"I impose my visions on reality—I am completely artificial"
Artist and poet Ursula Schultze-Bluhm, known as Ursula, is a notable artist of the post-war avant-garde in Germany. Poetic and surreal elements are the main motifs of her fantastic worlds, developing her own mythology.
As an autodidact, her art illustrates the idea that surrealism is not a style, but an attitude. Ursula subverted reality and found the strange in the everyday, challenging the authorities of society - and of art - by imagining new worlds in which old hierarchies are discarded and new ways of life are conceivable. Ursula shared this utopian imagination with artists such as Leonora Carrington, Leonor Fini, Dorothea Tanning and Unica Zürn.
It's impossible to categorize the essence of Ursula's work without ambiguity. Terms such as naive painting, surrealism or individual mythology only hint at certain aspects of her unorthodox visual ideas, which always convey an intensely sensual experience. Her artistic freedom is undoubtedly timely, so much so that she has been ahead of the trends by avoiding them.
Ursula Schultze-Bluhm was born in Mittenwalde (Germany) in 1921. Her interest in painting and poetry began in 1950. This was followed by regular stays in Paris, where she met the painter Jean Dubuffet in 1954. They enjoyed a close, mutual friendship for many years, reflected in the inclusion of Ursula's work in Dubuffet's Collection de l'Art Brut in Lausanne.
She lives and works with her husband Bernard Schultze (1915-2005) in Cologne. Until her death in Cologne in 1999, she exhibited regularly in international galleries and museums, including Documenta 6 in 1977. Her works can be found at the National Gallery in Berlin, the Dresden State Art Collections, the Museum of Modern Art in Frankfurt am Main and the Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou in Paris, among others.
In 2023, she was the subject of her first major retrospective at the prestigious Ludwig Museum in Cologne, "Ursula-That's Me. So What?" curated by Stephan Diederich. His first exhibition at the gallery is scheduled for November 2023 in our Brussels space.