David Stern Sold at Auction Prices

b. 1956 -

(b Essen, Germany, 1956) David Stern is best known for his forceful and energetic canvases, covered in inches-thick layers of paint, which convey the multivalent experience of an increasingly globalized world. Stern has referred to himself as an “action painter,” echoing the artistic legacies of New York School painters Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning and Franz Kline. Yet his captivating human forms reach further back to histories of portraiture. After an apprenticeship as a sign painter Stern attended the Dortmund Fachhochschule für Design and Art (1975-79) and the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf (1980-82). He then taught painting at the Dortmund Fachhochschule für Design and Art, while he developed his painting skills living in a village near the town of Münster. In 1986 he moved to Cologne, where he found his artistic voice. From 1987 on, Stern exhibited his work nationally and quickly entered the international scene in the early nineties, with shows in Austria, Hungary, the Netherlands, Belgium and Great Britain. Stern's 1992 retrospective exhibition David Stern: Study for a Way at the Hungarian National Gallery in Budapest was the first exhibition by a contemporary Western artist after Hungary opened to the West. In 1993 Stern showed his work in the US for the first time, immigrated in 1994 and became naturalized in 2000. Since his arrival in New York, he has been fascinated by his encounters with an intensely urban place defined by its energy, crowding, speed and cosmopolitanism. His national traveling exhibition David Stern: The American Years (1995-2008) curated by Karen Wilkin, demonstrates shifts in form and content in Stern’s work since the artist moved to New York from Germany. (Credit: Rachel Stern)