Wolfgang Lettl

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Wolfgang Lettl (1919 - 10 February 2008) was a surrealist painter who was born in Augsburg, Germany.

In 1939, at the age of 20, Wolfgang joined the German army and served as a communications officer in occupied Paris from 1940-43, during which time he worked on his watercolours and first became exposed to surrealism. Later in the war, he became a reconnaissance airman in Norway, where he was captured at the end of the war and held for four months.

He returned to Augsburg in 1945, and worked there as a freelance painter from 1945-1948. In 1949, however, the currency reform forced him to turn to construction work to make ends meet. He continued working on his landscapes, portraits and surrealist art while working construction jobs and odd jobs. From 1954 onwards, he was able to concentrate on his art. He married Franziska Link in 1949.

Success with his freelance art led him to develop his surrealism, and he participated in the 1963 Grosse Kunstausstellung München (the "Grand Art Exhibition Munich"), becoming a member of the Neue Münchener Künstlergenossenschaft ("New Munich Artist Cooperative Society"). One-man shows in Germany and abroad followed. In addition to his surrealism, the landscapes around his second residence in Puglia, Italy, inspired him to sometimes paint in an impressionistic style.

In 1992, on the occasion of a retrospective exhibition at the Toskan Hall of Columns, he offered his paintings to the city of Augsburg on permanent loan. After the opening of the "Lettl Atrium - Museum for Surreal Art" in Augsburg in 1993, Lettl has concentrated on experiments in other media (including film) as well as continuing his painting. A major retrospective exhibition was held in Augsburg in 2000.