Thierry Noir
The first artist to paint the Berlin Wall, in fast cartoon heads, from 1984.
Thierry Noir was born in Lyon in 1958 and moved to West Berlin in 1982 with no plan, living in a squat beside the Wall in Kreuzberg. In 1984 he began painting it — illegally, since the Wall itself stood on East German territory — using paint donated by neighbours and working fast, because the border guards could and did cross to arrest people. Speed produced the style: two colours, thick black outline, enormous simplified heads in profile. He painted well over a kilometre of it before 1989, and appeared in Wings of Desire.
The market divides between studio paintings on canvas and board, which are the main body of work, and genuine painted Wall segments, which appear occasionally and carry substantial documentation and logistical questions of their own. There is a print output in screenprint and giclee, and a quantity of painted objects and collaborative product. Because the imagery is simple, widely reproduced and easy to imitate, studio documentation and provenance matter more than they otherwise would. Signature and date are on the face; the flat acrylic surfaces are unvarnished and scuff easily.
If you own a work by Thierry Noir
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