Claus Bertermann - Sidekick Two

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 Sequel Where the Sidekick Gets Promoted

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. "Sidekick Two" applies that method to the same pairing as its predecessor, and quietly changes the terms.

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: Sidekick Two
– 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

Sequels are supposed to be worse. This one is where the relationship finally works.

In the first painting there was a lead — a thin yellow line running from the man's hand to the dog's collar — and the dog spent the whole picture looking up at a man who was looking somewhere else. Here, look at what is gone. There is no lead. Nothing connects the two bodies. The man's hand hangs open at his side, drawn in bright green over yellow, fingers spread wide, and it is unmistakably empty: no treat, no lead, no leverage, nothing on offer.

The dog stays anyway.

He sits at the right edge, cream and black with long ears and a red-lined mouth, upright and composed, and he is not looking up at anybody. He is looking out — straight at you, the same direction as the man, the two of them squarely facing whoever has come to look. In the first painting one of them posed and the other adored. In this one they are both simply being photographed, side by side, in the same light.

That is the entire promotion. The sidekick has stopped auditioning. Whatever was being negotiated in the first canvas has been settled somewhere off-frame, between the two paintings, and what remains is the unglamorous thing that comes after loyalty has been proven: two figures standing in tall grass, neither of them needing the other to prove anything.

Bertermann sets this against the wildest ground he has painted — a thicket of pink, blue, sap green and white strokes that closes in from every side, as though the pair had stopped in the middle of undergrowth. The world is chaos. The two of them are perfectly still.

Why it is worth the price

This is a large-scale, museum-sized painting — 160 x 160 cm, a full square — and the second, resolved chapter of a pairing Bertermann began earlier in 2026. It can hang alone as a complete statement or beside its predecessor as a two-part narrative, and collectors who acquire it independently should know that its counterpart exists: sequels of this kind rarely stay separated on the market for long.

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 standing figure, an open hand and a seated dog hold their weight against a background that is close to pure abstraction. The colour is unrestrained: yellow face, scarlet and black coat, sap green, cobalt, hot pink. Across a room it reads as a burst of energy. Up close it is a portrait of two creatures who have run out of things to prove to each other. For collectors it offers the best of Bertermann — expressive force disciplined by composition, on a subject with genuine warmth and no sentimentality.

Visual description & condition

The composition is square, with a standing figure occupying the centre and left of the canvas and a seated dog at the lower right. The figure's face is built in bright yellow with a green contour line running down the profile, blue-rimmed eyes, and a dark blue mouth; a wedge of cobalt sits over the brow, and scarlet and black strokes fall to either side as hair. The body is wrapped in a heavy coat brushed in scarlet, orange, ochre and black with a broad collar, and the lower half is worked in olive, blue and red. At the centre-left the figure's hand hangs open and empty — a broad yellow shape outlined in vivid green oil stick, all five fingers separated and extended.

At the right the dog sits facing the viewer: a cream-white body and head, long black ears framing the face, black eyes rimmed in red, a black nose touched with red and green, and a red line describing the mouth; strands of yellow and a block of deep green run across his chest. Behind and around both figures the canvas is filled with a dense thicket of gestural strokes — hot pink and white at the upper left, cobalt and teal at the upper right, sap green and olive throughout — reading as undergrowth or tall grass. The ground beneath them is green and yellow, crossed by blue and black. The work is signed "Bertermann" in red 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, focused on states of being rather than mere representation. "Sidekick Two" continues a pairing begun in the earlier canvas "Sidekick" and resolves it: where the first used two opposing gazes to raise a question about rank and loyalty, the second removes both the lead and the hierarchy, and lets the figures share a single direction of attention. Nothing is happening in the picture; the relationship has simply stopped being negotiable.

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. The background here is pushed further toward pure abstraction than in any of his recent figurative works, so that the two still, legible bodies read against a field of pure painterly movement.

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.