The Anita Shapolsky Gallery will be presenting paintings by Karl Hagedorn (1922-2005) through the summer of 2014 (Summer hours June 28 – Sept 8, Wednesdays-Thursdays and by appointment).

Hagedorn’s life and experiences were impacted by history and geography. Born in what had been the Weimar Republic, Hagedorn lived through Nazism, Communist rule in East Germany, relocation to the West German Republic-and then to the United States.

Hagedorn’s imagery was influenced by his childhood memories of the mechanical shapes and parts of his father’s sawmill, what he called “a kaleidoscope of geometric planes”. Durer, Pierro della Francesa, Leger, Miro, the Cubist and the Surrealists were artists he pointed to as impacting his vision.

An interweaving of his German and American identities informed his sensibilities, yielding a dynamic body of work.

Selected collections: Brooklyn Museum, Walker Art Center, New York Public Library, the Minneapolis Institute of Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Goethe Institute, Deutsches Museum and the Kunsthistorisches Museum.