Claus Bertermann - The Facilitator

Artist: Claus Bertermann

OFFICIAL WEBSITE: www.bertermann.art

Claus Bertermann is an internationally established contemporary artist whose market profile is backed by international market authority and exceptional secondary market results. Known for his powerful, large-format abstract works, Bertermann has consistently commanded high-tier prices at the world's most prestigious auction houses. His top realized prices include €18,900 at C. h. r. i. s. t. i. e´s Paris (Retro Zen), €15,240 at S. o. t. h. e. b. y´s Cologne (F5TP#CB), and €15,120 at C. h. r. i. s. t. i. e´s Paris (Whispershade). With additional successful sales at V. a. n. H. a. m, A. r. t. c. u. r. i. a. l, T. a. j. a. n, and D. o. r. o. t. h. e. u. m, Bertermann's work is a proven asset for serious collectors worldwide.

Who Facilitates the Facilitator?

With a Master's degree in Architecture (TU Munich), Bertermann originally gained global recognition for his "architectural strata" technique—layering and scraping oil paint to build spatial depth. In his figurative work he reverses that discipline: broad fields of acrylic are laid down fast and loose, and the figures are then drawn straight over the bright, still-wet ground in oil stick—built forward, not scraped back. "The Facilitator" turns that method on a single monumental figure and one quiet question: who looks after the person who looks after everyone.

International Artistic Footprint

With more than 1,000 large format works in private and institutional collections across the globe—including a monumental triptych at his alma mater, the Technical University of Munich—Bertermann continues to bridge the gap between rigorous structure and intuitive freedom. This offering presents a rare opportunity to acquire a museum-scale figurative statement from an artist with a solidified international auction record.

Key details for collectors

– Title: The Facilitator
– Year: 2026
– Dimensions (H x W): 160 x 160 cm (63 x 63 inches)
– Medium: Acrylic and oil stick on canvas
– Signed by the artist on the front and back side
– Original, one-of-a-kind artwork - MADE BY A REAL PERSON, NOT AI.
– Ships rolled without frame

What makes this piece unique

Every group has one. The person who books the table, remembers the birthdays, carries the spare towel, settles the argument before it becomes one. The organiser. The connector. The one everybody calls "just" the facilitator.

In this painting he is enormous.

A man sits in an open summer landscape, and the landscape barely reaches his shoulders. The clouds pass him at chest height. The flowering meadows, the distant hills, the rose-coloured fall at the left edge — all of it arranges itself around his body like furniture around the person who owns the room and never sits in the good chair. Bertermann has simply painted him at the size he actually occupies: take him out of the valley, and the valley collapses.

Look at his face. It has gone the exact green of the meadow behind him. That is the occupational condition — spend enough years being the background, making things possible, staying out of the frame, and the background moves into your skin. The blue shadow down one side of his head is the same ultramarine as the sky. He is perfectly camouflaged into the world he maintains. The camouflage fails for one reason only: he is far too big to hide.

And then the twist. He is caught doing the one thing facilitators never get to do — something exclusively for himself. Sitting down. Tying his own shoes. One sneaker carries its stripes neatly; the other ends in a loose black scribble of laces, not yet knotted. Is he arriving or leaving? The painting refuses to say — because that is the question nobody ever asks the facilitator. They only ever ask whether everything is ready.

Why it is worth the price

This is a large-scale, museum-sized painting — 160 x 160 cm, a full square — carried by a subject that is instantly legible and quietly barbed: the invisible work of the person who holds everything together, and how casually it gets overlooked. Anyone who has ever been that person — or been carried by one — will get it in three seconds. The second reading, about camouflage and scale, takes a little longer and does not let go.

Bertermann couples the speed of the handling — fast acrylic fields, decisive oil-stick line — with a trained architect's instinct for structure, so that a monumental seated body, a panoramic landscape and a streaked sky never lose their weight or their place in space. The colour is celebratory and high-key: emerald green, ultramarine, chrome yellow, flame orange, drifts of pink. Across a room it reads as pure summer. Up close it is a portrait of the most undervalued job in every human group. For collectors it offers the best of Bertermann — expressive force disciplined by composition, on a subject with genuine warmth and a sting in its tail.

Visual description & condition

The composition is a square, near-frontal scene filling the entire canvas. A seated male figure dominates the frame at monumental scale: dark green-black hair, a face painted meadow-green with its shadow side in blue, tired ultramarine eyes, red oil-stick marks on the forehead and a heavy coral-orange mouth. A flame-orange jacket hangs over his shoulders; around his neck and torso, broad silver-grey brushstrokes bundle into a thick wrap, flanked by rolled white-and-pink towels at both arms above a dark grey vest.

One leg wears a black trouser over a white sock and a sneaker striped in yellow and blue; the other foot sits in a darker shoe whose laces remain a loose black scribble of oil stick, drawn but not knotted. Beneath the shoes the ground glows warm orange. Behind the figure the landscape opens into emerald meadows and drifts of pink and red flowers, dropping away at the left into a rose-coloured fall; the sky grades from deep ultramarine down to chartreuse at the horizon, crossed by mint-green clouds streaked with pink and yellow. Scale and perspective are pushed past realism into pure sensation. The work is signed "Bertermann" in red oil stick at the lower right, beside the darker shoe.

The work is unframed and not stretched. Condition is excellent. All surface irregularities are intentional and integral to the artist's process.

Background / artistic context

Claus Bertermann works within contemporary expressive figurative painting, focused on states of being rather than mere representation. "The Facilitator" takes the least visible role in any human group — the enabler, the organiser, the quiet load-bearer — and makes him the largest thing in the landscape he serves. Nothing is happening in the picture, and everything about the arrangement is already decided: for once, the scenery is the background it always pretended he was.

Technically the work belongs to the strand of his figurative practice built on separation: a fast, painterly acrylic ground overlaid with independent oil-stick drawing, the image constructed forward rather than layered and scraped like his abstracts. Perspective and scale are pushed past realism to give the figure his true weight — the helper made heavy and monumental, the world he carries kept small — in a palette of full summer: emerald, ultramarine, chrome yellow and flame orange.

Practical details for buyers:

Original, one-of-a-kind artwork
Acrylic and oil stick on canvas
Dimensions (H x W): 160 x 160 cm (63 x 63 inches)
Signed by the artist on the front and back side
Certificate of authenticity included
Shipped rolled (not framed or stretched)
Professional packaging and worldwide shipping with premium shipping companies like UPS.

The canvas includes an additional continuous white border of approximately 10 cm (approx. 4 inches) on all sides beyond the painted surface. This margin allows the artwork to be professionally restretched on museum-quality stretcher bars up to 6 cm (approx. 2.4 inches) in depth, resulting in a clean, frameless, gallery-style presentation without the need for a decorative frame.

Please note that the artwork is sold unframed and without stretcher bars. Professional stretching is the responsibility of the buyer. The painting is shipped rolled for safe international transport and flexible installation according to the buyer's preference.

The artwork is signed on both front and reverse, with title, year, and the artist's full name inscribed on the back.