For over two decades, Joseph Norman has worked to articulate through the media of painting and printmaking his own aesthetic response as an African American artist living in the twenty-first century. Der Tiergarten Suite consists of twenty-one lithographs created from the artist’s memory of Tiergarten Park in Berlin, Germany, where he spent much of his time in the 1990s. The lithographs focus on twisted and tangled tree trunks that mimic human form and emotion. Norman emphasizes the varieties and differences among the trees in color, pattern, and texture through black-and-white lithography.
Der Tiergarten Suite was a generous gift of UB alumnus Joseph A. Chazan, M.D. ’60 & B.S. ’56, and his wife Helene S. Chazan in 2000.