The little dog Fido sits on the street and holds a giant bone tightly in his paws. But in the corner of the picture a huge shadow towers in front of him. It is Brutus, explains the caption: “Suddenly Fido understood what his master meant when he tried to explain to him what ‘ambivalence’ means.”
The picture conveys “a mixture of desperation and the courage of the weaker,” explains curator Thomas Kronenberg. The painting looks cozy at first, but at second glance it is shocking. The picture and the sculpture Fido give the exhibition of works by the painter and draftsman Bernd Pfarr (1958-2004) in the Caricatura Museum Frankfurt am Main the title “bone tender”.
Pfarr’s paintings fascinate with their bright colors and many details, says Kronenberg. The absurd humor arises from a harmonious aesthetic. The artist took “a lot of time for the short joke” in his works. “It’s not a banal joke, you can think about it for a long time.” The curator thinks: “You feel at home with Bernd Pfarr.”
© Caricatura Museum
The artist has made many animals his heroes, dogs, bears, crocodiles and others. Angels are also part of this leitmotif, and the exhibition has the full title: “Bernd Pfarr. Tender as bones. Pictures of animals and angels.”
A mountaineer climbs up a steep wall with an ice axe and gritted teeth, with an angel clinging to his back. “The presence of his guardian angel did not make the task much easier for mountaineer Ignaz Mäuser,” explains the caption. Pfarr is also characterized by his beautiful language, says the curator. The exhibition, which opened at the weekend and runs until January 19, 2025, brings together 64 paintings, 260 drawings, two sculptures and a film.
Business meeting in the bathtub
The absurd adventures of the accountant Sondermann from the satirical magazine “Titanic” have a prominent place among the drawings. One can see how Mr. Sondermann, with a flock of dogs in the bathtub, is chased out because he has a business meeting. In the next picture, the business partner is asked to get into the same bathtub with a flock of ducks. Pfarr’s absurd stories take you to another world, says Kronenberg.
© Bernd Pfarr
After the figure of the Sondermann, the Prize for comic art The prize has been awarded annually for 20 years, as pointed out by the director of the Caricatura Museum, Martin Sonntag. The drawings also include experiences of the dog Kurt in heaven from the Advent calendar “Of angels and other poultry”, the comic stories of Alex the Raven from the Reformhaus-Kurier and the early comics of the duckling Dulle in the tradition of the Donald Duck illustrator Carl Barks.
Bernd Pfarr’s comedy is unique, stresses Sonntag. Given the variety of his motifs, his color palette is unmatched, and he always strived for the best form. Pfarr was part of the circle of caricaturists of the “New Frankfurt School.” After the museum was opened in 2008 with the Bernd Pfarr exhibition “Comic Worlds” by the founding director Achim Frenz, the second Pfarr exhibition in the house is the first that his successor Sonntag has prepared.
Until Pfarr’s early death from cancer in 2004, 20 individual volumes of his works had been published and he had illustrated almost 30 books. (epd)
