German artist Sigmar Polke dies at 69

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Sigmar Polke, a German artist who along with Gerhard Richter launched the capitalist realism movement in 1963 as a response to pop art, died Thursday in Cologne, Germany, following an illness, according to the Michael Werner Gallery in London. He was 69.

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

More later at www.latimes.com/obits.

-- Associated Press