1921
Born on November 17, 1921 in Mittenwalde, Germany, Ursula Schultze-Bluhm is a German artist and poet.
1938
She moves to Berlin, where she studies languages and writes her first prose texts. Forced by the Nazi regime to perform administrative tasks during the Second World War, she witnesses the destruction of the city.
1945-1953
Having learned English and French in high school, from 1945 she worked for the American services in the cultural department of the America House programs in Berlin, then in Frankfurt from 1949. During this period, she met Bernard Schultze and became his partner in 1955.
1950
Now settled in Frankfurt, Ursula wrote poetry and began painting, starting with the two-dimensional abstractions of Willi Baumeister. However, she soon turned to a personal concretion in the tension between naive painting, art brut and Informel.
1954
From the early '50s onwards, she spent a great deal of time in Paris, where she met Jean Dubuffet, who exhibited her engravings and paintings in his "Musée de l'art brut". Her first solo exhibition was held in Frankfurt in 1954. Since then, her art has been exhibited in Paris, Hanover, Heidelberg, Düsseldorf, Munich, Stuttgart, Hamburg, Basel and Vienna.
1958-1960
Despite the years spent at her husband Bernard Schultze's side, the two artists' positions never drew closer together, and instead developed individually in constant discussion and confrontation. Over the years, Ursula drew her inspiration from myths and legends, creating her own "individual mythology" as a woman through increasingly realistic works, which enabled her to assert herself in a generation of artists still completely dominated by men.
1959-1963
She is represented on rue de Courcelles by Galerie Daniel Cordier, in Paris and Frankfurt, where she is regularly exhibited. She begins to work on small objects, more and more assemblages of fur oils with a shrine-like character.
1964-1973
During this period, she makes several trips to the United States, where she takes part in group exhibitions, and undertakes study trips to Paris, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Burma. Selbstportrait is one of her finest works of graphic art.
1974
She begins producing large-format pen-and-ink sepia drawings.
1979
She takes part in the Sydney Biennale, and exhibits abroad.
1980-1981
Continues to exhibit.
1983
Wormland Art Prize, Munich, with Bernard Schultze.
1984-1998
Solo and group exhibitions in museums, galleries and art fairs.
1999
Ursula Schultze-Bluhm died on April 9 in Cologne.