Michael Werner (born 1941) opened his first gallery in Berlin in 1963 — originally Galerie Werner & Katz — and gave Georg Baselitz his first solo exhibition that same year. The show included Die große Nacht im Eimer; the seizure and trial that followed could have ended the relationship. It did not. Werner stood by Baselitz, and Baselitz remained exclusively represented by Werner for more than fifty years.
Werner’s gallery moved to Cologne in 1969 and later opened branches in New York and London. Over two decades, it functioned as the private institution that held the German Neo-Expressionist scene together commercially. Baselitz, Lüpertz, Penck, Immendorff, and Polke all passed through Werner’s roster. The gallery’s programming shaped which works survived in the canon: what Werner chose to show, document, and promote became the record.
The scale of Werner’s role is underdocumented in survey treatments. Recent retrospectives and gallery catalogues continue to surface the extent of his influence. The press treats the gallery as a venue with curatorial and market-making power equivalent to a public museum — because for this scene, it was.
See also
- Georg Baselitz — the painter Werner launched
- A.R. Penck — the painter Werner smuggled West
- Jörg Immendorff — the painter Werner sustained
- Markus Lüpertz — the painter Werner promoted