The eldest of seven children, Arthur Unger was raised in Itzig during the Second World War. His parents were a municipal employee of German origin and a housewife of French descent. In high school, he took optional drawing and painting classes with Luxembourg painter Felix Glatz as his teacher. Thereafter, Unger attended the École Coloniale (‘colonial school’) in Brussels in order to become a territorial agent of the Congolese administration in 1956, when today’s Democratic Republic of the Congo was a Belgian colony. Unger’s interest in Africa and foreign countries originated from his maternal grandfather, who was in the Foreign Legion in Senegal and Morocco and who encouraged his grandson to work and live abroad. After colonial school, Unger executed his job as a territorial commander: First, among local tribes (Lunda and Baluba) at the border of the provinces Katanga and Kasai and second, in Jadotville (today Likasi) from 1958 to 1960. Unger married in 1957 and, in 1959, his daughter was born. He provisionally returned to Luxembourg in 1960, when Congo became independent. In 1961, he worked at an international organisation in France. Unger lived in Paris from 1963 to 1967, where he first became acquainted with contemporary art. He worked for a logistical service organisation for the NATO countries in Paris before moving back to his native country in 1968, where he worked as a director of transport. Furthermore, Unger travelled frequently. Among some destinations that influenced his artistic life was his trip to California in 1977. By the year 2001, he had travelled back to Africa more than 20 times, including numerous journeys to Senegal. Between 2004 and 2008, Unger visited China five times at the occasion of his exhibitions. In addition to being a painter, Unger is also a collector of African sculptures.

Most representative of the autodidact’s work are so-called fire paintings on copper (so-called pyriochimigrammes) and ink washes (so-called psychogrammes). Both are mainly non-figurative and abstract in style. Nevertheless, recurring themes related to the natural elements can be identified, specifically those of fire, earth and water. The African continent and peoples serve as both, a constant theme and the artist’s source of inspiration. Likewise, literature, calligraphy and handwriting characters or signs represent a further focus in his pictorial work.

Unger’s first art works were colourful gouaches depicting figurative elements such as birds or fish, as well as watercolour paintings. Only a few years into his artistic career, Unger had already discovered the techniques that were to characterise his work: By 1969, he was creating ink washes and had developed his unique technique of ‘painting’ with fire on copper. The copper paintings, which Unger is mostly known for, are also called pyriochimigrammes. The technique, which Unger first developed at the end of the 1960s, consists of three stages: First, the artist draws on a thin sheet of copper with ink (ink is heat-resistant). Then, he dips the copper sheet into an acid or salt bath, whereby he impregnates some areas more strongly than others. Last, he approaches a flame to the electrolytic copper sheet in order to create a chemical reaction. Depending on the temperature and, consequently, the level of oxidation, different colours appear. Hence, through the controlled use of heat and chemical liquids, Unger consciously determines the resulting colours and shapes. Occasionally, the final pictures are reworked with pencil colours. Unger started experimenting with this technique in 1969, when he coincidentally observed the reaction of electrolyte copper and fire carried out by a chemist friend. Upon that discovery, Unger assisted a Luxembourg company in Wiltz in producing electrolyte copper foil, which he subsequently used as a support for his art. Around 1984, Unger’s copper paintings grew considerably in size, while simultaneously revealing a wider range of colours. As stated above, they are mostly abstract in style. Yet, from 1985 onwards, the painted elements tend to increasingly reference the visible, real world and particularly the human figure and face (e. g. The Other Face from 1988). Unger’s imagined portraits and paintings of horseback riders and African masks build an example of these neither completely abstract, nor figurative works (called the ‘nonfigurative’). In the early 1990s, Unger created sculptures based on his copper paintings. The process consisted in cutting the pyriochimigrammes into thin strips and placing these in transparent tubes. These statues are frequently referred to as “totems” (Gerbaud; cg).

The second large group of works consists of ink washes, which Unger first created around the second half of the 1970s. His artistic practice evolved towards this technique by diluting the colour of his initial gouache paintings more and more. Characteristic of ink washes, they are monochrome works on paper. By employing Indian ink, Unger’s washes reveal different shades and intensities of black. Similarly to a step in the technique of fire painting, he introduces the paper into a chemical bath. The resulting art works frequently investigate the sign and, according to the artist, his inner emotional state. This is the reason for which they are called psychogrammes.

Galerie Dauphine in Paris organised the artist’s first solo exhibition in 1967. The following year, Galerie Beffa exhibited his art for the first time in Luxembourg. So far, Unger has shown his work in about 70 solo exhibitions. Examples of important monographic shows are those organised at Galerie d’Art International in Paris (1984, 1989, 1991), the Musée du Luxembourg in Paris (1992, 1993?), the Galerie municipal du théâtre d’Esch-sur-Alzette (1997, 2012), the Liu Haisu Art Museum in Shanghai (2004), a touring exhibition at five Chinese museums (Art of Today Museum in Bejing, amonst others) (2008), Abbaye de Neumünster (2010) and a retrospective at the Luxembourg Nationalmusée Um Fëschmaart (2023). Concerning group shows, Unger has regularly participated at the Salons du Cercle Artistique de Luxembourg (CAL) since 1968. His work was also shown at Grand Palais in Paris (1968, 1981, 1982), at the Centre international de recherches esthétiques in Turin (1974), at the international art fair “Art” in Basel (1982-85) (along works by Marc Tobey) and at Busan International Exhibition in Seoul (1990), amongst others. In 1992 and 1998, his works were shown alongside those of Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), René Magritte (1898-1967) and Juan Miró (1893-1983), among many others, at exhibitions organised by Ante Glibota at Paris Art Center in tribute to the great Spanish writer and film maker Fernando Arrabal (born 1932).

From 1975 to 1977 Unger was one of the six artists of Goupe V (v stands for voisinages ‘neighbourhoods’). The other artists were Victor Laks (1924-2011), James Pichette (1920-1996), Wanda Davanzo (1919-2017), Roberto Altmann (*1942) and Thibaud Campa (?). In 1977, Unger was invited to California to the studios of artists which the Parisian art world referred to as the School of the Pacific. Parisian critics “praised the Pacific school for the meditative intensity of their works, whose sources seemed to come from Asia, and juxtaposed them against the Expressionist, Action paintings of the New York School” (Dossin 142). Moreover, Unger occasionally collaborated with writers such as Fernando Arrabal (*1932). In addition, Unger's encounters and lasting relationships with the critic Michel Tapié, whom he met in Paris in 1970, and the curator Ante Glibota, whom he met in Paris in 1979, greatly fostered Unger's visibility and reception.

Unger’s art can be found in the collections of the Luxembourg National Library (BNL)the National museum of archeology, history and art (MNAHA) and Les 2 Musées de la Ville de Luxembourg. Abroad, his works are represented in the collections of the Centre d’Art et Communication in Vaduz, the Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts Lausanne, the Klingspor Museum in Offenbach/Main, and Centre international de recherche esthétique in Turin.

The artist was a member of the CAL, of which he was also a member of the board, by no later than 1970. He was a member of the Académie Européenne des Sciences, des Arts et des Lettres (‘European academy of science, arts and literature’) latest by 1997.

In 1971, Unger was the recipient of the Prix Grand-Duc Adolphe in Luxembourg. In 2017, he received the Phoenix Art Award in Fenghuang, China, for the best abstract painting.

Although Unger's work has been described as Expressionist or Surrealist (Walentiny 1989: 120), it is mostly interpreted as belonging to the French Art Informel movement. Michel Tapié, “one of the most active Parisian art critics of the post war period and a proponent of the Pacific School” attributed Unger's work to the Art Informel movement, an art movement of which Tapié was one of the first theorists and which is frequently regarded as the European equivalent of American Abstract Expressionism (Dossin 144). He further praised it for being exceptional and uncommon, not least for Unger’s “pscho-sensory perception” of the world (Tapié cited in M. H.). The artist’s encounters with this influential Parisian art critic in 1970 and art historian Ante Glibota around 1979 resulted in long-term professional and friendly relations that saw a number of publications and exhibitions emerge. These had a significant influence on his artistic career and reception. As Unger expressed himself, he owes his success, above all, to the interest of well-established critics such as Tapié, Glibota or Martine Arnault (Michels 78). While an unknown author from Le Républicain Lorrain considered Unger “undoubtedly among the greatest Luxembourg creators” in 1972, Luxembourg art historian Danièle Wagener claimed that most people were more interested in the "alchemical" formula than in Unger’s pictorial qualities in 1985 ("Deux lithographies d'Arthur UNGER" and Wagener).

Unger’s art feeds from his biography: Above all his experience in and with African nature, peoples, history and customs, seem to run directly into his copper paintings and ink washes. By juxtaposing original African sculptures and his own paintings in exhibitions in Luxembourg (1999), Mandelieu-la Napoule (2000) and China (2004), he let two cultures enter into a dialogue in which both parties were equal participants. Interestingly, even after having engaged in an international artistic career, Unger participated in modest exhibitions in his own backyard (1971, 1974 and 1987) and at the same time in established art institutions in world metropolises, thus flattening an exhibition hierarchy.

Works cited

K. "Un peintre luxembourgeois Arthur Unger expose à la Galerie Transposition." Luxemburger Wort 08.11.1967, unknown.

Dossin, Catherine. “The School of the Pacific: The Asian Side of the Postwar Transatlantic Exchanges.” Novecento transnazionale. Letterature, arti e culture 2 vol. 32 (Spring 2019): 142-161.

Michels, Danièle. "Arthur Unger: Der mit dem Feuer spielt.“ Revue 11 (1992): 78.

Wagener, Danièle. "Une formule ‘alchimique’ au service d’une expression personnelle et profonde." Luxemburger Wort 06.03.1985 : unknown.

"Deux lithographies d'Arthur UNGER." Le Républicain Lorrain 29.12.1972: unkown

Tapié, Michel cited in M.H. "Galerie St-Michel: Envol avec Arthur UNGER." Le Républicain Lorrain 28.10.1975: unknown.

„24 heures" de Lausanne (25 oct. 1978) cited in "Rencontre avec Arthur Unger." Luxemburger Wort 09.11.1978: 24.

Glibota, Ante, Francis Hayem, and Arthur Unger. Unger. Paris: Paris Art Center, 1989. Print, 15 + 221.

Walentiny, Joseph. "La peinture luxembourgeoise de 1950 à nos jours." Nos cahiers 3/4 (1989): 109-134.

Tapié, Michel. Un art autre : où il s’agit de nouveaux dévidages du réel. Paris: Gabriel-Giraud et fils, 1952. Print.