Biography

Tilopa Monk (1949-2010) was born Rüdiger Frank in Unterlüss-Lutterloh, in the Lower Saxony region of Germany. At the age of twenty, he enrolled at Kunstakademie in Dusseldorf. He then studied with surrealist painter Mac Zimmerman at the Munich Academy of Arts in 1974. Rüdiger Frank was fascinated with Far-Eastern religion and philosophies and lived in Sri Lanka and Thailand from 1979-1982. After returning to Germany, he changed his name to Tilopâ Monk, naming himself after the Tantric and Mahasiddha 11th century Tibetan monk Tilopa (988-1069). He lived in Munich, Germany, where he had a studio and ran a printing workshop. Having developed a style reminiscent of Mark Rothko and Joan Miró, his works are in the collections of many major German museums including the Rheinisches Landesmuseum in Bonn, the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nurenberg, Galerie Lometsch in Kassel, and the Goethe Institute. His works are avidly collected by fans of modern art all across the world.