Gerhard Altenbourg

Many of Gerhard Altenbourg's works bear witness to his close connection to nature, which he had explored in the surroundings of Altenburg from 1958. Nature served him as a metaphor for human existence, the abysses of which he had become acquainted with in an inhuman way as an infantryman during the Second World War. After the end of the war, he initially pursued a journalistic education. Private drawing lessons led him to study at the Hochschule für Baukunst und Bildende Kunst in Weimar. He adopted the pseudonym in reference to his hometown in the mid-1950s. (EW)

LITERATURE: Gerhard Altenbourg. Monograph and catalog raisonné, edited by Lindenau-Museum Altenburg, with contributions by Willi Heining, Annegret Janda and others, catalog raisonné edited by Gudrun Schmidt, 3 volumes, 2010.