A Cinematic Career Reimagined Through Painting

A new hardcover book from publisher Hatje Cantz documents a recent body of work by the actor Armin Mueller-Stahl. Titled Selbst in Filmen, Farben, Formen | Self in Films, Colors, and Shapes, the 184-page volume contains 120 illustrations of paintings and works on paper created over the last five years.

The subject of the works is Mueller-Stahl’s own acting career. The images are painterly interpretations of figures and characters from his filmography, rather than direct representations or re-enactments. The book pairs these artworks with selected film stills that show Mueller-Stahl in the corresponding roles.

Armin Mueller-Stahl was born in Tilsit, East Prussia, in 1930. He began his career as an actor in East Berlin, becoming a prominent figure in the cinema of the German Democratic Republic. In 1980, he relocated to West Germany, where he appeared in films directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, including Lola (1981). From 1989, he worked in the United States, with credits in Barry Levinson’s Avalon (1990), Jim Jarmusch’s Night on Earth (1991), Steven Soderbergh’s Kafka (1991), and Volker Schlöndorff’s The Ogre (1996). He received an Academy Award nomination for his role in Shine (1996).

The bilingual German and English publication is edited by Frank Thomas Gaulin of Kunsthaus Lübeck and designed by Rutger Fuchs.

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