Thomas Bayrle

Thomas Bayrle works from Frankfurt, where he's been building his hypnotic, pattern-dense universes since the 1960s. Trained as a textile weaver and graphic designer, he brings that industrial logic to canvas, print, and collage — hundreds of tiny repeated images (cars, cameras, faces) aggregating into larger forms. Pop Art refracted through the assembly line.

The work anticipated our image-saturated present by half a century. Documenta showed him three times; the New Museum, Lenbachhaus, and WIELS have given him major solo exhibitions. He taught at Frankfurt's Städelschule for nearly three decades, shaping a generation of German artists.

Now in his late eighties, Bayrle continues to work with the same patient, compulsive attention — making pictures that hum with the monotony and energy of mass society.