The phenomenon known as the New Leipzig School of Painting was born in 2002 when a dozen unknown students from the Saxon city’s art academy opened a cooperative gallery in Berlin to show their work. The success of the gallery, Liga, was due in no small part to its energetic young manager, Christian Ehrentraut. When Liga wound down, in 2004, he moved on to a series of informal spaces in the former East Berlin. Now Ehrentraut, who turns 33 this month, has opened his first permanent commercial gallery in a dramatic two-floor space with 16-foot ceilings and a wall of windows, located on busy Friedrichstrasse, in the very heart of the reunified German capital.

"Of course it’s a risk," says Ehrentraut, noting that the worldwide economic crisis has spread to the low-rent paradise of the Berlin art scene. "Everybody is closing, but it’s a good time for me."

His first exhibition, "Portraits," opened in January and runs through the middle of this month. Featuring the mock-primitive pictures of the New Leipzig School artist and Liga veteran Christoph Ruckhäberle, it combines previously sold works, now technically on loan, with new paintings executed for the show. "Good Timing" originally appeared in the February 2009 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's February 2009 Table of Contents.