Background
Schröder-Sonnenstern was born in Tilsit, East Prussia (present-day Sovetsk, Kaliningrad, Russian Federation). He was one of thirteen children, two of whom died immediately after their birth.
1974
Friedrich Schröder-Sonnenstern,
1974
Friedrich Schröder.
1974
Friedrich Schröder.
1979
Friedrich Schröder-Sonnenstern at home.
Artwork by Friedrich Schröder-Sonnenstern, Selfportrait.
Friedrich Schröder with Friedensreich Hundertwasser, on the occasion of the 80th birthday of Sonnenstern.
Friedrich Schröder-Sonnenstern.
Schröder-Sonnenstern was born in Tilsit, East Prussia (present-day Sovetsk, Kaliningrad, Russian Federation). He was one of thirteen children, two of whom died immediately after their birth.
Friedrich Schröder-Sonnenstern had a troubled youth and spent much time in correctional institutions due to accusations of theft and violent behaviour. In the year 1910, he spent five months in a mental asylum where he was declared insane.
Before Schröder-Sonnenstern left Tilsit for Berlin in 1919, he spent time in the army and in a circus, also working for some time as a stable boy. There he was engaged in occultism, healing magnetism and divination. Schröder-Sonnenstern set up a sect and distributed his income in the form of bread rolls to poor children.
Friedrich Schröder-Sonnenstern created the name Sonnenstern (Sun Star) around 1928, while working as a con-artist calling himself Professor Dr. Eliot Gnass von Sonnenstern.
In 1933 Schröder-Sonnenstern was admitted to the provincial asylum and sanatorium Neustadt in Schleswig-Holstein, where he met the artist Hans Ralfs, who encouraged him to draw his first paintings. After his release, he spent several years in custody and during the Second World War in a labour camp in Himmelmoor, Quickborn. In 1942 he managed to escape to Berlin. It was during this time that his career as an artist really started.
In his paintings he mostly depicted erotic and often disturbing figures that combined both human and monster parts, with distorted body parts, usually breasts and genitalia. He was for many years a representative of an "art of the mentally ill."
In 1959 at the Surrealist exposition in Paris he was renowned as one of the most impressive artists of the 20th century and was recognized by Jean Dubuffet among others. However, his success was short-lived, and his works became less frequent. Later he wasn't able to cope with the commissions, and employed assistants to produce his work for him. When it was found out, the art market turned away from him. He became highly dependent on alcohol following the death, in 1964, of his long-time companion, Martha Möller. He died almost forgotten and impoverished in Berlin in 1982.
The Mass Demon
Surrealist Composition
Das Hohe lied der warme
The Demoness of Urgency
Die wendumb
Die mondmoderne Eva
Der betende Lowe, oder Die geschandete Kraft
Untitled
The Moralistic Moon Dualism
Dr. Phil Rabaukuss Spieszebor
Meta (Physic) with Rooster
Trilogie der Wahrheitssucherei
Anthrotrilogie
Alpha Omega
The Moralistic Moon Culture Ballet
Praxis
The Moon Rider Official on a White Horse
The Moralistic Three-Dimensional Moon Bride’s Courting Derby
Der Mondschütze
Der Wettlauf zwischen Kopf und Bein
Das Mondgespensterwappen
Theorizinus oder der Dämon aller geistigen Verkrüppelung
La jalousie morale
Le cheval pleurant
Die moralische Atombombe
Das Klubwappen der Leerlaufredner
Der Mondeselbändiger Kackispiritus
Der Moralische Hintern-Mondkritiker
Herzen im Schnee
Staatsnarrenzirkus
Prof. Knockstauber
From the early 1970s, Schröder-Sonnenstern joined the artist group of the Berlin painters-poets.