Jochen Seidel

A life characterised by self-doubt and existential problems – Jochen (Jo) Seidel was an artist of extremes, experimentation and his own artistic discovery, which never ceased until his early death. Full of energy and expressive pictorial forms, Seidel created his very own pictorial worlds, which the attentive viewer is initially unable to let go of. Born in Bitterfeld in 1924, Seidel began his initial training at the Burg Giebichstein art school in Halle before moving to West Berlin in 1953 to continue his studies with Ernst Schumacher. In 1963, he moved to Switzerland with his wife Mireille Wunderly and shortly afterwards accepted an invitation to study at the University of New Jersey, USA. After arriving in the USA in the 1960s, he became acquainted with the abstract expressionists Frank Stella and Robert Motherwell, whose influence on his works is unmistakable. Influenced by informal, tachist painting in post-war Germany, Seidel developed his very own style in the USA, which was, however, always characterised by inner turmoil. Today, works by the artist can be found in public collections such as the Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim Museum, New York.