This painting is inspired by a visit of Bert to the World Heritage Site Zollverein, near Essen in Germany. Bert saw the two gatekeepers during his visit to Vienna in the summer of 2017. Bert was there to be present at the exhibition of 22 of his works at Gallery Steiner. The Zollverein industrial complex in Land Nordrhein-Westfalen in Germany consists of the complete infrastructure of a historical coal-mining site, with some 20th-century buildings of outstanding architectural merit. It constitutes remarkable material evidence of the evolution and decline of an essential industry over the past 150 years.
