Ralph Fleck
Current Exhibition | January 15 - February 5 | St. Helena
Ralph Fleck is a German-born painter whose career spans more than four decades of sustained artistic production and international exhibition. Formally trained at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Karlsruhe in the 1970s, Fleck began exhibiting professionally in the late 1980s and has since developed a rigorous and enduring practice grounded in material exploration, perceptual complexity, and structural inquiry. His work is held in major museum and private collections worldwide, reflecting the depth and consistency of his contribution to contemporary painting.
Fleck’s paintings are constructed through dense, layered compositions that balance abstraction and representation, drawing from architecture, landscape, and lived environments without describing them literally. Thick impasto, visible brushwork, and carefully structured patterning create surfaces with a strong physical presence, while vibrant, rhythmically distributed color allows forms to emerge and dissolve as the viewer moves between distance and proximity. This shifting perception invites sustained engagement and reflects the maturity of a practice shaped by decades of refinement, teaching, and continued investigation.
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
2024 Caldwell Snyder Gallery, Montecito, CA, USA
Galerie Boisserée Köln, Germany
Purdy Hicks Gallery, London, England
2023 Galerie Schlichtenmaier Stuttgart
Galerie Schwarz Greifswald
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
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
2024 Caldwell Snyder Gallery, Montecito, CA, USA
Galerie Boisserée Köln, Germany
Purdy Hicks Gallery, London, England
2023 Galerie Schlichtenmaier Stuttgart
Galerie Schwarz Greifswald
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.
Biography
Press
Current Exhibition | January 15 - February 5 | St. Helena
Ralph Fleck is a German-born painter whose career spans more than four decades of sustained artistic production and international exhibition. Formally trained at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Karlsruhe in the 1970s, Fleck began exhibiting professionally in the late 1980s and has since developed a rigorous and enduring practice grounded in material exploration, perceptual complexity, and structural inquiry. His work is held in major museum and private collections worldwide, reflecting the depth and consistency of his contribution to contemporary painting.
Fleck’s paintings are constructed through dense, layered compositions that balance abstraction and representation, drawing from architecture, landscape, and lived environments without describing them literally. Thick impasto, visible brushwork, and carefully structured patterning create surfaces with a strong physical presence, while vibrant, rhythmically distributed color allows forms to emerge and dissolve as the viewer moves between distance and proximity. This shifting perception invites sustained engagement and reflects the maturity of a practice shaped by decades of refinement, teaching, and continued investigation.
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.
Current Exhibition | January 15 - February 5 | St. Helena
Ralph Fleck is a German-born painter whose career spans more than four decades of sustained artistic production and international exhibition. Formally trained at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Karlsruhe in the 1970s, Fleck began exhibiting professionally in the late 1980s and has since developed a rigorous and enduring practice grounded in material exploration, perceptual complexity, and structural inquiry. His work is held in major museum and private collections worldwide, reflecting the depth and consistency of his contribution to contemporary painting.
Fleck’s paintings are constructed through dense, layered compositions that balance abstraction and representation, drawing from architecture, landscape, and lived environments without describing them literally. Thick impasto, visible brushwork, and carefully structured patterning create surfaces with a strong physical presence, while vibrant, rhythmically distributed color allows forms to emerge and dissolve as the viewer moves between distance and proximity. This shifting perception invites sustained engagement and reflects the maturity of a practice shaped by decades of refinement, teaching, and continued investigation.