A1107 | Ways of Seeing Abstraction
Raimund Girke is a German artist known for his minimalist and monochromatic abstract paintings. He was at the origin of analytical painting, participated in the 1977 edition of Documenta VI in Kassel, Germany, and is widely known for his explorations of white.
Raimund Hirke belonged to a generation of young European artists who overcame the subjectivism of abstract expressionism and sought new, objective, reductive expressions based on scientific and mathematical principles. Girke's paintings were characterized by loose compositions and a limited colour palette, often with subtle variations in shades of white or grey.
Karl Otto Götz was a German artist, filmmaker, draughtsman, printmaker, writer and professor of art at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. He was one of the oldest living and active artists older than 100 years of age and is best remembered for his explosive and complex abstract forms. His powerful, surrealist-inspired works earned him international recognition in exhibitions like documenta II in 1959. Götz never confined himself to one specific style or artistic field. He also explored generated abstract forms through television art. Götz is one of the most important members of the German Art Informel movement.
Aurélie Nemours is a French abstractionist painter.
Aurélie Nemours created abstract geometric paintings, developing her own style based on pure colors and geometric shapes taken from the square, but without dogmatism or systematism. Her compositions are strictly arranged on a plane based on the intersection of horizontal and vertical. This painstaking work culminates in a meditative asceticism confined to squares and rectangles, black or gray, space and matter.
Heinz Mack is a German artist. Together with Otto Piene he founded the ZERO movement in 1957. He exhibited works at documenta in 1964 and 1977 and he represented Germany at the 1970 Venice Biennale. He is best known for his contributions to op art, light art and kinetic art.
Rupprecht Geiger was a German abstract painter and sculptor. Throughout his career, he favored monochromicity and color-field paintings. For a time, he concentrated solely on the color red.
Karl Otto Götz was a German artist, filmmaker, draughtsman, printmaker, writer and professor of art at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. He was one of the oldest living and active artists older than 100 years of age and is best remembered for his explosive and complex abstract forms. His powerful, surrealist-inspired works earned him international recognition in exhibitions like documenta II in 1959. Götz never confined himself to one specific style or artistic field. He also explored generated abstract forms through television art. Götz is one of the most important members of the German Art Informel movement.
Imi Knoebel (born Klaus Wolf Knoebel) is a German artist. Knoebel is known for his minimalist, abstract painting and sculpture. The "Messerschnitt" or "knife cuts," are a recurring technique he employs, along with his regular use of the primary colors, red, yellow and blue. Knoebel lives and works in Düsseldorf.
Gerhard Richter is a German visual artist. Richter has produced abstract as well as photorealistic paintings, and also photographs and glass pieces. He is widely regarded as one of the most important contemporary German artists and several of his works have set record prices at auction.
Hermann Nitsch was an Austrian contemporary artist and composer. His art encompassed wide-scale performances incorporating theater, multimedia, rituals and acted violence. He was a leading figure of Viennese Actionism.
Norbert Prangenberg was an abstract painter, sculptor, and engraver. Though he had no formal training and did not fully engage with art until his 30s, Prangenberg did finally come up with a style that was uniquely his own, not fitting comfortably into the neo-expressionist or neo-geo movements of his time, in the 1970s and 1980s. At this time, he was considered a major figure in contemporary German art. Though he got his start with abstract paintings, he also became known for making sculptures of all sizes; and while his work initially appears abstract, the titles given sometimes allude to the human body or a landscape. As a trained gold- and silversmith, as well as a glassblower, he always showed an attention to materials and how they could be physically engaged with. He was interested in how his own two hands could affect the painting or sculpture's surface. Traces of the artist's hand appear literally throughout his entire oeuvre, before he lost the battle with liver cancer in 2012.
Norbert Prangenberg was an abstract painter, sculptor, and engraver. Though he had no formal training and did not fully engage with art until his 30s, Prangenberg did finally come up with a style that was uniquely his own, not fitting comfortably into the neo-expressionist or neo-geo movements of his time, in the 1970s and 1980s. At this time, he was considered a major figure in contemporary German art. Though he got his start with abstract paintings, he also became known for making sculptures of all sizes; and while his work initially appears abstract, the titles given sometimes allude to the human body or a landscape. As a trained gold- and silversmith, as well as a glassblower, he always showed an attention to materials and how they could be physically engaged with. He was interested in how his own two hands could affect the painting or sculpture's surface. Traces of the artist's hand appear literally throughout his entire oeuvre, before he lost the battle with liver cancer in 2012.
Max Uhlig is a German painter. He won the Hans Theo Richter-Preis of the Sächsische Akademie der Künste in 1998.
In 1978, Max Uhlig presented his characteristic paintings for the first time in the Dresden Kupferstichkabinett.
"Black and white or in colour, lines in the expressive rhythm of their superimposition draw the image mode and the conciseness of an extensive, unmistakable work that is a discovery. Today Max Uhlig is one of the last representatives of the era of open-air painting in modern art that began 150 years ago, but his work elevates it to the height of our time." His late work received significant impulses from annual stays in Faucon (southern France) from 1991 to 2010.
Max Uhlig has been a member of the German Association of Artists since 1990 and a founding member of the Saxon Academy of the Arts. From 1995 to 2002, he was the professor for painting and graphics at the University of Fine Arts in Dresden.
Almir da Silva Mavignier is a German painter and graphic designer of Brazilian origin.
Almir Mavignier is internationally known as an artistic representative of concrete art, op art and as a commercial artist.
Jean Miotte was a French abstract painter, in the style known as L'Art Informel. His work was preserved and studied by the Miotte Foundation and is in the collections of museums including: MoMA and the Guggenheim in New York, Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris and Haus der Kunst in Munich.
Karl Otto Götz was a German artist, filmmaker, draughtsman, printmaker, writer and professor of art at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. He was one of the oldest living and active artists older than 100 years of age and is best remembered for his explosive and complex abstract forms. His powerful, surrealist-inspired works earned him international recognition in exhibitions like documenta II in 1959. Götz never confined himself to one specific style or artistic field. He also explored generated abstract forms through television art. Götz is one of the most important members of the German Art Informel movement.
Karl Otto Götz was a German artist, filmmaker, draughtsman, printmaker, writer and professor of art at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. He was one of the oldest living and active artists older than 100 years of age and is best remembered for his explosive and complex abstract forms. His powerful, surrealist-inspired works earned him international recognition in exhibitions like documenta II in 1959. Götz never confined himself to one specific style or artistic field. He also explored generated abstract forms through television art. Götz is one of the most important members of the German Art Informel movement.
Gotthard Graubner was a German abstract painter associated with the post-war Zero and Informel movements. Graubner's work is known for its focus on color and its relationship to space and perception.
Graubner studied at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf under the painter Georg Meistermann. In the 1950s, he became associated with the Zero group, a movement of artists who sought to create a new art form that was free of traditional artistic conventions and focused on the use of unconventional materials.
In the 1960s, Graubner began creating his signature "color-space bodies," large canvases that were mounted away from the wall and filled with thick layers of pigment. These works were designed to be experienced as three-dimensional objects that were both paintings and sculptures, and they often created a sense of depth and spatial ambiguity.
Graubner's work was exhibited widely in Europe and the United States, and he was the recipient of numerous awards and honors throughout his career. He also taught at several art schools, including the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf and the Städelschule in Frankfurt.
Graubner's innovative approach to painting and his exploration of the relationship between color, space, and perception continue to be an important influence on contemporary art.
Karl Otto Götz was a German artist, filmmaker, draughtsman, printmaker, writer and professor of art at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. He was one of the oldest living and active artists older than 100 years of age and is best remembered for his explosive and complex abstract forms. His powerful, surrealist-inspired works earned him international recognition in exhibitions like documenta II in 1959. Götz never confined himself to one specific style or artistic field. He also explored generated abstract forms through television art. Götz is one of the most important members of the German Art Informel movement.
Norbert Prangenberg was an abstract painter, sculptor, and engraver. Though he had no formal training and did not fully engage with art until his 30s, Prangenberg did finally come up with a style that was uniquely his own, not fitting comfortably into the neo-expressionist or neo-geo movements of his time, in the 1970s and 1980s. At this time, he was considered a major figure in contemporary German art. Though he got his start with abstract paintings, he also became known for making sculptures of all sizes; and while his work initially appears abstract, the titles given sometimes allude to the human body or a landscape. As a trained gold- and silversmith, as well as a glassblower, he always showed an attention to materials and how they could be physically engaged with. He was interested in how his own two hands could affect the painting or sculpture's surface. Traces of the artist's hand appear literally throughout his entire oeuvre, before he lost the battle with liver cancer in 2012.
Heinz Mack is a German artist. Together with Otto Piene he founded the ZERO movement in 1957. He exhibited works at documenta in 1964 and 1977 and he represented Germany at the 1970 Venice Biennale. He is best known for his contributions to op art, light art and kinetic art.
Dieter Krieg was a German artist and professor of painting, one of the brightest representatives of the so-called New Figuration.
Krieg studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Karlsruhe, where he later taught. Starting in the 1970s, he painted everyday objects: flower pots and scrambled eggs, French fries and diamonds - in his large format paintings Dieter Krieg never made a distinction between the significant things in life and the everyday.
For 25 years, from 1978-2002, Dieter Krieg worked as a professor at the Düsseldorf Academy of Fine Arts and had a significant influence on subsequent generations of artists. He was a member of the Association of German Artists.
Karl Otto Götz was a German artist, filmmaker, draughtsman, printmaker, writer and professor of art at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. He was one of the oldest living and active artists older than 100 years of age and is best remembered for his explosive and complex abstract forms. His powerful, surrealist-inspired works earned him international recognition in exhibitions like documenta II in 1959. Götz never confined himself to one specific style or artistic field. He also explored generated abstract forms through television art. Götz is one of the most important members of the German Art Informel movement.
Christopher Wool is an American artist. Since the 1980s, Wool's art has incorporated issues surrounding post-conceptual ideas. He lives and works in New York City and Marfa, Texas, together with his wife and fellow painter Charline von Heyl.
Wool is best known for his paintings of large, black, stenciled letters on white canvases. Wool began to create word paintings in the late 1980s, reportedly after having seen graffiti on a brand new white truck. Using a system of alliteration, with the words often broken up by a grid system, or with the vowels removed (as in 'TRBL' or 'DRNK'), Wool's word paintings often demand reading aloud to make sense.
Karl Otto Götz was a German artist, filmmaker, draughtsman, printmaker, writer and professor of art at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. He was one of the oldest living and active artists older than 100 years of age and is best remembered for his explosive and complex abstract forms. His powerful, surrealist-inspired works earned him international recognition in exhibitions like documenta II in 1959. Götz never confined himself to one specific style or artistic field. He also explored generated abstract forms through television art. Götz is one of the most important members of the German Art Informel movement.
Karl Otto Götz was a German artist, filmmaker, draughtsman, printmaker, writer and professor of art at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. He was one of the oldest living and active artists older than 100 years of age and is best remembered for his explosive and complex abstract forms. His powerful, surrealist-inspired works earned him international recognition in exhibitions like documenta II in 1959. Götz never confined himself to one specific style or artistic field. He also explored generated abstract forms through television art. Götz is one of the most important members of the German Art Informel movement.
Emil Schumacher was a German painter. He was an important representative of abstract expressionism in post-war Germany.
In 2009 the Kunstquartier Hagen was inaugurated combining the Karl Ernst Osthaus-Museum Hagen as well as the newly built Emil Schumacher Museum in one Museum complex.
Karl Fred Dahmen is a German artist, one of the most important representatives of German post-war art and the Informel movement. In 1967 he took up the post of Professor of Fine Arts at the Munich Academy.
He painted expressive abstract pictures with a tectonic structure, and since the mid-1950s, relief paintings and collages on the damage to the local landscape caused by open-pit mining. Later in Dahmen's oeuvre, glazed object boxes appear, recounting the impressions of his daily working life.
Hsiao Chin is a Chinese modernist painter who has worked in Europe.
Born into an intellectual family in Shanghai, Hsiao moved to Taiwan in 1949 and was educated in the art department of the Taipei Teachers' Training School in Taiwan Province of Taipei (now National Taipei Teachers' University). In 1955, he and seven other artists founded the Ton Fan Art Group, the first postwar contemporary art group in Taiwan that attempted to break free from realism and sought a modern expression of Eastern spirituality.
As an innovative artist and co-founder of significant modernist movements in Taiwan and Europe, Hsiao's work explored Asian philosophy while embracing forms of Western postwar avant-garde practices.
In the mid-1950s, Hsiao settled in Milan, where he lived for half a century. In 1961, along with Italian painter Antonio Calderara and Japanese sculptor Adzuma Kenjiro in Milan, he co-founded the Punto movement, which brought together numerous Eastern and Western abstractionist artists. Xiao Qin's work has been exhibited around the world, including New York's MoMA and Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Art Museum of China, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Barcelona, and the National Taiwan Museum of Art.
Karl Fred Dahmen is a German artist, one of the most important representatives of German post-war art and the Informel movement. In 1967 he took up the post of Professor of Fine Arts at the Munich Academy.
He painted expressive abstract pictures with a tectonic structure, and since the mid-1950s, relief paintings and collages on the damage to the local landscape caused by open-pit mining. Later in Dahmen's oeuvre, glazed object boxes appear, recounting the impressions of his daily working life.
Hermann Bartels is a German artist close to the ZERO movement.
He explored the object nature of painting and moving beyond the two-dimensional surface of the canvas. In the 1950s Bartels worked with thick masses of color and expressive and intuitive strokes, creating white Fleckenbilder. Later he developed the unique technique of strip-sponging, in which he placed colored canvas strips parallel to one another on a white primed canvas. Using this method, Bartels transformed the canvas into a relief that could react more strongly to light and shadow than before. In addition to exploring the three-dimensional picture-object, color also played a crucial role for Bartels, whether in his informal and monochrome painting or in the alternating parallel montages in which he arranged the strips of canvas into a single work.
Antoni Clavé was a Catalan master painter, printmaker, sculptor, stage designer and costume designer. He was nominated for two Academy Awards (Best Art Direction and Best Costume Design) for his work on the 1952 film Hans Christian Andersen.
Clavé was one of Spain's best known and most celebrated artists. His work evolved from a baroque, ornamental style to a pure, minimal aesthetic. In his later years, his work is completely abstract, employing expressive lines and exploring the boundaries of collage, objet trove, shading, texture and color. He was trained at the School of Fine Arts, Barcelona, where he was taught by Angel Ferrant and Felix Mestres. With his works being influenced by artists such as Bonnard, Vuillard and Roualt. He is best known for his lyrical abstractions, works which combine paint with collage.
Norbert Prangenberg was an abstract painter, sculptor, and engraver. Though he had no formal training and did not fully engage with art until his 30s, Prangenberg did finally come up with a style that was uniquely his own, not fitting comfortably into the neo-expressionist or neo-geo movements of his time, in the 1970s and 1980s. At this time, he was considered a major figure in contemporary German art. Though he got his start with abstract paintings, he also became known for making sculptures of all sizes; and while his work initially appears abstract, the titles given sometimes allude to the human body or a landscape. As a trained gold- and silversmith, as well as a glassblower, he always showed an attention to materials and how they could be physically engaged with. He was interested in how his own two hands could affect the painting or sculpture's surface. Traces of the artist's hand appear literally throughout his entire oeuvre, before he lost the battle with liver cancer in 2012.
Jean Fautrier was a French painter and sculptor associated with the Art Informel and Tachisme movements. He initially studied architecture before turning to painting in the early 1920s.
Fautrier's early work was influenced by Cubism and Surrealism, but he eventually developed a more abstract style characterized by thick impasto and expressive brushwork. He often used unconventional materials, such as asphalt, sand, and tar, to create textured surfaces that conveyed a sense of materiality.
During World War II, Fautrier was active in the French Resistance and went into hiding to avoid arrest by the Nazis. His experiences during the war had a profound impact on his work, which became darker and more introspective. He began to create what he called "Hostage" paintings, which depicted anonymous faces and figures that were both haunting and vulnerable.
After the war, Fautrier continued to explore themes of violence, trauma, and decay in his art. He created a series of "Otages" (Hostages) sculptures that were made from casts of human limbs and torsos. These works were highly controversial and provoked strong reactions from critics and the public alike.
Fautrier's influence on the development of Art Informel and Tachisme was significant, and he is regarded as one of the key figures of the movement. His work is represented in many major museums and collections around the world, including the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Markus Lüpertz is a German painter, sculptor, graphic artist, and writer. He also publishes a magazine, and plays jazz piano. He is one of the best-known German contemporary artists. His subjects are characterized by suggestive power and archaic monumentality. Lüpertz insists on capturing the object of representation with an archetypal statement of his existence. His art work is associated to neo-expressionism. Known for his eccentricity, German press has stylized him as a «painter prince».
James Rosenquist was a towering figure in the American art scene, best known for his pivotal role in defining the Pop Art movement. Born in North Dakota, Rosenquist transformed his early experiences as a billboard painter into a revolutionary art form that blurred the lines between commercial and fine art. His unique approach to painting, characterized by the use of fragmented and juxtaposed imagery, mirrored the bombardment of mass media and advertising in American culture. This technique not only challenged traditional perceptions of art but also reflected the artist's critique of the consumerist society.
Rosenquist's most famous work, "F-111," an ambitious 86-foot-long mural, exemplifies his innovative style. Displayed at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, this piece encapsulates the essence of Pop Art by combining consumer goods, military imagery, and a fighter plane. The artwork serves as a powerful commentary on the military-industrial complex and the pervasive influence of advertising on American life. Another notable piece, "Stowaway Peers Out of the Speed of Light," showcases Rosenquist's later exploration into abstract expressionism, depicting a chaotic yet captivating vision of motion and light.
Throughout his career, Rosenquist's work remained deeply influential, earning him a place in prominent collections and museums worldwide. His ability to merge commercial techniques with fine art not only elevated his status as an artist but also left an indelible mark on the art world. Rosenquist's legacy continues to inspire artists and collectors alike, challenging them to see beyond the surface of everyday imagery.
For collectors and experts in art and antiques, James Rosenquist's work represents a pivotal moment in the history of modern art, where the lines between commercial and fine art were not just blurred but beautifully intertwined. To stay updated on new product sales and auction events related to James Rosenquist, we invite you to sign up for our updates. This subscription is your gateway to the evolving world of art collecting, where the legacy of innovators like Rosenquist continues to influence the market and inspire new generations of artists and collectors.
Sigmar Polke was a German painter and photographer.
Polke experimented with a wide range of styles, subject matters and materials. In the 1970s, he concentrated on photography, returning to paint in the 1980s, when he produced abstract works created by chance through chemical reactions between paint and other products. In the last 20 years of his life, he produced paintings focused on historical events and perceptions of them.
Mary Hildegard Ruth Bauermeister was a German artist who worked in sculpture, drawing, installation, performance, and music. Influenced by Fluxus artists and Nouveau Réalisme, her work addresses esoteric issues of how information is transferable through society. Beginning in the 1970s, her work concentrated on the themes surrounding New Age spirituality, specifically geomancy, the divine interpretation of lines on the ground.
Michael Buthe was a German artist who lived and worked between Germany and Morocco. He exhibited widely throughout Europe during his life and is known for his eclectic and prolific oeuvre which encompasses painting, sculpture, and installation.
Erwin Heerich was a German artist.
Heerich emphasized that for him, "cardboard, like polystyrene, had no specifically aesthetic or historical connotations, the materials are value-neutral to the largest possible extent." Furthermore, the artist was not primarily "concerned with the manifestation of an art object, but with making an idea material in terms of a specific problem: how space can be presented and formed."
Gerson Fehrenbach was a German sculptor.
Stylistically, Fehrenbach's sculptures can be classified as Informel. He processed the study of nature and ancient art together with suggestions from classical modernism and influences from his teacher Karl Hartung to create an individual pictorial language.
He processed his impressions into autonomous, organically proliferating forms based on intensive study of nature. Many of his works are characterised by horizontal and vertical axes on the one hand and "knob-like" protrusions on the other. His main materials were stone, bronze and concrete. Fehrenbach took his motifs from mythology and religion.
