Literature: One of the recurring characteristics of Kurt Trampedach's art is a central figure, who gazes out at the viewer with an insistent intensity. Here you cannot simply walk by – you have to get involved and show your true colours: “See and be seen” seems to be the contract that the artist enters into with his audience – from the powerful self-portraits to the realistic wax dolls, which in the 1970s made people take pause in the streets in disbelief. Trampedach has always painted with a clear use of texture, which only become more and more pronounced over the years. In the later works, this is especially true: the surface of the painting is modelled with tube-thick layers of oil paint and creates a unique three-dimensional effect – almost a fusion of the sculptural and the pictorial. In a broader sense, the works take on a life of their own, which you have to be decidedly thick-skinned to be able to ignore. Trampedach worked on the piece up for auction for more than seven years, painting it over, remodelling, cutting it and adapting the figures: The mythical Pegasus horse, which emerges as a creative force behind the painter, is flanked by figures with clear references to eroticism and fertility: The figure in the middle is a child and an adult at the same time: naive and reflective. Kurt Trampedach did not work with art; he was in art with such a lack of compromise that meant that he almost became one with his work. It was this raw dedication that caught the attention of the renowned New York-based gallerist Allan Stone and made him set his sight on the Danish painter, who with his self-imposed artistic exile in the French Pyrenees only supported anoutsider position and international potential: “Allan Stone was clearly impressed by the primal power in his art and said, among other things, that it was the best painting that had come out of Europe since Balthus had broken through over there.” Mikael Wivel: “Kurt Trampedach” p. 230. Provenance: Allan Stone Gallery, New York (ASG #64). Provenance: Private collection, Denmark.