A. R. Penck
Painted stick figures as a private code in East Germany, under a name that was not his.
A. R. Penck was born Ralf Winkler in Dresden in 1939 and took the pseudonym from a geologist of the ice ages, partly to protect himself: he was repeatedly refused entry to art school in East Germany, was expelled from the artists' union, and was under Stasi surveillance for years while smuggling work to a West German dealer. The paintings use a deliberately primitive vocabulary of stick figures, arrows, crosses and signs, which he called Standart — a system meant to work as a universal code, and also to be deniable. He was expatriated in 1980, taught in Dusseldorf and died in 2017.
The East German works made before 1980 are the historically important part of the output and are scarce, since materials were short and pictures were smuggled out; they were often painted on bedsheets, packing card and whatever was available, which creates real condition and support problems. The much larger post-1980 output forms the bulk of the market. Penck also made bronze sculpture, a very large body of works on paper, and a substantial printed output. Signature is usually a monogram; dating frequently requires the archive.
If you own a work by A. R. Penck
Send photographs and whatever paperwork came with it. The first question is what the work actually is — edition or unique, when, and in what condition — because everything else follows from the answer. A valuation costs nothing and commits you to nothing.
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