Antes, Horst

Horst Antes is considered a co-founder of new figurative painting in Germany, with his works always moving between representational painting and abstraction. Starting in 1962, he developed the so-called “Kopffüßler” (cephalopod) as a basic motif, which became the trademark of his art.

As the cephalopod has no neck and almost no torso, its head and feet seem to merge. Although those figures are recognizably human, they are highly stylized and neither clearly male nor female. Antes has varied his core topic many times during his artistic career, developing it further in terms of both content and style. As unmistakable sculptures, the cephalopods can be found at public places in many cities.