In the Ludwig Forum in Aachen the "48 Portraits" are shown in the "Künstlerportraits" exhibition.

1992 First one-man show at Modernism Gallery in San Francisco.
Martin Muller, founder of Modernism San Francisco, detected Helnwein's work at Basel Art fair some years before. Since 1992 Modernism San Francisco represents Helnwein in the US ...

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art shows Helnwein's self-portait "Black Mirror".
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One-man show at the Pfalzgalerie Museum in Kaiserslautern and at the Kunstmuseum in Thun.

Helnwein meets Lou Reed in London.

Helnwein's poster for the theatre play "Jeanmaire" by Swiss poet and playwright Urs Widmer causes tumult in Switzerland.
The police bans the poster from being displayed, the Swiss parliament discusses the scandal and the sunday-preacher of national Television dedicates his weekly sermon to condem Helnwein's painting ...

One-man show, Goethe-Institut, Centre culturell allemand, Paris.
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Helnwein meets with Roy Disney at his Irish castle in Co. Cork.
Helnwein briefs Roy Disney on the preparation of the Carl Barks museum retrospective and the publication of the book "Wer ist Carl Barks?" (Who is Carl Barks?), and discusses with him the influence of Walt Disney's aesthetics on the culture of the 20th century.

Helnwein meets Roy Lichtenstein in New York.

1991 Installation "Kindskopf" (Child's Head) in the Minoriten Church in Krems, Niederösterreichisches Landesmuseum (Museum of Lower Austria).
Helnwein paints a 6x4 m (18x12 feet) child's head for the apse of the early Gothic basilica. Ten days before the opening he has his children Amadeus, Ali Elvis and Mercedes paint large-format canvases which he then arranges in the basilica ...

Karel VII Schwarzenberg, chancellor of Václav Havel, President of the Czech Republic, invites Gottfried Helnwein to Prag .
Schwarzenberg receives Helnwein in his office at the The Prague Castle, seat of the president of the Czech Republic and discusses Helnwein's work ...

Works on the "48 Portraits".
a series of 48 monochrome red paintings of women (oil on canvas) as a counterpart to Gerhard Richter's "48 Portraits" of 1971, which depict only men in monochrome grey.
The cycle of paintings is first shown in the Galerie Koppelmann in Cologne, and later aquired by collector Peter Ludwig for the Ludwig Museum in Aachen.

Helnwein meets Alice Schwarzer, the leading contemporary German feminist, while working on his cycle "48 portraits", which marks the beginning of their friendship .
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Cologne art Collector and patron Prof. Fritz Gruber and his wife Renate invite Helnwein to join their circle of friends (artists, writers, photographers, curators and intellectuals) who meet on a regular basis at his salons in his villa in Cologne.
Later some of the friends, amongst them Brian Eno, Alice Schwarzer and Alfred Biolek, rent a river-boat, originally built for King Faruk of Egypt and embarke on several journeys on the Nile. Hence the group called itself "The Nile-Society" (Nil-Gesellschaft) ...

Helnwein meets David Bowie in Los Angeles.
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A group of German Lutheran pastors start a character assassination campaign against Helnwein, that turns into a witch-hunt over several years.
The campaign is joined by conservative media and politicians of the conservative Christian party (Christlich Demokratische Union Deutschlands), claiming, amongst other absurdities, that the artist is a secret cult-leader, trying to lure people in his studio to brain-wash them in order to turn them into slaves and that his paintings contain hidden, subliminal, hypnotic messages.
Helnwein's studio is broken in to and friends and collectors get threatening anonymous letters, demanding to disassociate from the artist or bear severe consequences. Gallery owners and museum directors are put under heavy pressure to cancel Helnwein exhibitions and to exclude Helnwein's work from their institutions.
Helnwein sues against the libelous assertions and eventually wins all court-cases. In the end Helnwein appeals to the "Federal Constitutional (Supreme) Court" in Karlsruhe, the highest level of jurisdiction in Germany.
On Nov 10, 1998, all seven judges of the Supreme Court declare unanimously that Helnwein's constitutional rights have been violated and annul a preceding judicial error by a lower court, that rejected Helnwein's appeal ...

Helnwein meets John Cale in Brussels.

Helnwein visits Charles Bukowski in Los Angeles.
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Helnwein works on a series of dark, monochrome paintings.
He applies more and more layers of oil varnish to his realistic blue monochrome pictures till the subjects are almost indiscernible.

1990 One-man show in the Musée de l'Elysée, Lausanne. Installation "Neunter November Nacht".