Michael Würthle in 2007 Photo: dpa
From BZ/dpa
The former operator of the legendary Berlin “Paris Bar” and artist Michel Würthle is dead.
He died in Berlin on Wednesday at the age of 79, as his friend and lawyer Robert Unger announced on Thursday. Several media had previously reported.
Würthle was best known as the landlord of the “Paris Bar” in Berlin-Charlottenburg, where prominent regular guests come and go. Udo Walz, Hannelore Elsner and Robert De Niro are said to have been there.
According to the Steidl publishing house, Würthle studied art in Cologne and Vienna at the end of the 1950s and the beginning of the 1960s. He retained his passion for art to the end:
His work “Paris Bar Press Confidential” was only published in 2021, in which he documented the pandemic period of the “Paris Bar” with collages, drawings and short texts.
According to his publisher, Würthle acquired the “Paris Bar” in 1979 together with a childhood friend. In the description of his book it is referred to as the “most important artists’ bar in Germany”.
According to media reports, Würthle was happy to let its prominent guests pay with works of art instead of money.