Since 1974, the German artist Peter Dreher has painted nearly 5.000 versions oft he same picture: a realistic, life-size image of a plain, cylindrical water glass centrally placed on a blank surface against the wall. (...) Measuring 10 inches by 8 inches, the glass paintings are similar, but each is singular. Moving from one to another, you notice differences of light, shadow, reflection, transparency and painterly touch. In most cases, Mr. Dreher inscribed into the paint near the picture’s upper edge its number in the series.
(...) In daytime ones, you see in the lower third oft the glass a gridded trapezoid: the reflection of a studio window. In some of these you can see that the window frames a bit of blue sky and some white clouds. You see a piece oft he greater world in miscrocosmic miniature.
Morandi comes in mind, but Mr. Dreher is more attentive tot he visual facts; he’s closer to Chardin. He’s not just a realist, though. He’s like a Zen monk trying to see the same thing over and over each time, as if he’d never seen it before. That he evidently suceeded in that effort makes his deceptively modest paintings spiritually inspiring.
Ken Johnson, Day by Day, Good Day, in: Art in Review, The New York Times, 24. April 2014
