





eine freie malerin.
elke wree.
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| Author(s) | Michael Hübl |
| Design | Neues Sortiment Dagmar Geiger/Kevon Wells GbR |
| Size | 17 x 21 cm |
| Cover | Hardcover |
| Pages | 160 |
| Illustrations | 97 |
| Language(s) | German |
| ISBN | 978-3-96912-248-8 |
The painter Elke Wree’s career (1940–2025) was defined by the debates of the post-war era. Art was considered a search for truth and intended to reveal the existentially essential. Fundamental questions were: Realism or abstraction? Genuine or fake? This book provides insight into the search for an authentic, contemporary visual language. Wree’s formative teachers in Karlsruhe and Berlin are discussed, as are her changing social environments and the rapid societal changes. Wree’s paintings were always nature-inspired abstraction with overlapping color spaces and painting gestures. Wree groups her pictures with terms such as condensations and clearings, in-between lands, or traces of light and time. This volume is simultaneously a biography, panorama, analysis, and homage.
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