Peter Dreher

Peter Dreher is best known for his series Tag um Tag guter Tag, depicting a single water glass, which he painted over 5000 times across a 40 year period. Dreher worked with intense consistency: each painting is on a 10 x 8 inches canvas, framed centrally within the composition and rendered in a uniform palette. Dreher’s series is characterised by a tension between uniformity and variation. For Dreher, repetition was not a limitation but represents a philosophical impulse and a means of liberation. Working in series, Dreher also painted landscapes, interiors and still-life, in his distinct realist style.

Born in Mannheim, Germany in 1932 Dreher studied at the Academy of Fine Arts, Karlsruhe, where he would go on to become an influential lecturer in painting in 1965. The first solo exhibition of his work was presented at the Städtische Kunsthalle Mannheim in 1954; his work has been exhibited at Museum Folkwang, Essen; MK Galleries, United Kingdom; Musée d’Art Contemporain et Modern, Geneva and the Museum für Neue Kunst, Freiburg. The recipient of numerous awards, Dreher’s work is held in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Pinault Collection, among others. Dreher died in 2020.