MUNICH.- Between idyllic picnic and existential collapse: internationally acclaimed US painter Dana Schutz transforms the power of color into provocation, shaping pain into paint – forcing viewers to confront their human nature. The 2008 work “Gouged Girl” is coming up for auction in Ketterer Kunst's Evening Sale on June 6, 2025.


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Dana Schutz expresses herself unsparingly, working with motifs that push the envelope into the realm of the unbearable. Nothing is pleasant. But wait: the colors are bright and cheerful, glowing in the large painting from the “Self Eaters” series. Her painterly gesture of self- reflection could not be more lighthearted at first glance. A day at the beach, a picnic with melon and the usual accessories. With her back to the viewer and her gaze directed toward the horizon across the disturbingly deep black sea, the female figure embodies a classic summer topos of sun, wind, and beach. Relaxed. But the face of the seated woman, depicted in lost profile, her front, is torn. Her hands, resting on the beach towel, are red. From blood, from the juice of the melon?

"Dana Schutz gives you hope that painting will endure to the end of our species."
New York Times

Dana Schutz is a highly controversial American painter, born in Livonia, a suburb of Detroit/Michigan, in 1976; she studied at various American art academies and, to judge by her videos, is a gentle, extremely thoughtful person. She describes her style as expressionist. This may apply primarily to her palette; however, in reality, she is much closer to the brutal radicalism of Francis Bacon. Schutz grapples with the concepts of personal freedom. The self-determined reconstruction of a successful existence must, of course, be preceded by destruction, a destruction that liberates from imposed constraints and perceived imperatives. Human beings are condemned to freedom. We must live with our decisions – good or bad, smart or stupid. Dana Schutz follows this existentialist maxim of Jean-Paul Sartre. The great French philosopher's approach is a bit outdated – or perhaps just forgotten – but she translates it very convincingly, even compellingly, into an artistic, albeit shocking, conclusion: We must “digest” our own lives and become aware of our fundamental responsibility. Only then can we freely reinvent ourselves. Start over, without outdated laws, in a society without rules. Schutz knows this is a simply unattainable, far too nihilistic vision but explores its limits cleverly and with great passion.

The artist Dana Schutz, who had long been established in the US, suddenly rose to international fame at the Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York in 2017. Based on a photograph, she paints the black, brutally murdered young Emmett Till in an open coffin. At the time, his mother had requested that the coffin be left open at the funeral so that everyone could see what had happened to her son. Photos of the funeral were circulated in the media. A media outcry followed the presentation of the shocking painting. The subject matter and its treatment in the sense of the mother's accusation were not the focus of attention. Instead, a white woman and artist was denied the right to use this issue, which genuinely concerned the black population, to gain attention. The fire and smoke soon cleared, and the more or less valid arguments were exchanged with little result. The nasty term “cultural appropriation” could not be entirely dispelled. Schutz said that while she did not know what it was like to be black, she knew very well how it felt to be a mother.

Her large paintings and sculptures are in major American and international museums today. Schutz's painting Civil Planning (2004), from the collection of US businessman David Teiger, sold for $1.8 million at Sotheby's in New York last year.
Dana Schutz lives with her husband and son in Brooklyn, New York.

The work is offered in the Evening Sale in Munich on Friday, June 6, 2005.



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