Werner Pawlok, born in Stuttgart in 1953, founded the first photo gallery in southern Germany in 1980. In the late eighties, his work gained great recognition through his participation in group exhibitions with works by Warhol, Richter, Mapplethorpe and Polke. His well-known works include his 50 x 60 cm Polaroids as well as his unconventional fashion and celebrity photographs of John Malkovich, Dennis Hopper or Juliette Binoche. Whether he portrays writers from Siri Hustvedt to Salman Rushdie to Jonathan Franzen - as in the series Faces of Literature - or traces the spirit of the abandoned Ford factories in New Orleans - Pawlok's works have a very individual character and exert a great attraction on his viewers. As a self-taught artist, Werner Pawlok has developed a style over decades that lies beyond the mainstream and has led to worldwide recognition of his works in museums, galleries and among collectors. His visual language is characterised by the search for constantly new visual ideas and possibilities of expression.