"Franz Ulrich Göttlicher puts the historical painting on a new level of post-history: a form of criticism which exposes, by the apparent use of affirmation, the hollow set phrases of political- media worlds of art far more severely- in historical paintings of irritating ambivalence."

Prof. Dr. Manfred Schneckenburger, former principal
of the Academy of Fine Arts Muenster


Expertise of the academy of fine arts of Münster for the nomination of Franz Ulrich Göttlicher for the "Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes" (educational endowment of the German nation)

As early as in his first two semesters Ulrich Göttlicher surprised by a series of portraits of women, painted in oil, which reminded on the sweet romantic hairdresser advertisements of the 50ies. By means of irony Göttlicher unmasks them as hypocritical with the necessary sarcasm.

In his further studies U. Göttlicher digests the art of the National Socialism, exposes its hollow pathos, its stereotyping hypocrisy and its mythological dullness.

Parallel to fine arts Göttlicher studies history and processes the past of a family member of the generation before last, which weighs heavily upon his mind. Sinister, partly apparently monumental paintings, which show Adolf Hitler, his staff as well as persons of the following contemporary history, come into life.

Sometimes Göttlicher paints himself dressed in a national uniform among the protagonists of Hitler's realm. This self-punishment that borders on self-irony hints at the myths of Nazi ideology, which are at least rudimentarily still effective and it also refers to the latent organization of the right-wing extremists in contemporary BRD.

Göttlicher paints among other themes folkish sportsmen, a farmer's family with a horse cart and self-portraits.

Göttlicher achieves by his style of painting, which ranges between vague queasiness, twilight brightness and flickering glow, to get a bitter-mean visual effect.

The clear message of the paintings of Ulrich Göttlicher is the radical refusal to the National Socialism and its myths.

I do not know any German post-war artist who has settled up so directly, precisely and biting in his paintings with the same Nazi era and its glorification. Unfortunately, U. Göttlicher was insulted, threatened, sworn at and called a Nazi for his work. He has dared to show the satanic in the "heart of the nation" and therefore he has on the same time exposed the clichés of the modern media world in a main part of its origins.

Göttlicher should be given the highest credit for his work.

Prof. Hermann-Josef Kuhna, class teacher