Nachbar! Es brennt doch wirklich (nach Rückers Stück: Der Nachbar des Herrn Pansa). 1969.
Oil on fibreboard.
Signed and dated lower left. Signed, dated and titled on the reverse. 40 x 49.7 cm (15.7 x 19.5 in).
Up until September 28, 2025, selected works by the artist will be on display in the Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin, as part of the comprehensive exhibition "Zerreißprobe: Kunst zwischen Politik und Gesellschaft. Sammlung der Nationalgalerie 1945–2000". [CH].

• This painting relates to the drama “Der Nachbar des Herrn Pansa” (Mr. Pansa's Neighbor) by Günther Rücker (1924–2008), which premiered the same year.
• The figures are modeled on the costumes worn in play at the Deutsches Theater Berlin, for which Mattheuer also designed the stage set.
• In the 1950s, the author and director Günther Rücker became known for his documentaries and screenplays for feature films and radio dramas, as well as for his plays.
• A year later, Mattheuer created a lithograph of the same name with a similar motif (Koch 176).
• The related painting “Der Nachbar des Herrn Pansa” (1969) is part of the collection of the Panorama Museum in Bad Frankenhausen.
• 55 years part of the same private collection.
• Paintings from this year can be found in the collections of the Museum Barberini in Potsdam and the Berlin Nationalgalerie, among others.

PROVENANCE: Private collection, Berlin (acquired in 1969).
Family-owned ever since.

EXHIBITION: Från Leipzig i DDR, Lunds Konsthall, Lund, March 15 - April 13, 1980, cat. no. 19 (with the exhibition label on the stretcher).

LITERATURE: Stefanie Michels (ed.), Wolfgang Mattheuer: Bilder als Botschaft. Catalogue raisonné of paintings 1950-2003, Leipzig/Frankfurt am Main/Berlin 2017, no. G 69/18 (illustrated in b/w).