Rediscovering Mati Klarwein

I was on the bus, coming home from downtown yesterday afternoon, when I saw several enlarged images from the album 'Bitches Brew' in the windows of a record store on Pine Street. I was briefly captivated by that choice of imagery, and then I went about the rest of the day...

About half an hour ago, I clicked over to Magpie to see what was what. There I found an image of Mati Klarwein's New Aleph Sanctuary, which will be exhibited at the Tate Gallery in Liverpool as part of "Summer of Love: Art of the Psychedelic Era."

I clicked the pic, I went to the main page, and then I said, "Oh, hell's bells, this is the artist who did 'Bitches Brew.'"


Time, 1965


Astral Body Asleep, 1968


Astral Body Awake, 1969


Live, 1971


Evil, 1972


Clone (unfinished), 2002


Which one of your paintings do you consider to be the best?

"The one I'm working on now."

What is the message behind all this imagery?

"What you see is what you get."


"Matias Klarwein was born on the 9th of April 1932 in Hamburg, Germany. He died in his sleep at home on the morning of the 7th of March, 2002.

"Mati Klarwein's best known paintings are 'Annunciation', which was chosen for the cover of Santana's album 'Abraxas', and the painting used by Miles Davis for his cover 'Bitches Brew' - also reproduced for Absolut Vodka's ad campaign. His artwork has been widely shown in galleries in New York, Paris, and all over Spain.

"Mati's most unique installation was the Aleph Sanctuary, a cubic room comprised of 68 paintings including the 'Tree of Life' requiring a guard at its entrance in the Museum of Art in Santa Barbara, California. During his last years, he had major retrospective shows in Madrid, Barcelona, Palma and Cadiz.

"At the present time, Mati is known to have painted at least 600 pieces, including 280 landscapes/mindscapes, 270 portraits, and 120 improved paintings.

The most famous unknown artist, indeed.