Neo Rauch is a German painter whose name literally means “new smoke”. Presumably when their son was born on April 18, 1960, his parents, both art students in what was then East Germany, wanted to celebrate a fresh start to family life. He can never be certain, however, because four weeks later they were both killed in a Leipzig train crash in which 52 other people also died.
Even if you knew nothing about his background, it is impossible to look at a Rauch painting without a sense of foreboding. He populates his work with grotesque beasts and old-fashioned characters engaged in the kind of quaint tasks – chopping, hewing, juggling – that feature in fairy tales. Somewhere in these disturbingly colourful visions there is often a figure who is oblivious to the danger that is about to strike.
Rauch’s subject matter means that he is usually described as a “surrealist” but his art feels too internalised to be truly surreal. Magritte could stand back, appraisingly, and make a pipe and a urinal witty; for Rauch, it’s up close and personal. The 2016 documentary Comrades and Companions begins with a lengthy sequence in which Rauch manhandles a huge canvas into his Leipzig studio. After a while, he gasps, “Where are the 30 assistants?” – a droll dig at some of his contemporaries like Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons.