Sigmar Polke, born in 1941 in Oels, Lower Silesia (now Oleśnica, Poland) was a German painter and photographer widely regarded as one of the most influential artists of postwar Europe. A central figure in the development of contemporary art in Germany, Polke co-founded the movement of “Capitalist Realism” in the early 1960s alongside Gerhard Richter and Konrad Lueg. After fleeing with his family to West Germany in 1953, he trained as a stained-glass painter before studying at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf from 1961 to 1967, where he developed his experimental and ironic approach to image-making.
Polke’s work is characterized by a restless exploration of materials, techniques, and visual languages. He appropriated imagery from mass media, advertising, and popular culture, often enlarging raster dots to expose the mechanics of reproduction and perception. Throughout his career he challenged political, social, and artistic conventions with humor and skepticism, combining painting, photography, printmaking, film, and chemically reactive substances. His works frequently question authorship, ideology, and the reliability of images, positioning him as a critical observer of postwar consumer society. Polke’s constantly shifting style resisted categorization and stood in deliberate opposition to rigid artistic movements, making experimentation itself a central theme of his practice.
His works are held in major public collections including The Museum of Modern Art (New York), The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), Tate Modern (London), Centre Pompidou (Paris), The Museum Ludwig (Cologne), The Städel Museum (Frankfurt), and The Art Institute of Chicago.