Abdul Mati Klarwein

About

Abdul Mati Klarwein, born Matias Klarwein, was a German painter renowned for his surrealistic and psychedelic-influenced album covers and visionary art. Born in Hamburg to a Jewish Polish architect father and a German opera singer mother, his family fled Nazi Germany to Palestine when he was two. He studied at an art college in Jerusalem at age 15, later moving to Paris in 1948 to attend the Académie Julian and study under Fernand Léger, who introduced him to surrealism. Extensive travels to Tibet, India, Bali, North Africa, Turkey, and beyond shaped his fascination with non-Western deities, symbolism, and landscapes, more than psychedelics despite associations with the movement.

Surrealism with psychedelic imagery, ethnic and exotic themes, erotic and religious symbolism from diverse traditions; also still life, landscape, and portrait