Eberhard Havekost

Eberhard Havekost (1967–2019) was born in Dresden, East Germany, and studied painting at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste Dresden from 1991 to 1996. He went on to live and work primarily in Berlin, and in 2010 was appointed Professor of Painting at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, a position he held until his death on 5 July 2019. In 1999, he received the Karl Schmidt-Rottluff Scholarship, awarded by the Karl Schmidt-Rottluff Foundation — one of Germany's significant distinctions for emerging artists.

Havekost's exhibition history spans three decades and multiple continents, beginning with his first solo presentation at Galerie Gebr. Lehmann in Dresden in 1995. Subsequent solo exhibitions at that gallery include Zensur 2 in 2008 and Natur in 2015, alongside a 2024 group exhibition pairing him with the constructivist artist Hermann Glöckner and a 2026 solo presentation of graphic work. In Berlin, he showed with Contemporary Fine Arts, most notably in U Say Love in 2019 and, posthumously, Zufall in 2024. His relationship with Anton Kern Gallery in New York produced significant solo exhibitions, among them Expulsion from Paradise Freeze in 2016 and Eberhard Havekost: Paintings 1998–2016 in 2023, the latter reviewed in The Brooklyn Rail. Further solo presentations took place at Galerie Hussenot in Paris, under the title La fin et le lever du jour, and at Roberts Projects in Los Angeles, which mounted Eberhard Havekost 1998–2015 in 2024.

Havekost's work entered major institutional collections during his lifetime, including those of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Tate Modern in London, and the Städel Museum in Frankfurt. Private collections such as the Rubell Family Collection in Miami and Sammlung Viehof also hold his paintings. The sustained institutional and gallery attention his work continues to attract after his death is reflected in two major museum presentations currently on view: Take Care at Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin, running from December 2025 through September 2026, and Arbeiten 1994–2019 at Museum Kurhaus Kleve, on view through October 2026.