The art historian Eduard Beaucamp, who has written extensively about the work of Thomas Gatzemeier, is impressed by the variety of the artist’s output: ‘Gatzemeier surprises with leaps and sudden changes. His work is not determined by stylistic coherences, but rather by vital rhythms. Like satyr plays, his light, flowing, brightly watercoloured ink drawings sit alongside his heavy-blooded painting. They pay homage to the bucolic and surrealist Picasso of the twenties.’

The paintings shown here are in chronological order, starting with his 1980 overtly political painting ‘Die Hitler kommen und gehen aber das deutsche Volk bleibt’ (Hitlers come and go but the German people remain), then some of his expressionistic paintings from the period before leaving the GDR. The shift to more naturalistic forms during the 1990s is very obvious, with multi-figure paintings like ‘Frei und Schwebend’ (Free and Floating) and ‘Der Ausstieg’ (The Way Out). After around 2004 naked women predominate, with the gradual addition of animals and birds.