Norbert Prangenberg (June 23, 1949 — June 29, 2012) was an abstract painter, sculptor, and engraver who was born in Nettseheim, just outside of Cologne, Germany. Though he had no formal training and did not fully engage with art until his 30s, Prangenberg did finally come up with a style that was uniquely his own, not fitting comfortably into the neo-expressionist or neo-geo movements of his time, in the 1970s and 1980s. At this time, he was considered a major figure in contemporary German art. Though he got his start with abstract paintings, he also became known for making sculptures of all sizes; and while his work initially appears abstract, the titles given sometimes allude to the human body or a landscape. As a trained gold- and silversmith, as well as a glassblower, he always showed an attention to materials and how they could be physically engaged with. He was interested in how his own two hands could affect the painting or sculpture's surface. Traces of the artist's hand appear literally throughout his entire oeuvre, before he lost the battle with liver cancer in 2012.
Biography At age 13, Prangenberg was studying to be a gold- and silversmith. After three and a half years of study and a year working for a small company, he attended a werkkunstchule (school for crafts) until the age of 23. Once he was finished with his studies he began working at a glass factory, making designs for wine glasses and vases. At this point, he began dabbling with his own independent drawing and painting. From the age of 26 to 29, he continued freelancing at various glass factories and became a father of two. At this time, he also became critically engaged with the surrounding art world in Cologne and Düsseldorf, visiting galleries and museums frequently and seeing art by leading visionaries such as Jasper Johns and Yves Klein. By the age of 30, Prangenberg felt confident that he was making art that was uniquely his. On a whim, he contacted museum curator Johannes Cladders who began championing his work immediately and connecting him to other curators and dealers. By the 1980s, he becomes a full-time artist, moving organically between watercolor, sculpture, and oil painting, sometimes simultaneously. Throughout his artistic career he always kept a fine eye on material and sought to experiment with how his own hand could change the surface of an abstract painting or bulbous sculpture.
Artistic style Prangenberg's initial forays into art making were in the 1980s and his interests were focused primarily on color and structure. His medium of choice was watercolor on paper or canvas and his easel of choice was in fact not an easel at all, but the floor. Only after he was done would he stretch the painting over stretcher bars. He continued using this process until 2007. According to John Yau, these early paintings were "planes of luminous color inhabited by geometric forms, which seem to have been scooped out." Yau may have made use of the words "scooped out" because Prangenberg was using an impasto technique, applying the paint in a thick manner that allowed the surfaces to be cut into.
By the 1990s, Prangenberg was also working with sculpture. Annegret Laabs, writing in 2008 in the artist's monograph, "Norbert Prangenberg: Venustas et Fortuna," explained: "Up to the mid-1990s, the focus of his ceramic works was to be found in large, bulbous, hollow forms, usually lying on their side, which were characterized by the independent movement of the glass flux that surrounds the terracotta when it is fired, and which ultimately merges light and darkness, the visible and the imaginary, or, indeed, keeps them apart." However, after the mid-1990s, Pragnenberg rotates these large scale, monumental sculptures so that they are standing, mimicking a standing human body. Yet, they maintain the same spontaneous, playful, organic nature of the ones resting on their sides. His sculptures also show an interest in materiality; in certain parts of the clay forms you can see where his fingerprints have affected the surface by way of holes, notches, and incisions.
In the 2000s, he switched up his painting and sculpting techniques substantially. In 2007, he stopped painting with watercolors directly on the floor and focused, instead, on oil painting on easels. These abstract paintings tended to have distinct areas within the composition. This way of making a painting within a painting informed his later ceramic sculptures. In 2012, he was awarded a six-week residency in the ceramics studio at Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers. Though he was battling liver cancer at the time, he churned out many small scale works. Writing about the works in 2014, Roberta Smith noted that his "small, ebullient tabletop works convey a wildness typical of kindergarteners." Going one step further, Ben La Rocco wrote of the pieces: "One finds tiny landscapes, portrait heads, a stag, what looks like fragments of architecture, byzantine patterning, abstractions, and other bits of imagery painted into the glazes, creating a miniature exhibition of painting within the sculpture exhibition." In fact, Prangenberg named these works exclusively either "Kopf" (head) or "Landschaft" (landscape), perhaps encouraging us to look past the initial estimate of abstraction. Additionally, many of them had smaller surfaces with painting on them; it was as if many works of art made up one small sculpture.
Exhibitions Solo exhibition 1980 Norbert Prangenberg: Bilder und Zeichnungen, Galerie Karsten Greve, Cologne
1981 Norbert Prangenberg, Galerie Karsten Greve, Cologne
1982 Norbert Prangenberg, Bonner Kunstverein, Bonn, March 15–April 24
1983 Norbert Prangenberg, Galerie Anders Tornberg, Lund, Sweden Norbert Prangenberg: Bilder, Zeichnungen, Skulpturen, Galerie Karsten Greve, Cologne Norbert Prangenberg, Knoedler Gallery, London
1984 Norbert Prangenberg, Museum Haus Lange and Haus Esters, Krefeld, Germany, May 6–June 24 Norbert Prangenberg, Galerie Meyer-Ellinger, Frankfurt, Germany
1985 Norbert Prangenberg, Knoedler Gallery, London
1986 Norbert Prangenberg, Hirschl & Adler Modern, New York, October 4–25 Norbert Prangenberg, Gesellschaft für Aktuelle Kunst, Bremen, November 2–December 7 Norbert Prangenberg, Galerie Karsten Greve, Cologne
1987 Norbert Prangenberg: Bilder, Zeichnungen, Skulpturen, Galerie Karsten Greve, Cologne, September Norbert Prangenberg, Galleri Thomas Wallner, Malmö, Sweden
1988 Norbert Prangenberg: Linolschnitte, 1978–1988, Rathaus Reutlingen, Germany, April 30–May 6 Norbert Prangenberg, Galerie Bismarck, Bremen
1988–1989 Norbert Prangenberg: Plastiche Arbeiten, Galerie Karsten Greve, Cologne, December 10, 1988 – February 11, 1989
1989 Norbert Prangenberg: Malerei, Kunstverein Bochum, Germany Norbert Prangenberg, Galerie Barbara Gross, Munich
1990 Norbert Prangenberg: Keramikskulpturen und Zeichnungen, Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe, Germany, September 9–October 14 Norbert Prangenberg, Galerie Schneiderei, Cologne Norbert Prangenberg, Galerie Karsten Greve, Paris
1991 Norbert Prangenberg: Bilder, Zeichnungen, Skulpturen, Galerie Barbara Gross, Munich Norbert Prangenberg: Skulpturen und Zeichnungen, Bilder, Produzentengalerie Hamburg, March 16–May 11
1992 Norbert Prangenberg: Morgenlandfahrer, Galerie Karsten Greve, Cologne
1993 Norbert Prangenberg: Bilder, Skulpturen, Zeichnungen, Galerie Barbara Gross, Munich Norbert Prangenberg, Kunstverein Heinsberg, Germany Norbert Prangenberg, Galerie Karsten Greve, Cologne Norbert Prangenberg, Galerie Bismarck, Bremen Norbert Prangenberg, Krefelder Kunstverein, Krefeld, Germany
1994 Norbert Prangenberg: Bilder, Skulpturen, Aquarelle in der Sammlung Finkenberg, Neues Museum Weserburg, Bremen Norbert Prangenberg: Porcelaine de Sèvres, Galerie Karsten Greve, Cologne and Paris Norbert Prangenberg: Figuren, Produzentengalerie, Hamburg, April 23–June 4 Norbert Prangenberg, Galerie Tilly Haderek, Stuttgart, October 22–December 17
1995 Norbert Prangenberg: Raumarbeit, Kunstverein Ruhr, Essen, Germany, February 17–April 9 Norbert Prangenberg, Galerie Bismarck, Bremen Norbert Prangenberg: Malerei, Galerie Barbara Gross, Munich
1996–1997 Norbert Prangenberg, Württembergischer Kunstverein, Stuttgart, April 20–May 26, 1996; Westfälischer Kunstverein, Münster, Germany, August 31–October 13, 1996; Gemeentelijk Centrum voor Beeldende Kunst de Beyerde, Breda, Netherlands, March 23–May 4, 1997
1997 Norbert Prangenberg, Europees Keramisch Werkcentrum, s’Hertogenbosch, Netherlands
1998 Norbert Prangenberg: Neue Bilder, Galerie Barbara Gross, Munich Norbert Prangenberg: Bilder, Galerie Karsten Greve, Cologne Norbert Prangenberg, Produzentengalerie, Hamburg Norbert Prangenberg, Galerie Harry Zellweger, Basel
1998–1999 Norbert Prangenberg, Galerie Rupert Walser, Munich, October 20, 1998 – January 22, 1999
1999 Norbert Prangenberg: Skulpturen, Forum Rotunde, Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe, Germany Norbert Prangenberg: Bilder und Aquarelle, Galerie Bismarck, Bremen
2000 50.59: Norbert Prangenberg, Zeche Zollverein, Essen, January 8–23 Norbert Prangenberg: Die Wurzel (Skulpturen und Zeichnungen), Hermeshof, Rommerskirchen, Germany, September 3–October 29 Norbert Prangenberg: Bilder & Skulpturen, Galerie Hollenbach, Stuttgart, September 22–November 21 Norbert Prangenberg: Malerei, Trinitatiskirche, Cologne
2001–2002 Norbert Prangenberg: Holzschnitte, Linolschnitte, Werkverzeichnis, 1988–2001, Städtische Galerie, Bietigheim-Bissingen, May 12–June 24, 2001; Versicherungskammer Bayern, Munich, September 5–November 3, 2001; Städtisches Museum Schloss Morsbroich, Leverkusen, Germany, March–May, 2002
2002 Norbert Prangenberg: Zeichnungen, Galerie Barbara Gross, Munich Norbert Prangenberg: Skulpturen, Bilder, Zeichnungen, Galerie Karsten Greve, Cologne Norbert Prangenberg, Galerie Lisbeth Lipps, Rotterdam Norbert Prangenberg: Neue Arbeiten, Produzentengalerie, Hamburg
2003 Malerbücher: Norbert Prangenberg, Galerie Rupert Walser, Munich, June 26–July 26
2003–2004 Norbert Prangenberg, Galerie Hollenbach, Stuttgart, November 21, 2003 – February 3, 2004
2004 Norbert Prangenberg: Skulpturen, Malerei, Zeichnungen, Galerie Karsten Greve, Cologne, April 23–May 27
2004–2005 Norbert Prangenberg: Retrospektive der Zeichnungen, Aquarelle und Gouachen, 1978–2004, Kaiser Wilhelm Museum, Krefeld, Germany, October 23, 2004 – January 23, 2005
2005 Norbert Prangenberg: Zeichnungen, 1978–2004, Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe, Germany, September 3–October 16 Norbert Prangenberg, Galerie Rupert Walser, Munich, November 11–December 17
2006 Norbert Prangenberg: Malerei, Museum Katharinenhof, Kranenburg, Germany Norbert Prangenberg: Sculpture, Peinture, Dessin, Galerie Karsten Greve, Paris, September 9–October 14
2007 Norbert Prangenberg: Wasser zu Wein, Gold zu Stroh, Produzentengalerie, Hamburg, May 25–July 28
2008 Norbert Prangenberg: Venustas et Fortuna, Kunstmuseum Kloster Unser Lieben Frauen, Magdeburg, Germany, March 9–June 22 Norbert Prangenberg, Temporäre Galerie Schloss Neersen, Willich, Germany, April 6–May 4 Über und Über – oder: Wer malt den Mücken die Flügel, Kunstverein Lippstadt, Germany, April 27–June 15 Norbert Prangenberg: Neue Bilder, Galerie Karsten Greve, Cologne, July 25–September 13
2009 Norbert Prangenberg: Die Liebe Farbe, Galerie Rupert Walser, Munich, January 16–March 13 Norbert Prangenberg: Neue Arbeiten, Galerie Ebbers, Kranenburg, Germany, September 20–November 7 Norbert Prangenberg: Esculturas, Pinturas y Dibujos, Galeria Manuel Ojeda, Gran Canaria, Spain, November 20–December 24
2010 Norbert Prangenberg: Paintings, Betty Cuningham Gallery, New York, April 1–May 22 Norbert Prangenberg: Skulpturen, 7 Hours, Berlin, September 17–October 16 Norbert Prangenberg: New Paintings, Ancient & Modern, London, October 7–November 20
2011 Norbert Prangenberg, Galerie am Bergkerk, Deventer, Netherlands, April 30–June 30