"View of Lake Neuchâtel", gouache on cardboard, 1966.
An expressionist interpretation of the view from Dürrenmatt's house.
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"Man with a hat", mixed technique, around 1970; "self-portrait", gouache, 1982.
Dürrenmatt painted a lot of self-portraits, above all in his later years.
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"Final general meeting of the federal banking establishment", oil on canvas, 1966.
When Dürrenmatt the writer reworked his musical comedy 'Frank V - opera of a private bank' (1959), Dürrenmatt the painter created an allegory of the Last Supper with bankers killing themselves.
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"Angry centaurs", gouache on cardboard, 1979.
Mythological themes are very present in Dürrenmatt's work, especially centaurs.
(1979)
"Burial of a banker", ("Frank V"), oil on canvas, 1966.
Another dead "banker king"...
(1966)
"Don Quixote", mixed technique, 1987.
Don Quixote on his horse firing electric lines out of his spear. Sancho Panza is on his donkey.
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A critic wielding his pen like a spear, 1963.
Dürrenmatt produced a large number of caricatures - a sign of his imagination and humour. Here he takes aim at a critic after the failure of his comedy "Hercules and the Augean stables".
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"Catastrophe", oil and gouache on canvas, 1966.
The apocalypse, the collision of stars and the destruction of the Earth by a nuclear bomb are recurrent themes for Dürrenmatt.
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Lauriers, 1966.
Caricature of a character from the work "The Meteor". Wolfgang Schwitter is a Nobel Prize laureate dying slowly in a clinic - an autobiographical creation.
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"The world of Atlas", gouache on cardboard, 1965/1978.
Atlas the Titan, condemned to supporting the heavens, was a recurring theme with Dürrenmatt - along with the collision of stars, falling meteorites, catastrophes and the apocalypse.
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"Black Ascension", gouache on cardboard, 1983.
Biblical motifs such as the Crucifixion, the Last Judgement and the apocalypse appeared in numerous variations.
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"Inaccessible saints", collage, 1975.
Angels and saints are common subjects with Dürrenmatt.
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"The woman with a red coat - portrait of Charlotte Kerr Dürrenmatt", gouache on paper, 1984.
After the death of his wife, Lotti, in 1983, Dürrenmatt met and married the German actress Charlotte Kerr, who died in 2011.
(1984)
"Route Napoléon", gouache on cardboard, 1960.
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Artist or writer? Until he turned 25, Friedrich Dürrenmatt vacillated between the two careers, before opting for literature. However, he continued drawing and painting for the rest of his life – but in private.
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The Neuchâtel Dürrenmatt Centre houses 1,000 paintings and drawings – not to mention his caricatures. In his “dramatic” paintings, Dürrenmatt often reinterpreted motifs pulled from Greek mythology or religion.
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