Volker Stelzmann belongs to the second generation of the Leipzig School. A student of Wolfgang Mattheuer, Bernhard Heisig, and Werner Tübke, he too is a committed realist painter, though his approach to reality is naturally enriched with individual stylistic traits. Already in his 1971 painting Welder (Schweißer), Stelzmann depicted the “hero” of the working class—the laborer—in his own distinctive tone. The figure of the welder, as if captured in a snapshot, has just turned away from his machine; his protective glasses rest on his forehead, and he has already removed one of his gloves. Stelzmann’s oeuvre aligns more with the New Objectivity current of realism than with the Socialist Realism officially expected in the GDR. By the mid-1970s, his art distinctly shifted toward a mannerist verism. His 1976 painting Research (Forschung) addressed the theme of death and illness—subjects officially to be avoided in the GDR.
The painting in our collection, Demonstration II, expresses Western social discontent while also raising issues of East German society. With a crowded compositional structure reminiscent of Otto Dix, Stelzmann responded to the student movement, pop culture, and capitalist megalomania. Indirectly, his 1981/82 painting For R.D. (Für R.D.), dedicated to Rudi Dutschke, conveys with terrifying drama the disillusioning dead-end nature of socialist ideals. In the work, Dutschke, leaning over a bathtub, bids farewell to life.
