Fred Thieler has been experimenting with the spatula technique since around 1954: "These pictures (..), for which dry, pasty screen printing ink has been applied on the firm support with a spatula, originate from the strong need for an intense duct. A crystalline fragmentation, like thousands of glass splinters, disperses across the image. [.] The palette is deliberately limited to just a few colors. The more Thieler concentrates his choice of colors, the more distanced and clear his pictures appear to be." (after: Andrea Firmenich, Fred Thieler, Cologne 1995, p. 12).