Media & Press
International Media has featured Rainer Maria Latzke´s work in cover stories, articles and television documentaries. The Herald Tribune magazine dedicated a cover story to him entitled “The Modern Day Michelangelo”. Forbes Magazine considers him the most influential painter of the 90s and the Russian Trade Union of Artists ranks him among the best world-wide artists of the last four centuries.
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Forbes Magazine: Stars of tomorrow – cultural trendsetters with input of the decade: Film, TV, Design, Painting, Architecture
Courage, tenacity and a sixth sense for future trends have made Rainer Maria Latzke a millionaire. Already in the 80s, when the avant-garde blank walls of art were declared, he swam against the stream and refused the Zeitgeist, who asked for scantiness and coolness. Also the fact that his artistic work was first greeted with a smile as “kitsch”, couldn´t make the Beuys student insecure. Nowadays everyone is getting crazy about the 43 year old Maestro of Trompe l’oeil murals, who develops his ideas in the former house of Nick Nolte at beach of Malibu. From 300.000 DM onwards a customer has to pay for an “Original Latzke”.
In return the artist transforms dining-, living- and bathrooms into bright and sunny dream landscapes. He also delivers murals from baroque to science fiction. ‘’One should’’ says the artist ‘’feel charmed when entering my rooms not knowing why. The perfect illusion as a counterweight to the threatening outside world’’.
The German Artist Rainer Maria Latzke developed an attractive niche some years ago– grand murals for private clients. In themeantime he became a millionaire with his artwork. The headlights of cars throw rays of light onto Broadway; the windows of skyscrapers are glimmering. High above the stars are flashing lights, a shooting star falls from the sky. 12 meters long and about 4 meters high the artist painted this New York illusion on the wall. After 4 weeks of labour, the silhouette of the American mega city now sparkles in a desert palace in Dubai and electronically controlled lights illuminate the shapes of the skyline. The client was a sheikh, whose son, after a long study in the US had to come home and suffered from yearning. Daddy, worrying about the psyche of his son flew the German painter Rainer Maria Latzke and his team into the Orient. But also in Germany wait numerous wealthy clients, who are not afraid of the high prices of his artwork. Not only private customers but also companies have re-discovered the mural art: a Swiss hotel group asked the artist to beautify their hotel lobby in South turkey, a German shipping line has ordered a waterproof Latzke-Trompe l’oeil for one of their luxurious liners and a Mormon temple in Bogota is in the planning stage. Latzke´s idols are Italian masters like Giotto and Rafael, Da Vinci and Michelangelo. Latzke has already found a suitable residence: a Belgian castle near to the German border. Numerous craftsmen are working in the 1775 built castle, gardeners are laying out flowers, lawns, plants and bushes. The staircase will be of Etruscan style, bedrooms Moorish, the master bath roman. In a garden room “grows” painted ferns on the walls, ramble ivy around illusionistic columns. In the “dream room” stars fall from the skies and the walls of the “catastrophe room” are decorated with famous historic catastrophes and down falls such as Pompeii or the airship “Hindenburg”. To execute his orders, which are about 12 a year, he employs a project consultant manager, a private secretary and a personal assistant. He also employs a PR specialist and his own agent at “Harrods” in London. Such effort is expensive: only to make a first design a customer has to pay up to 6,000.00 EU and up to 35000.00 EU for expenses and hotel accommodation. The artist hesitates to speak about his prices, but one has to calculate at least 100,000.00 EU for an artwork of the artist. “You don´t have to suffer to be a good artist” the artist states. Anyway he doesn´t prefer the earning of money rather than spending it. Therefore, French Champagne might be served for breakfast and his Mercedes 500 Coupé doesn´t only have a special “galaxy” painted but also a customized tachometer, which shows the owner´s initials and dinner takes place only in Belgian´s best Gourmet restaurants. While celebrating the finishing of a mural the artist signs the artwork with colors mixed – what would be more suitable? – with real Champagne…”
Rainer Latzke manages to trick the human eye. The student of Joseph Beuys portrays the wide world on walls. And not only millionaires pay a lot of money for this. Under an arch a golden Buddha is enthroned in a niche. One foot high made of gold, decorated with sparkling diamonds. A masterpiece. You have to touch it. But the hand bounces back before the niche, fooled by Rainer Maria Latzke. The arch, the niche, the Buddha: nothing is real. Only the wall. Because where Latzke has been you can no longer trust your eyes. The illusion is the lucrative business of the 38 year old artist. His mural painting turned the son of an art professor into a millionaire. His career: studies under Joseph Beuys at the Düsseldorf Academy of Fine Arts, then teacher, then graphic artist and cartoonist. During a stay in Italy Latzke discovered what he was meant to do: “I saw the frescos of Michelangelo and knew that’s what I’m meant to do”. 1981 the first order: Murals for an Italian restaurant. The pay: Free Pizzas. Today the Michelangelo of our times gets paid in 6 figured numbers. Wealthy entrepreneurs, sheiks and managers are his clientele. Latzke fulfils his own dreams in his Belgian 37-room castle. Like in a mirror cabinet the visitor wanders through the rooms…
Illusionary view on Vienna
The extraordinary live of Rainer Maria Latzke: He is painting for kings and sheiks
In a pizzeria in Mechernich he painted for pasta and, a little later, in palaces and villas. At 57, the “boy from the Eifel” has plenty more to offer.
The Herald Tribune magazine: Modern-day Michelangelo
People of tomorrow:Latzke blows walls away
A basement pool, dark. Rainer Maria Latzke (42) paints a Mediterranean landscape on the walls: a dream for the eyes. A dining room, boring. Latzke paints an Italian scenery on the walls. Gorgeous! An oasis! Latzke, Master student of the Düsseldorf Academy of Fine Arts, has revitalized the mural: “We blow away the walls, we bring light and brightness and recreation for our eyes!” A darling of the rich and famous – everybody wants his wall dreams (from 300,000 DM up). The father of 3 children lives at the beach of Malibu. There he doesn’t need a mural – with such a view!
Bild am Sonntag: Rainer Latzke brings Manhattan into the studio of the rock band “the Scorpions”
Astonishing detail and vibrant colors make the observer believe he is looking onto the skyline of Manhattan – Rainer Maria Latzke is one of the world’s most revolutionary and most famous illusionary painters of our time…
Latzke’s brush opens up spaces and turns art into reality.
Le Classique: Rainer Maria Latzke – Master of Mural Painting and Guru of the Art of Fresco.
His works adorn the walls of palaces and halls of the richest people in the world today. Inspired by the Renaissance, he was among the first who engaged in the revival of this precious art in the twentieth century, and it is largely thanks to him that today frescoes areso popular among connoisseurs of wall-paintings. The author’s patented technology Frescography – which having no analogues in quality and color reproduction, has opened new horizons for creating masterpieces.
Especially for readers: The Le Classique exclusive interview with a man who knows how to push the boundaries of space through paint and brush.
The Downtown Magazine (China): Prof. Rainer Maria Latzke, the Michelangelo of Modern Times
Rainer Maria Latzke was born in Germany in 1950. His hometown, too small to find on a map, and his siblings, too many to know all their names, where just some of the reasons this young man with delusions of grandeur set out to Italy to study the arts of the Renaissance masters.
An unlikely passion for an artist at the time, his professors at university being avant-garde-every-thing-is-art-but-art prophets such as Joseph Beuys, RML was never meant to be successful. But with the determination of a titan, a talent in painting and an equally skilful talent at attracting the curiosity and attention of everyone that crosses his path; Rainer Maria Latzke revived the art of mural painting and was crowned as one of the cultural trendsetters of the 90s by Forbes magazine, calling his fusion of classic painting with modern ideas the Neo-Renaissance.
We sat down to talk to RML about his life and visions. It sounded like a movie, which was following the basic structure of a Hollywood script. RML broke free from his small town life despite his father’s objections, indulged in his success by living in Chateaus, buying luxury cars and partying with rock stars and finally settling down to leave behind this bodacious life easing into the ‘ordinary’ and becoming a professor to pass on his life’s experience on to the younger generations. The kind of ‘ordinary’ which would come naturally to any person in this world by the age of 61; relocating with your family to China..
Of course this is anything but ordinary; RML is long from settling, yet alone taking a rest. The conversation pinballed from childhood stories to museum projects in Pudong. We somehow felt that only half of his attention was dedicated to us, and we can only guess that the other half was far away, perhaps on a distant planet, which would be the new canvas for his largest project yet.
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