Friedrich Schreiber: en passant

The 88-year-old artist Friedrich Schreiber, who was born in Romania and has lived in Regensburg since 1980, is presenting a total of 64 paintings in his exhibition “en passant” on the second floor and in the stairwell of the Kebbel Villa. Most of the works were created in recent years, with the oldest dating from 1993. The French title “en passant” (meaning “in passing”) serves as a thematic link: It is the incidental moment, and its immediate before and after that interests Schreiber. In his subjectively motivated, often surrealistic, and fantastical paintings, the artist draws on scenes from mythology and religion, as well as current events such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the stairwell and in the hallway on the second floor, which is functioning as a picture gallery, the artist presents a selection from the wide range of his work: Biblical themes (“Judith und Holofernes”, 2018) meet references to art history (“Badegenuss”,1993), surrealistic and fantastical pictorial content (“Das Zeitfahren” and “Verschleierung”, both 2024) meets confrontations with questions of the present (“Kommunikation”, 2015). The exhibition galleries in the middle and to the left are dominated by the topics “mythology” and “cosmos”. Painterly explorations of the concept of “time” can already be detected there. In the gallery on the right, the painting “en passant”, which also provides the title of the exhibition, lets the theme of “time” take center stage. The “Mangroven” paintings, which were created during the artist's stay in Florida in 2015 are displayed on the opposite wall of the same room and have a completely different thematic focus.

Friedrich Schreiber (*1936 in Kronstadt/Brașov, RO, lives in Regensburg, DE) studied –  after training as an iron turner–  at the "Monumental Painting" department of the Bucharest Art Academy from 1957 to 1963. He then worked as an assistant and lecturer at the Faculty of Drawing at the University of Timisoara until it was closed in 1978. In 1980, he emigrated to Germany. The following year, he became a workshop leader and lecturer at the University of Regensburg, where he continued to teach for another ten years after his retirement in 1996. Since 1968, he has had numerous solo exhibitions, including at the "Helios" Gallery of the Artists' Fund in Timisoara (1968/1973), the Museum Ostdeutsche Galerie in Regensburg (1986), the Banat Museum in Timisoara (2010), the Museum of Highland Banat, Reșița. (2010), and the University of Regensburg (2013). In 1971, he was awarded the State Prize for Painting by the State Committee for Culture and Art in Romania.