Image courtesy of Tabel-Gerster

Munich, 7 May 2009 (kk) - From 11 June to 31 July 2009, Armin Mueller-Stahl is showing his most recent work as well as classics from his œuvre at Ketterer Kunst in Munich under the title Menschenbilder, Zyklen und Lebenslinien [Portraits, Cycles and Life Lines].

"It is a great honour to be able to show works by a universal genius such as Armin Mueller-Stahl. I am really delighted that we are in a position to present a contemporary artist of such stature," thus Robert Ketterer, owner of Ketterer Kunst.

"What is so brilliant about Armin Mueller-Stahl is his complex talent, which makes him able to translate into drawing whatever he does as an actor. I don’t know who compares with him in this respect," adds Frank-Thomas Gaulin of Kunsthaus Lübeck.

Born in Tilsit in what was then East Prussia in 1930, Armin Mueller-Stahl is, in company with Hermann Hesse, Ernst Barlach and Oskar Kokoschka, a multitalent in German art history. After passing his examinations as a concert violinist and music teacher, he became an actor, at first on the theatre stage and on television in the GDR as well as in DEFA films. In 1980 Armin Mueller-Stahl emigrated to West Germany, where he has since then dazzled audiences as a top-flight actor, who soon found his way to Hollywood to work with international screen stars such as George Clooney, Michael Douglas, John Malkovich and Tom Hanks.

Not quite so well known but just as exciting is Armin Mueller-Stahl’s work as a writer and visual artist. Although he has been painting as a means of expression for over forty years, his work was not presented publicly in Germany until the 2001 spring exhibition at the Babelsberg Film Museum in Potsdam.

"Painting, writing, making music and acting simply belong together, as I see it," says Armin Mueller-Stahl himself. And goes on to add: "Creative desire is an attempt to throw off the shackles of life." Painting and drawing seem to be particularly helpful to him in this because they represent "the more honest proceedings" he feels. "Painting seeks the truth. Here what matters, unlike in writing, where good punch-lines count, is representing as authentically as possible in its entirety a figure telling someone something," the artist explains.

Armin Mueller-Stahl’s visual works with a special focus on his prints have been documented at the Schleswig-Holsteinische Landesmuseen Schloß Gottorf on the initiative of Professor Dr. Herwig Guratzsch, who will retire as director of that institution at the end of May 2009.

Armin Mueller-Stahl in front of his work
"Faustian Melancholy"
one of 20 original lithographs from
from portfolio to Johann Wolfgang Goethe’s
"Urfaust" 2003
Image courtesy of www.kunsthaus-luebeck.de