Norbert Tadeusz was chosen as master student by Joseph Beuys at the Düsseldorf Academy of Art. To him it was most important to perfect his technical skills as a painter. With his representational painting, he was a big exception and was ridiculed by his fellow students.
It was only in West Berlin, which had a different artistic environment than Düsseldorf, that he found like-minded artist colleagues in Markus Lüpertz, A.R. Penck, Jörg Immendorff, and Sigmar Polke, who also chose representational painting.
In 1983 he spent a year in Florence with a stipend as recipient of the Villa Romana-Prize, during that time his love of the Italian masters grew even stronger.
Tadeusz is known for his often large format, expressive paintings, in which human figures are often depicted in curious positions. His paintings feature complex compositions a convincing precision of form and overwhelmingly powerful colours.
He said about his working style: "I don't do anything from a gut instinct". He would have to see a motif for three or four years, then draw it, photograph it and file it. He would need another one and a half years until he took up the brush. He would go over various places in the canvas 20 to 30 times, let it dry a little and then paint again into the still moist mass, until he was satisfied.
