Karl Weschke

Karl Weschke generously produced Fire-Eater, 2004, on the occasion of the exhibition Karl Weschke: Beneath a Black Sky: Paintings and Drawings 1953–2004, Tate St Ives, 7 February – 9 May 2004.

Weschke's work is often rooted in personal experience, translated into images of universal significance. Fire-Eater, 2004, depicts a street performer Weschke observed in Frankfurt, and relates to his painting, Fire-Eater (with spectators) ,1984-86.

• Artist Karl Weschke
• Artwork Fire-Eater
• Exhibition Karl Weschke: Beneath a Black Sky: Paintings and Drawings 1953–2004, Tate St Ives, 7 February – 9 May 2004
• Dimensions 56.5 x 42 cm
• Material Monochrome aquatint etching
• Edition Edition 98 of 200, signed and numbered on the front
• Date of work 2004

Karl Weschke (b. Gera, Germany, 1925 to 2005) came to England in 1945 as a prisoner of war. On release he decided to pursue a career as an artist. In 1955, he moved to Cornwall where he established friendships with artists including Bryan Wynter, Roger Hilton, Peter Lanyon, and the poet WS Graham.

Weschke’s work is strongly linked to his immediate environment, where the landscape often becomes a setting for mythic events which dramatise the human condition as a solitary, isolated struggle for survival. Landscape has remained one of his principal themes and from the 1960s onwards he focused on the elemental forces that activate it.

Selected exhibitions include; Karl Weschke: Centenary, The Levinsky Gallery, University of Plymouth, England, (2025); Karl Weschke: Stadtmuseum Gera, Germany (2025); Karl Weschke: Painting order out of chaos, Hillsboro Fine Art, Dublin (2025); Karl Weschke 1925-2005, Jonathan Clark Fine Art, London, England (2016); St Ives: A Middle Generation, Beaux Arts Gallery, London, England (2012); Karl Weschke – Beneath a Black Sky, Tate St Ives, Cornwall, England (2004); International Artists, Hillsboro Fine Art, Dublin, Ireland (2002); Painting Retrospective, Kunstsammlung, Gera, Germany (2001); Artists & St Ives, Hillsboro Fine Art, Dublin, Ireland (1998); Extended Display (six paintings), Tate Gallery, St Ives, Cornwall, England (1996/7).