Born in Cologne in 1933, Paeffgen first studied law in Berlin before turning to art as an autodidact at the end of the 1960s. In this initial phase, the so-called "wraps" were created, found objects tied together and tied with wire, from which Paeffgen formed new structures.

In 1970, after his return to Cologne, he transferred this design principle of "wrapping" to painting. The result was a second, central group of works in the artist's oeuvre, the "Umrandungen", in which Paeffgen used thick, thick, traced black lines. To do this, he first applied the template to the canvas using a printing process and then painted it with broad brushstrokes. Paeffgen only differentiated between the contours and the inner surfaces formed ...