German artist Sigmar Polke dies

[June 12, 2010]  BERLIN (AP) -- Artist Sigmar Polke's gallery in London says the German painter has died at age 69.

The Michael Werner Gallery said Friday that Polke died the day before in Cologne following an illness.

Polke was a contemporary of Gerhard Richter, with whom he launched the capitalist realism movement in 1963 as a response to pop art. This prompted some to describe Polke as the anti-pop pop artist.

Nicholas Serota, director of London's Tate Modern art gallery, says his "sublimely beautiful paintings" often carried a "tough message about society and its values" and were enormously influential on younger generations of artists.

Details about funeral arrangements were not immediately available.

[Associated Press]

Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.