Portrait: Stefan Strumbel – pop art artist from Offenburg

The first impression of Stefan Strumbel comes through his work – not through the person. A six-metre Madonna in Hanau costume on the wall of a village church. Two 15-metre pine cones in front of a Black Forest brewery. A cuckoo clock in pop art colours that suddenly tips your own sense of home off balance. Strumbel is the Offenburg artist who translates the Black Forest into pop art – and in doing so renegotiates the very idea of home.

The newspaper “Welt” once called him the “Andy Warhol of cuckoo clocks”. The label captures his method well – but not his depth. While Warhol mirrored consumer objects, Strumbel works on a question far older than pop art: what is home, once you are no longer allowed to have it naively?

Who is Stefan Strumbel?

Stefan Strumbel was born on 17 May 1979 in Offenburg. His father Toni Strumbel was a Yugoslav judoka who emigrated to Germany in 1962 as an electrician – a family biography that carries the theme of home in its very origin. Strumbel himself has stayed in Offenburg: he lives and works there to this day.

His artistic path begins in 1993; from 2001 he works freelance. In 2006 comes the first solo exhibition at the Kunstverein Offenburg-Mittelbaden – and from then on things move quickly: sacred art, stage sets, sculptures in public space, international exhibitions. In 2015 he deliberately reorients his work – away from the fleeting, towards works with more permanence and a more abstract, more universal visual language.

Home as a subject: Strumbel's visual language between tradition and pop art

Strumbel's work lives on a vocabulary that everyone who has ever been to the Black Forest knows: cuckoo clock, Bollenhut, Madonna, crucifix, pine cone, Bambi. Precisely the symbols that turn into involuntary caricature in souvenir shops – and that he brings back into the context of art. With pop art colours, street art gestures and an aesthetic somewhere between the gallery and the spray can.

What is fascinating about his work: he does not deliver the Black Forest as a postcard, but takes it apart into its symbols and puts them back together. Look around inside his pictures and you suddenly see your own home through someone else's eyes.

“Tradition meets innovation” is often used as an empty phrase. With Strumbel it is a method: he reaches into the region's oldest symbols and forces them to answer a question of today.

The most important works by Stefan Strumbel

Madonna in Hanau costume – Goldscheuer (2011). Strumbel completely redesigns the church “Maria, Hilfe der Christen” in Goldscheuer. The central work: a six-metre Madonna in Hanau costume. Sacred art that takes tradition seriously and translates it into the present at the same time – one of the boldest steps by the then young artist.

“Holy Heimat” – Badisches Landesmuseum Karlsruhe (2012). The show at the Badisches Landesmuseum makes Strumbel known beyond the region. For the first time his idea of home gets the large institutional frame.

Stage design “La Bohème” – Stuttgart State Opera (2013/14). Pop art artist meets classical repertoire. Strumbel designs the set for Puccini's opera – a leap from the gallery to the very big stage.

Karlsruher Stuhl (2015). A bronze sculpture for the 300th anniversary of the city of Karlsruhe – a chair as a symbol for the city. Strumbel shows that public art does not have to explain itself, it has to work.

“Verstehen ist ein Gefühl von Heimat” – Grafenhausen (2016). Two 15-metre steel pine cones weighing six tonnes in front of the Rothaus brewery in Grafenhausen. The sculptures represent the weights of a cuckoo clock – the Black Forest translated into the monumental. Anyone passing through the High Black Forest should plan a stop.

Stage design “Die neuen Todsünden” – Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe (2020). A second major stage work – this time with an explicit social question in the title.

“The New Times” – Times Square, New York (2024). Strumbel's Black Forest pop art makes it to Manhattan. A work on the screens at Times Square – the idea of home in a global context.

Current series (2025). On his website Strumbel presents current series: “SCHWARZ WALD GOLD”, “Where The Forest Remembers”, “Dunkle Zeiten”, “The Owl”. The Black Forest remains his core subject – with every series from a different angle.

The Kesselhaus in Offenburg: Strumbel's own cultural space

In 2020 Strumbel acquires the Kesselhaus in Offenburg – a former power house dating from 1857. In May 2023 he opens it as a cultural centre with a sculpture park. Studio, exhibition venue and publicly accessible cultural space in one.

With it Strumbel anchors his work in Offenburg not only artistically but also physically. “For me this is the last diamond in Offenburg,” he told Schwarzwald Tourismus GmbH about the Kesselhaus. Anyone who wants to experience his work in person will hardly get past this place – you will find more details in the piece on the Kesselhaus cultural centre in Offenburg.

Where to see and buy Stefan Strumbel's art

In public space: the pine cone sculptures in front of the Rothaus brewery in Grafenhausen, the sacred redesign of the church Maria, Hilfe der Christen in Goldscheuer and the sculpture park at the Kesselhaus in Offenburg are freely accessible.

In galleries: Strumbel is represented by Circle Culture Gallery in Berlin and Galerie Schrade, among others. Current exhibition dates are listed on his website.

Online: originals, editions and prints are available through his own shop – shop.stefanstrumbel.de. Current series and news run through the official website stefanstrumbel.de and his Instagram channel @stefan_strumbel.

Stefan Strumbel has managed what many attempt: he has given the Black Forest a visual language that appeals to collectors such as Karl Lagerfeld and Hubert Burda and at the same time holds up in front of the local parish council. That is not a compromise – that is a stance. Which is exactly why he is one of the voices Black Forest Patrol portrays. If you are interested in Black Forest artists, you should also read the portrait of Zeljko Rusic – a different Black Forest sculptor, different means, the same question of identity.

More about the artist: www.stefanstrumbel.de