Peter Dreher
The German artist Peter Dreher was born in 1932 in Mannheim. Profoundly influenced by the atrocities of the Second World War and the Nazi regime, he considers painting an escape and refuge. Whether painting still life, pots, building facades in New York or abstract motifs, the subjects of his paintings all result from careful observation of light and transparency. In 1974, he made the first painting of what would become his life project: the series, Tag um Tag guter Tag. Every day and night, Dreher paints, in a hyper-realistic way, the same empty glass placed on a table in front of a white wall. He has made more than 3000 representations of this glass, following one simple rule: once the painting has been started, it has to be finished on the same day. Dreher’s work is like a diary in which the artist records a meditative exercise with which he dismantles the rules of painting, deepening the relationship between what we see and what we know.
Important exhibitions dedicated to Peter Dreher have been held at the Milton Keynes Museum in Britain (2013), the Landesvertretung Baden-Würtemberg in Berlin (2012) and at the Musée d’art moderne et contemporain in Geneva (2011). Peter Dreher’s work is included in “Accrochage” (2016) at Punta della Dogana.
He died on the 18th of February 2020.
![Peter Dreher, “Tag um Tag guter Tag (Day by Day good Day) Nr. 2358 Day”, 2010, oil on canvas, 25 x 20 cm]()
![Peter Dreher, “Tag um Tag guter Tag (Day by Day good Day) Nr. 2350 Night”, 2007, oil on canvas, 25 x 20 cm]()
Important exhibitions dedicated to Peter Dreher have been held at the Milton Keynes Museum in Britain (2013), the Landesvertretung Baden-Würtemberg in Berlin (2012) and at the Musée d’art moderne et contemporain in Geneva (2011). Peter Dreher’s work is included in “Accrochage” (2016) at Punta della Dogana.
He died on the 18th of February 2020.
