To discover the work of the artist Christopher Lehmpfuhl (b. Berlin, 1972) is to embark on a journey through the history of painting. His artistic process is inherited from the bold impressionist tradition of painting in the place being depicted (he’s a plein air painter) whatever the weather, and from the expressionist conviction that art is a channel for giving expression to the artist’s subjectivity, in this case through his urban and natural landscapes.

His work steps away from the traits that we usually associate with landscape painting, such as subtlety of detail, varied colour ranges and a large number of brush strokes. Instead, each of Lehmpfuhl’s creations contains litres of a pulpy paint that he smooths directly onto the canvas with his hand with a precision so exquisite that it combines depiction with interpretation, and which carries an innate narrative ability that instantly transports us to the moment when each painting was created. His work carries overwhelming emotion that, like Aristotle’s Pathos, moves, thrills and challenges onlookers. It was this communicative ability that attracted Prof. Dr. h. c. mult. Reinhold Würth who, for years, has been one of the foremost collectors of the artist’s work.

Pathos is Lehmpfuhl’s fifirst exhibition in Spain and it brings together 59 large-format works from 2001 to 2020, all of them belonging to the extensive stock of the artist’s paintings in the Würth Collection. The exhibition is an opportunity to discover some of his most significant series of paintings, including his urban scenes (like his celebrated series on the dismantling of Berlin’s Schloßplatz) and the work he did when he traveled to various parts of the world. However, his paintings are not idealised depictions of places and landscapes; they are an expression of the materiality of the artist’s dazzling approach, which is alert to strong changes in light, sharp colour contrasts and urban transformation processes, and is capable, when transferred to the canvas, of making us experience what we are seeing.