Albert Oehlen valuation
Set out to paint badly on purpose, and has spent forty years finding new ways to do it well.
Albert Oehlen was born at Krefeld in 1954, studied in Hamburg under Sigmar Polke, and emerged in the 1980s alongside Martin Kippenberger and Werner Buttner in a group whose stated programme was bad painting — an assault on the earnestness of German neo-expressionism, conducted from inside it.
What a work by Albert Oehlen is worth
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 is free, made online from the photographs you send, and it commits you to nothing. We act for sellers across the United Kingdom, Europe and the United States.
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Bio
Albert Oehlen was born at Krefeld in 1954, studied in Hamburg under Sigmar Polke, and emerged in the 1980s alongside Martin Kippenberger and Werner Buttner in a group whose stated programme was bad painting — an assault on the earnestness of German neo-expressionism, conducted from inside it. The work since has moved through self-consciously ugly figuration, grey abstractions made under self-imposed rules, some of the earliest paintings made with computer graphics, collaged advertising posters, and the fingerpainted and tree paintings of recent years. He is among the more influential painters working, particularly for younger artists.
The paintings are unique and the sequence matters, since the manner changes deliberately and often, and a valuation depends on identifying which body of work a canvas belongs to rather than on the look of it. Many combine oil, spray, printed paper and digital output on one surface, which raises mixed-media condition questions — collaged elements lift, inkjet components are light-sensitive, and the different layers age at different rates. Signature and date are usually on the reverse. There is an editioned print output through named publishers.
Max Hetzler, the Lord Jim Lodge and Düsseldorf
Oehlen moved to Berlin in 1977, and Galerie Max Hetzler gave him his first solo show in 1981. With Kippenberger he was a member of the Lord Jim Lodge, and his brother Markus Oehlen is also a painter. From 2000 to 2009 he was professor of painting at the Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf.
The New Museum in New York showed his self-portraits of the 1980s and 1990s in Home and Garden in 2015, and the Serpentine in London gave him an exhibition in 2018. He lives in Switzerland and Spain. A painting is identified by its title, date and the series it belongs to, and gallery provenance supports it.
Whitebank Fine Art is an art advisory and gallery, not an auction house, and is not affiliated with any auction house or with the artist, their estate or their representatives. This page describes the range we advise on. Nothing here is investment advice.
