Untitled (The Artist and His Wife)

In this large drawing, A. R. Penck depicts himself behind his wife Dany. He defines his own face with white lines on black, while drawing Dany's outlines in the reverse. Penck wrote that at this time he was letting form, shape, and tension take precedence at the expense of color, feeling, and resolution, preferring to paint this double portrait based on a pictorial system rather than one guided by feeling. Once banned from exhibiting his work in East Germany, Penck received acclaim in the West for his simplified range of figures and forms. He received an exit visa from East Germany in 1980 and settled in Cologne.