Claus Bertermann (1965) - No Halo

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.

The New Expressionist Series Continues

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 2026 he opened a radically new chapter: figurative scenes in heightened, emotionally charged colour, guided by the painters of German Expressionism — a ground set down in coarse brushstrokes, with the drawn oil-stick line laid on top of it afterwards and never worked into it. "No Halo" belongs to that series and takes it somewhere it has never been: to the paddock of the early 1960s, where a racing driver sits beside his car, number 8, and looks straight back at us.

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 key work from an exciting new series by an artist with a solidified international auction record.

Key details for collectors

– Title: No Halo
– Year: 2026
– Dimensions (H x W): 150 x 200 cm (59 × 79 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

Today every open-wheel racing car carries a halo: a curved titanium bar over the driver's head, strong enough to hold the weight of a London bus. It has been mandatory since 2018, and it has already saved lives.

The man in this painting never saw one.

He raced in the early 1960s, when the list of safety equipment was short enough to fit on a postcard: a thin helmet, a pair of goggles, a cotton shirt and nerve. Many drivers of his generation refused seatbelts, because being thrown clear of a burning car seemed the better bet. Between the driver and the road there was nothing but talent—and between the driver and the sky there was nothing at all.

So here he sits, beside car number 8, and does not look like a hero. He looks like a man who has just climbed out. Shirt open at the neck, hands resting in his lap, the face pale and slightly exhausted, the green eyes fixed on us with the calm of someone who knows exactly what his job costs and has decided not to talk about it.

And here is the twist. The title works twice.

The era made saints of these men. Magazines printed them like icons, crowds treated them like martyrs-in-waiting, and far too many of them did not survive the decade. Painting has a traditional tool for exactly this kind of person: a golden disc behind the head. Bertermann withholds it. No halo on the car, no halo on the man. Just a human being, sitting down, off duty.

Look closer, though. There is a golden glow in this picture—a broad cloud of ochre and olive-yellow light hanging in the black night. It does float over the driver and over the car. The painting has quietly given the halo to the man and the machine.

Then there is the number. The 8 on the white roundel is pushed so far to the right that the canvas edge almost cuts it off, as if the car were already leaving the picture while its driver stays behind. Turn that 8 on its side and it becomes the mathematical sign for forever. It is the only kind of immortality this man was ever offered, and it is painted on the bonnet, not above his head.

One last detail, for collectors who like to look twice: the green of his eyes appears in exactly one other place on the canvas—his hand. The eyes that read the track, the hand that steers. Everything he needed to stay alive, painted in one colour.

Why it is worth the price

This is a large-scale, museum-sized painting (150 x 200 cm) in landscape format from Bertermann's 2026 expressionist series. For collectors, works from the opening year of a new series carry a meaningful provenance marker, and within this series "No Halo" holds a unique position: it is the first canvas to bring a machine into the picture on equal terms with the figure—the racing car takes up more than half the surface, and it is painted with the same appetite as the human face beside it.

That makes it a rare crossover work. It speaks to the collector of contemporary figurative painting and, just as directly, to the collector of motorsport history, for whom the golden age of front-engined sports-racing cars is a field of its own. A painting that holds both worlds in one frame—without ever becoming an illustration—is exactly the kind of work that anchors a room and starts a conversation.

Technically the canvas is built in two separated moves, which is the method behind Bertermann's figurative work. First the ground: the black night, the ochre glow, the turquoise shirt, the cobalt and vermilion masses of the car body are laid in with coarse, broad brushstrokes that keep the movement of the arm visible and settle nothing precisely. Only then the drawing: the oil stick goes over that painted field and sets the contours — the driver's face and green eyes, the tangle of orange, yellow and blue lines over his shirt, the green hand, the spoked wheel, the headlight, the windscreen and the number 8 on its white roundel. The drawn line does not follow the painted ground beneath it; it lies on top of it and keeps its own authority. Freedom below, precision above—an architect's instinct for structure carrying an expressionist's appetite for colour.

Visual description & condition

The composition shows a racing driver seated at the left of the canvas beside a low sports-racing car of the early 1960s that fills the centre and right of the picture. The driver is shown from the thighs up, turned towards the viewer, with fair hair drawn in yellow and orange oil stick, a pale mint and turquoise face with pink passages on the cheeks, dark blue brows and green eyes looking directly out of the picture. He wears a light turquoise shirt open at the neck, overlaid with a dense web of orange, yellow, red and blue oil-stick lines; his hands rest in his lap, one of them drawn in bright green.

The car is painted in cobalt and ultramarine blue with broad vermilion and orange passages along the body, a black windscreen and cockpit with red and pink contours, a spoked wheel in orange, yellow and blue at the lower centre, a round headlight in pale blue, white and orange at the lower right, and a white roundel with a black number 8 outlined in yellow at the right edge, partly cut off by the canvas edge.

The background is a deep black night with a large cloud of ochre and olive-yellow light above the car, framed by cobalt and turquoise brushwork at the upper left and upper right. The lower edge of the canvas is an orange and red ground beneath the car.

Colours visibly run and merge throughout; perspective and anatomy are intentionally distorted to prioritise emotional weight over realism. The work is signed in orange-yellow oil stick at the lower right.

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, focusing on states of being rather than mere representation. With his 2026 series he placed the human figure inside charged colour situations, drawing directly on the legacy of German Expressionism: bent perspective, heightened colour, a surface kept deliberately fluid, and a drawn line that stays visibly on top of it.

The halo is one of the oldest devices in Western painting. For a thousand years it told the viewer who was holy, who was protected, who would last. Modern motorsport borrowed the word for a piece of titanium that does something very similar in practical terms: it marks the driver as someone who is meant to come home.

"No Halo" stands exactly between those two meanings, in the years when neither applied. It is not a painting about speed, and it is not a painting about a crash. It is a portrait of the quiet minute after the race, of a man who had no protection except his own skill—and who is still sitting there, looking at us, as if he wanted to know whether we understand what that meant.

Practical details for buyers:

Original, one-of-a-kind artwork
Acrylic and oil stick on canvas
Dimensions (H x W): 150 x 200 cm (59 × 79 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.

Please note regarding the room views:

Some of the photographs show the painting digitally placed in an interior. These room views are AI-visualisations, created to give an impression of scale and presence only — they are not photographs of the actual work hanging in a room. Both the size proportions and the colours shown in them may differ from the original. The binding references are the dimensions stated above (H x W) and the studio photograph of the painting itself. Please also note that colours may appear differently depending on screen calibration.