From the First Drawings to the Quince Portraits
A chronological overview of artistic phases, formative experiences, studies, illustrations, portraits, Comic Cubism, Müller & Sohn and the current panel paintings of quinces.
Early Influences
In 1968, Hermann Krupp moved Galerie 66 into the immediate neighbourhood of my childhood home in Hofheim am Taunus. The art encountered there felt like a revelation and formed a counterpoint to everyday middle-class life. Sundays at the gallery became an early, almost ritual experience of art.
Encounters with artists including Gernot Bubenik, Otmar Alt, Simon Dittrich, Geet Govind, Pitt Moog, Reinhold G. Müller, Hans Geipel, Jürgen Reipka, Ingrid Dahn, Sybille Schlageter and Renate Golla brought a spirit of departure and possibility into my childhood.
The Path to Portraiture
An early fascination with Constructivism and abstract painting gradually gave way, during my youth, to figurative and naturalistic work—especially portraiture and my own comic figures. Drawing, contour, hatching, composition and colour harmony became central artistic categories.
The Old Masters—Albrecht Dürer, Jan van Eyck, Frans Hals and Caravaggio—remained important points of reference: not as historicist models, but as a school of directness, sensuality and painterly precision.
1968
Hermann Krupp moves Galerie 66 into the immediate neighbourhood in Hofheim am Taunus. Sundays at the gallery and its children’s painting class become an early formative encounter with contemporary art.
1979
A monotype tending towards the painterly is created in the secondary-school art room. After the death of my father, I leave school early.
1980
A painterly phase and engagement with the brushwork of Impressionism. I begin studying at the Merz Akademie in Stuttgart.
1982
Drawings such as Bearded Vulture and Leopard are made during a Merz Akademie visit to the natural-history museum in Rosensteinpark. Alongside my studies, I create animated films, including work for EHAPA.
1983
A mystical and surreal phase, produced almost exclusively in pencil. The Roller Coaster Ride is inspired by a drawing visit to the Cannstatter Wasen.
1986
After the pencil phase, watercolour becomes the preferred medium. For Thienemann, Otfried Preußler’s Robber Hotzenplotz is re-staged in gouache for puzzle books—with the heirs’ permission and in the style of Franz Josef Tripp.
1989
Illustrations for book publishers and advertising agencies finance life and provide space for painting. Nature studies and watercolours become increasingly important.
1991
Direct watercolour studies from nature are created, including Little African. I begin a visiting lectureship at the State Academy of Fine Arts Stuttgart, which continues until 2004.
1992
Studies of wild flowers and grasses from nature are produced between 1989 and 1992. At the same time, my affinity with artists such as Albrecht Dürer deepens.
1993
An expressive phase and transition towards Comic Cubism. The Würmtal studio in the northern Black Forest becomes an important place to live and work.
1994
Works emerge from the painterly phase that will later be continued under the artist name ditArdo.
1995
The birth of ‘Comic Cubism’: an independent style that has been continuously developed since 1993. The first exhibitions follow, and the City of Leonberg acquires a painting.
1997
Alongside painting, I work as an art director in a media agency and later for a New Economy start-up. Despite the professional comfort, I return to painting in 2000 in order to devote my time fully to artistic work.
2005
Working stay in Jakarta at the invitation of Indonesian internet entrepreneur and patron Toto Otto Sugiri. I initially create commissioned portraits in Indonesia, followed by independent portraits.
2007
Back in Germany, I work intensively with oil paint. An expressive pictorial documentation of life in Jakarta is produced.
2008
I turn away from expressive oil painting, which threatens to become a dead end, and return to a sharply drawn line. This opens new aesthetic perspectives and leads, among other works, to portraits and the Darksider series.
2010
Commissioned portraits, including a portrait of patron Toto Otto Sugiri following a meeting in Stuttgart.
2013
My interpretation of Saint Anthony makes a headline in the Stuttgarter Zeitung following the group exhibition Dezemberschau at Amrei Heyne’s gallery.
2014
The quince becomes a central subject. A series of photorealistic paintings deepens my engagement with Old Master techniques.
2015
I establish the art label Müller & Sohn with Irene Müller and register it as a European trademark. Joint projects, works and exhibitions follow.
2016
Further commissioned portraits, including Peppy, the portrait of a beloved horse.
2018
Audience Award of the First South-West German Art Prize for my portrait of actress Elke Twiesselmann. At the same time, I attempt to reconcile ditArdo and Diethard.
2019
The Müller & Sohn collaborative project Land gewinnen receives the Karl-Heinz Knoedler Foundation Art Prize in Ellwangen. A visit to Dürer’s hare at the Albertina and to the National Gallery in London inspires trompe-l’œil effects in my painting.
2022
Solo exhibition with Müller & Sohn at Haus der Wirtschaft Baden-Württemberg in Stuttgart. Further group exhibitions include the DA! Art Award at Stadtmuseum Düsseldorf, artwerk projekt Vaihingen-Enz and the Donaueschingen Regional exhibition.
2023
Commissions include Sophie Scholl for the City of Leonberg, the Café Künstlerbrot project in St Gallen and the portrait Nathalie. Participation in art-figura 2023, the 10th Art Prize of the City of Schwarzenberg.
2024
The Wall is created as a mural on school grounds in collaboration with pupils of the Ludwig-Uhland-Schule in Leinfelden. Solo exhibitions take place at Kunstverein Ludwigsburg and the municipal gallery in Plochingen.
2025
Quince portraits in the 40 × 40 cm format are painted in egg tempera on wooden panels in the tradition of medieval and Renaissance painting. New quince paintings become a concentrated focus of the current work. Solo exhibition at Galerie Altes Rathaus in Musberg near Stuttgart. Visit by Ben Willikens.
2026
Work continues on quince portraits in egg tempera and now also in casein glue paint on marble ground. For the time being, the format remains 40 × 40 cm. In parallel, work begins on several other artistic projects, including sculpture and illustration. The quince portraits nevertheless remain at the centre of the artistic practice.