Observing animals and drawing them was Erwin Aichele’s passion from an early age.
Farm animals or wild animals - there was no shortage of models in the village where his father was a school teacher.
All his life he was surrounded by animals - and especially birds - that he kept as models. Like his dogs, most of these animals roamed free. A few, such as his deer, were kept in enclosures.
Erwin Aichele’s love for animals and nature on the one hand - and his creative drive and artistic talent on the other - came together to forge a truly unique artist.
He left behind an important portfolio of work: not only animals represented in their natural surroundings but also landscapes and flowers.
In the particularly productive period that followed his sixtieth birthday, he painted primarily watercolours. These display a Japanese influence and reveal an increasing drive towards abstraction.
The animals appear to be almost interwoven with their surrounding natural landscape.