Edgar Ende (1901-1965)

Edgar Ende in his studio, 1954 (© L. Schlegel) Edgar Ende in his studio, 1954 (© L. Schlegel)

"Modern art", Edgar Ende writes in his autographical essays, "leads us to new regions, which we have consciously never entered. Art is an adventure, a step into the unknown, an encounter with demons as well as angels."

The work of Edgar belongs to the most important artistic expressions of German art in the Twentieth Century. Today, after more than two decades of oblivion, it is considered a milestone of fantasy and visionary art. Not least thanks to his son Michael Ende, who as the writer of books such as "Never-ending Story" gained worldwide fame, the work of Edgar Ende is gradually taking the place it deserves within the history of art.

Like William Blake or Orell Füssli, Edgar Ende also had the gift of inner vision. Therefore, his work has to be seen within the tradition of the so-called visionary art; it shows parallels with Magic Realism as well as with New Functionalism, although his work cannot be assigned to these styles and neither to Surrealism. Thus, we find no symbolism, no emblematic depiction of abstract subjects or other phenomena of reality. 

For Edgar Ende his paintings were "pre-logical", as he himself used to call them. For him they were rooted within a layer of consciousness that exists before thought starts: Edgar Ende's paintings do not represent any examination of the real world and its cultural, social or historical structures, but an entry into the cosmos of spiritual worlds.