Albert Oehlen was born in Krefeld, Germany in 1954. In 1974 he began to attend the Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Hamburg where he studied until 1981. Oehlens early years were marked by many collaborations including Werner Büttner, Georg Herold and most notably Martin Kippenberger. In 1988 Oehlen and Kippenberger lived together in Spain for a year and during this time Oehlen dedicated himself completely to abstract painting. Throughout his career Albert Oehlen has redefined the boundaries of both figurative and abstract painting by continuously expanding the definition of what makes a painting formally successful.

Albert Oehlen has exhibited extensively throughout Europe and the United States. In 2009 he had solo presentations at the Museo di Capodimonte in Naples, Italy and the Musee d' Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris in Paris . He has also had significant exhibitions at major institutions such as the Musee Cantonal Des Beaux Arts in Lausanne; Whitechapel Gallery, London; the Secession, Vienna; The Renaissance Society, Chicago; and at the Kunsthalle Basel. Oehlen's show at MOCA, Miami in 2005 marked his first major solo exhibition at a museum in the United States. Also in 2009 Taschen published an oversized artist's monograph as part of its XL series that covers the entire scope of Oehlen's oeuvre.

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