Peter Dreher: The Happy Sisyphus

Peter Dreher was born in Mannheim in 1932, and knew he wanted to be a painter from the age of 10. From 1950 to 1956, Dreher studied at the Karlsruhe Academy, which was influenced by Abstract Expressionism from America and European Informel, both of which were hostile to realism. Dreher's initial foray into abstraction in the 1960s was abandoned in favor of more realistic painting. An interest in Edmund Husserl's teachings on phenomenology and Buddhist writing led to a decisive moment in 1972 to paint a simple glass of water, ultimately leading to Dreher's most famous series, Tag um Tag guter Tag. Continued over 40 years, the series included close to 5,000 variations by the time of the artist's death in 2020, some of which were painted over by the artist himself. Within set limits of scale and composition, the series became a meditation on the act of seeing, permeated by themes of home, purpose, and autobiography.

Peter Dreher (b. 1932, Mannheim, Germany, d. 2020, Wittnau, Germany) studied at the State Academy of Fine Arts at Karlsruhe between 1950 to 1956, and was Professor of Painting at the State Academy, Karlsruhe, between 1968 to 1997. During his professorship, he taught and influenced a number of acclaimed artists, including Anselm Kiefer. Solo exhibitions of his work have been presented at institutions internationally, most recently at Museum für Neue Kunst, Freiburg (2022), and previously at the Milton Keynes Museum, Great Britain (2013); Landesvertretung Baden-Würtemberg, Berlin (2012); Musée d'art moderne et contemporain, Geneva, (2011), Museum Erfurt, Germany (2008); Athens Biennial (2007) and Staatliche Kunsthalle (Baden-Baden) (1977).