Alan Bee

View works. Alan Bee, Genesis, 1979
Genesis, 1979
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Alan Bee  (Karlsfeld 1940) is the pseudonym of an important artistic personality who over the years has constructed his own fully-fledged personage with passion and brilliance, giving him a name and a series of plausible biographical suggestions completely compatible with the physical corpus of his works: from the fascination with German art, above all Beuys and Schumacher, to his specific passion for the natural world, of which the bees are one of the universal symbols.

The body of his outstanding works of the highest quality has made Alan Bee a major figure in the panorama of European art in the last couple of decades.
The biographical information about him is not obtained at first hand, but is all derived from his work itself: Bee has forged his own personality in an almost narrative way, enabling him to extend an impenetrable veil of mystery over his real identity.
What is certain, very certain, is the world of his works. On the basis of that oeuvre, there can be no doubt that he was a primary European artist able to insert himself within the circle of those from the post-informal stage who have advanced along a primary path of contemporary painting.

Alongside his passion for painting, Bee has always also had a passion for bees and their world: a lover of Bavarian nature, influenced at a young age by Joseph Beuys' experiences with honey, he mediated them with a profound sense of materials and object insertions, as did Carl Buchheister, the fundamental Emil Schumacher, with whom Bee deepened his knowledge in Karslruhe, and Bernard Schulze, who preached in painting, and drew from them some quite astonishing results.

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