Andreas Nottebohm was born in 1944 in Eisenach and moved to Munich as a teenager. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich under surrealist painter Mac Zimmermann and in 1968, he studied etching at Johnny Friedlaender's workshop in Paris, France. During the early 1970s, he first experimented with using metal as a canvas by utilizing used etching plates for his paintings. In 1981, NASA commissioned Nottebohm to create major works, including official paintings to commemorate the first launch of the space shuttle Columbia in 1981. His work has been featured in museums and galleries around the world including the permanent collections of the Crocker Art Museum in California, the Nevada Museum of Art, and the Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution. He has had over one hundred one-man shows in Europe and the United States. Nottebohm’s work is about light, space and infinity. The gravitational pull of Nottebohm’s “Raw Metal Works” commands and compels beyond mere abstraction. The viewer is presented with the luminescence of space, its limitless volume – and a sense of wonder at being on the threshold of exploration.