Norbert Schwontkowski: Some of My Secrets - Tapa dura

Norbert Schwontkowski was a solitary artistic mind. His bizarre and peculiar paintings renounce all complacency. As a painter of the "human condition," he placed mankind in his disorientation at the center of his pictorial world. Here, man remains a seeker, for there is no hope in these pictures; neither religion nor art offer a perspective of salvation. Schwontkowski's pictures convey a deep earnestness, which can nevertheless take on the form of a bitterly humorous motif.

Christoph Schreier is assistant manager at Kunstmuseum Bonn.