explorations of order and human production, the kinds of patterns nature and people create, and how those patterns intersect with art. As German art historian Wolfgang Längsfeld has said, he is a "painter who delves passionately into the structures of physically explorable reality.”

Fleck’s canvases play up the relationship between paint, with its formless, viscous, potentiality, and the real world, with its set lines and surfaces. Though at any moment, he seems to suggest, one world may morph into the other. He even paints images generated by art-making itself, depicting color swatches that double as geometric color fields, or the dabs and smears on his palette, which winkingly mirror works of expressionism—paintings of paint that shift between abstraction and literal reality.

In a subtle way, his paintings are concerned with the technology of seeing. His images of fields and interiors often recall zoomed-in photographs, a quality that German editor and critic Hans-Joachim Müller, in a catalog essay on Fleck’s work, traces back to Walter Benjamin’s ideas about art in the era of mechanical reproduction. It’s as if Fleck’s paintings are an act of resistance against the imagery that has flooded the modern world, “substituting narrow reproductions of reality with his own strong pictures.” Meanwhile, his cityscapes take a zoomed-out perspective, as if from an airplane or drone. Winifred Wang, a prominent art critic and architect, notes that they are about “ambience,” the essential character of the cities themselves.

Fleck's process centers on moment-by-moment interactions with the canvas. A painter obsessed with capturing the raw essence of his subjects, he is concerned with the immediacy of brushstrokes and the tactility of paint. Whether he’s painting a field of golden flowers or a wall of urban apartments, his colors create a shimmering fabric of shadows, highlights, and splashes of unexpected hues. Lothar Romain, a Berlin-based critic and curator who authored monographs on Andy Warhol and Joseph Beuys, compares Fleck’s use of impasto and changing color patterns to late-period Monet: “The rich impasto application becomes the inner structure of the painting, but never totally lets it representational origin out of sight.”

Born in Freiburg, Germany, Fleck studied at the State Academy of Fine Arts and has been widely collected throughout Germany and Europe, including at the MKM Küppersmühle Museum of Modern Art in Duisburg, Germany; the German Embassies in Brussels, Lima, Madrid, and Paris; the Museum of Contemporary Art in Freiburg, Germany; the Royal Bank of Scotland Art Collection in London; and the United Nations building in The Haugue, Netherlands.

Ralph Fleck
Biography

Press

Recent Paintings on view in Montecito December 2024 - January 2025

Ralph Fleck’s canvases play up the relationship between paint, with its formless, viscous, potentiality, and the real world, with its set lines and surfaces. Though at any moment, he seems to suggest, one world may morph into the other. He even paints images generated by art-making itself, depicting color swatches that double as geometric color fields, or the dabs and smears on his palette, which winkingly mirror works of expressionism—paintings of paint that shift between abstraction and literal reality.

Ralph Fleck

Patterns of life and art proliferate in German artist Ralph Fleck’s densely textured paintings—aerial cityscapes, flower fields, packed bookshelves and crowds of figures. Even more than observations of our physical environment, they are explorations of order and human production, of the kinds of patterns nature and people create.

Recent Paintings on view in Montecito December 2024 - January 2025

Ralph Fleck’s canvases play up the relationship between paint, with its formless, viscous, potentiality, and the real world, with its set lines and surfaces. Though at any moment, he seems to suggest, one world may morph into the other. He even paints images generated by art-making itself, depicting color swatches that double as geometric color fields, or the dabs and smears on his palette, which winkingly mirror works of expressionism—paintings of paint that shift between abstraction and literal reality.

bottom of page