Sebastian Kruger

Sebastian Kruger

Sebastian Kruger is a portrait artist of a different kind. "I like the dark side of people's characters," says the German artist. "I'm very bored with all these entertainers with white teeth, where everybody is in good health and is so nice!"

From Bogart to Hendrix, Jagger to John Wayne, each visually explosive Sebastian Kruger portrait employs exaggeration and maniacal morphing to convey the subtle essence of his famous subjects.

Before Kruger begins a portrait he obtains comprehensive photographic and film reference, and works his way through studies, biographies, recordings and books. His incredibly detailed painting style requires this level of research. "Only when I have managed to get a feeling for a person, when he speaks to me, can I draw him." After the concept is clear in his mind, he paints direct to canvas, spending hundreds of hours exploring wrinkles, folds and textures on an almost microscopic level.

Kruger was born in Hamlin, Germany, in 1963, the son of an architect. After seeing a Disney movie at age three, Sebastian became obsessed with drawing Donald Duck from memory. In school he was far from a model student, spending more time sketching his teachers than completing lessons. Later he studied design and painting and started his professional career creating illustrations for German magazines.

Today he creates portraits of the most visible people in the public eye. His art can be found on the covers and in the pages of the world's glossiest magazines. Collected by celebrities in cinema, music and public life, Sebastian Kruger has created his own genre outside the established categories. This outsider stance made him a natural to be welcomed into the private world of legendary rock band the Rolling Stones. Portraits of the Stones lie at the heart of Kruger's portfolio. Keith Richards is a special friend. Sebastian creates an annual portrait of the craggy guitarist. "Every time I see him I think he has grown a new wrinkle!" jokes the artist. Rolling Stone Ronnie Woods, a successful artist in his own right, is a big champion of Kruger's work.

Kruger now enjoys a huge following in Europe and has achieved cult status in the U.S. The German Heritage Museum recently purchased seventy of his early works--an incredible coup for a contemporary artist. Interestingly enough, Kruger is probably oblivious to the honor, so fiercely focused is he on the actual process of painting.

He lives and works in the forest near Hanover, Germany, with his partner Andrea, two cats and two Rhodesian Ridgeback dogs. "It's a good quiet place to work and be a strange artist," he chuckles.