1917 born in Stolberg
1936-38 Training as graphic artist
1939-45 Military service and war captivity
From 1948 numerous trips to Paris and friendship with artists of the Nouvelle École de Paris
1952 Founds the 'Neue Aachener Gruppe' with Carl Schneider, Franz Josef Herold, Fritz Martin and Engelbert Mainzer
1958 Gold medal at the First International Art Prize for Abstract Art in Switzerland in Lausanne
1959 Participates in documenta 2, Kassel, and is a member of the Düsseldorf artists' association 'Gruppe 53'.
1966 Karl-Ernst-Osthaus Prize of the city of Hagen
1967 Lecturer in painting at the Academy of Arts, Munich
1974 Travels to the USA and Mexico
1975 Full member of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts, Munich
Died 1981 in Preinersdorf on Lake Chiemsee

As a painter and object artist, Dahmen is one of the early and important representatives of Informel and thus belongs to the important artists of the post-war period in Germany. He painted expressive abstract paintings with a tectonic structure, and from the mid-1950s dark-toned, relief-like informal paintings and collages in which the damage done to the local landscape by open-cast mining is echoed. Later, material paintings and glazed object boxes emerge, dealing with the landscape he encountered, the materials on his old farm in Chiemgau and the impressions of his everyday working life. His late work is characterised by delicate and subtle pieces. The horizontally structured "Furchenbilder" on canvas emerge. In parallel, Dahmen developed fine, monochrome drawings on paper, which were also characterised by horizontal lines and, from 1978 onwards - like the works on canvas - also by cipher-like abbreviations.