Happier than the Morning Sun (for S. Wonder) - 4-teilig. 1974.
Mixed media. Charcoal and paper collage with watercolor.
Each signed and dated in the lower right, titled and inscribed with the consecutive sheet number in the lower left. On partly irregularly trimmed cardboard. Bis 58 x 91.5 cm (22.8 x 36 in), size of sheet.

• Serial production in New York: In the early 1970s, the American art metropolis provided the young German artist with decisive inspiration for his mature creative phase.
• “Happier than the Morning Sun (for S. Wonder)”: Inspired by the song of the same name by American soul singer Stevie Wonder, released in 1972 on the legendary album “Music of my mind.”
•- Palermo transformed novel musical impulses into artistic innovation and rhythmic color tones in a captivating way.
• In New York, Palermo fell in love with the artist Robin Bruch and probably listened to the eponymous feel-good love song “Happier than the Morning Sun” on endless repeat in his New York studio.
• The following year, he created the famous 4-part edition “Happier than the Morning Sun (to S. Wonder)” (Tate Modern, London).

PROVENANCE: Galerie Heiner Friedrich, Cologne / Six Friedrich, Munich.
Private collection, Southern Germany.
Private collection, Southern Germany (acquired from the above in 2017).

LITERATURE: Thordis Moeller (ed.), Palermo. Zeichnungen, catalogue raisonné vol. II, Bonn 1995, CR no. 435 I-IV (illustrated).
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Blinky Palermo 1964-1976, exhibition of Galerie-Verein München at the Staatsgalerie moderner Kunst, Munich, July 30-September 21, 1980, ill. 96 and 97, as well as ill. 95 (a studio photo showing two works from the series).
James Lawrence, “Unfolding: Palermo on Paper,” in: Lynne Cooke, Karen Kelly, and Barbara Schröder (eds.), Blinky Palermo. Retrospective 1964–1977, New York 2011, among others, pp. 81–100, illustrated on. p. 96.

"I'm happier than the morning sun / And that's the way you said that it would be / If I should ever bring you inside my life.“
Stevie Wonder, lyrics from “Happier than the morning sun” from the album “Music of my mind” (1972).

"Blinky was looking for true love, but he also wanted everything else—he wanted security, as well as adventure.“
Kerstin Heisterkamp,married to Palermo from 1969 to 1975, in: “To the people..” Sprechen über Blinky Palermo, p. 20.

"You have to see his pictures more like a breeze that moves in and out, it has this porous quality, that may vanish again [..]. So you have to perceive this breeze-like quality as an aesthetic concept and not as a solid structure (which would never have interested him), more like a sound. The sound, not the object."
Josph Beuys on Blinky Palermo, in: Palermo. Werke 1963-1977, exhib. cat. Kunstmuseum Winterthur / Kunsthalle Bielefeld / Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum Eindhoven, Munich 1984, p.99.