''Propellerfrau'' is an oil on curtain material painting by

Sigmar Polke Sigmar Polke (13 February 1941 – 10 June 2010) was a German painter and photographer. Polke experimented with a wide range of styles, subject matters and materials. In the 1970s, he concentrated on photography, returning to paint in the 1980s ...

which was completed in 1969.

History

This painting was first exhibited in the

Stedelijk Museum The Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (; Municipal Museum Amsterdam), colloquially known as the Stedelijk, is a museum for modern art, contemporary art, and design located in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...

in 1992. In 2007, Polke sold the painting to a friendly art director from

Cologne Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 million inhabitants in the city proper and 3.6 millio ...

. After Polke's death in 2010, the heirs of Polke sued the ostensible buyer, claiming the painting had been stolen. The ''Landgericht Köln'' (high court in Cologne) decided in 2014 that the 2007 sale of the work was valid and required the heirs to return the work to the buyer. In 2018, the painting was added to the collection of Museum Trésor des Templiers in

Rorschacherberg Rorschacherberg is a municipality in the ''Wahlkreis'' (constituency) of Rorschach in the canton of St. Gallen in Switzerland. History While some of the hamlets that make up Rorschacherberg are mentioned in the 13th and 14th centuries. The reg ...

, Switzerland.

Characteristics of the painting

The painting was realized by Polke with oil on curtain fabric. It shows his interpretation of the

Space Race The Space Race was a 20th-century competition between two Cold War rivals, the United States and the Soviet Union, to achieve superior spaceflight capability. It had its origins in the ballistic missile-based nuclear arms race between the ...

in the 1960s between the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

and the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

References

Literature

(Amsterdam). ''Sigmar Polke : exhibition, 25 September–29 November 1992.'' In: ''Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam catalogus;'' 770, . {{DEFAULTSORT:Propellerfrau German paintings 1969 paintings