The renowned Munich-based Walter Storms Gallery has opened its new Berlin branch with a spectacular exhibition of paintings by German artist Günter Fruhtrunk, strategically timing the launch to coincide with Berlin Art Week. The gallery, operated by Walter Storms and his wife, artist Caro Jost, has established its Berlin presence in the prestigious Mercator Courtyards on Potsdamer Street, joining other prominent galleries including Esther Schipper, Max Hetzler, Kristian Jarmuschek, Reiter, and Judin.

After 1950, Günter Fruhtrunk had nothing more to do with Munich and was determined to leave for France, where painting was already transcending material concerns - abstract and freed from the burden of meaning that objects in pictures inevitably carry. In his early thirties, Fruhtrunk moved to Paris, painting beyond interpretative demands, with his compositions resembling those of Wassily Kandinsky or Hans Hartung. However, the artist became famous for entirely different works.

Fruhtrunk's renowned large-format paintings typically consist of lines that extend diagonally from upper left to lower right - or vice versa - across the canvases. Sometimes they simply fall from top to bottom, but they are always high-contrast and so color-intensive that they remain memorable long after viewing. These distinctive striped compositions became his signature style and established him as one of Germany's foremost representatives of concrete art.

The decision to open the Berlin location came spontaneously when one of the fashion stores vacated the historic building, freeing up over 200 square meters of exhibition space. While the couple had long planned to expand to Berlin, they will not be leaving Munich but will instead commute between the two metropolitan cities. Interestingly, Fruhtrunk also returned to Munich in 1967 when he was appointed as a professor at the Academy of Arts in the Bavarian metropolis, where he taught until his suicide in 1982.

During his later years, Fruhtrunk created his most famous and widely seen work: the design for the Aldi Nord plastic shopping bag, which continues to bring his art into nearly every German household to this day. Gallery owner Walter Storms suggests that this alone should draw crowds to see what else this remarkable artist could create beyond his ubiquitous bag design.

The exhibition, titled 'Günter Fruhtrunk. Central Pictures 1952-1983,' opens Thursday, September 11, from 6-10 PM at Potsdamer Street 81A, with works remaining on display until October 31. The gallery will be open Thursday through Saturday from 12-6 PM. This represents a exhibition of superlatives, featuring large, characteristic paintings created from the 1950s through the 1980s, with prices ranging from 80,000 to 200,000 euros.

Walter Storms, who has operated his Munich gallery since 1977, manages Fruhtrunk's estate and notes that the artist has not been particularly present in Berlin's art scene. The last retrospective of Fruhtrunk's work in Berlin took place in 1993 at the Neue Nationalgalerie. More than three decades later, his concise, rigorous, yet multifaceted painterly language proves to be thoroughly contemporary.

At 78 years old, Storms matches Fruhtrunk's ambition with his opening featuring one of Germany's highest-ranking representatives of concrete art, setting the direction for future exhibitions in Berlin. The gallery has always stood for aesthetically appealing yet consistently sophisticated conceptual art by artists such as Gerold Miller, Gerhard Merz, and Viola Bittl. Storms says he wants to further rejuvenate his program, and Berlin provides the ideal environment for this artistic renewal.