Thomas Lange. Greetings from Italy
Painting and Drawing
10 January – 1 March 2025, Opening: 9 January, 6-9 p.m.

Thomas Lange and Galerie Poll share a rich history: his first solo show at the gallery took place in 1981, followed by a number of further solo and group exhibitions. With “Greetings from Italy”, we are showcasing works from the past five years alongside a selection of drawings, created between 2010 and 2019, on pages taken from magazines and books.

Since the mid-1990s, Thomas Lange has lived and worked in Torre Alfina in central Italy. His studio house in Fornovecchino serves him as a hub for exploring Etruscan, Renaissance, and Baroque cultures, allowing him to connect with the everyday life of the past.

This influence is evident in his newest oil paintings, which are boldly coloured and thickly textured. Working in thematic cycles, he continually reinterprets subjects such as Venus (Venere) and the Virgin Mary (Vergine) in fresh and innovative ways. His artistic process characteristically takes shape through layering – painting over, erasing, and building up forms.

His work is centred on the human figure, which he approaches through Christian iconography and inspiration from iconic painters of the past, such as Florentine Mannerist Jacopo da Pontormo. Beyond art history, his work incorporates imagery from magazines, the internet, personal photographs, pivotal historical and social events, and portraits of friends and acquaintances. Lange is especially drawn to the interplay between abstraction and realism, and to “a profound meditation on the meaning of images and the act of painting itself – expressed through relentless, feverish experimentation in pursuit of the ideal painted image”. (Davide Sarchioni)

Born in 1957 in Berlin, Thomas Lange, began his studies in painting in 1976 at the University for Visual Arts Berlin (Hochschule für Bildende Künste) under Professors Wolfgang Petrick and Herbert Kaufmann, completing his degree as Kaufmann’s master student in 1982. In 1983, he received a scholarship from the Karl Schmidt-Rottluff Foundation. He taught as a lecturer at the University of Marburg in 1986 and as a guest professor at the Berlin University of the Arts in 1988/89. Lange was awarded the Primo Premio Suzzara in Mantua, Italy, in 2001. Since 2004, he has led courses at summer academies, including in Bad Reichenhall and at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kolbermoor. His works are held in prestigious private and public collections, including the Berlinische Galerie, the Federal Republic of Germany’s Contemporary Art Collection, Kunstpalast Düsseldorf, Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt, the Würth Collection in Künzelsau, the Fondazione Mudima in Milan, the Bavarian State Painting Collections in Munich, the Diocesan Museum St. Ulrich in Regensburg, and the Museum am Dom in Würzburg. Thomas Lange lives and works in Torre Alfina (Italy) and Berlin.