Sigmar Polke (b. 1941)

German artist, Sigmar Polke, is known as one of the Capital Realists (the European version of New York pop art). Similar to pop art, Polke’s work appropriated consumerism, however, the fun and upbeat nature of pop art was not often consistent with Polke’s pieces. He created sculptures out of potatoes and used pictures from newspapers of terrorists being searched by the police as subjects for his drawings and paintings. One of Polke’s earlier paintings, 1965, was an advertisement of a baker and a pile of doughnuts titled, Berliner. Polke became a cult hero to artists wanting to escape from the rigid structure of minimal and conceptual art at the time.