Further Media
In the mid-1950s, Gerhard Ströch assumed the name "Altenbourg." This bespoke his close connection to the city of Altenburg, where he lived and grew up. For the artist, draftsman, and poet, artists’ books would play an autonomous role all his life, meaning they did not serve to contain preliminary work in the way of sketchbooks. The books, many of which Altenbourg had bound specifically for his purposes, vary with regard to format, paper type, and paper color. In this way, they offered the first creative impulse. For "Der Strom dein Zügel (The Torrent Your Rein)" Altenbourg used a highly textured, sand-colored handmade paper which he painted with warm, muted colors. The subtitle – "The Human Comedy" – references Honoré de Balzac’s four-volume morality story about France in the first half of the nineteenth century. Altenbourg’s sheets are populated by shadowy, flowing figures. Often, two or three of them are playing a part in a situation that remains mysterious.