The present “Feuerblume” (Fire Flower) from the famous series of the same name was created at the height of the “ZERO” era in 1963. It is yet another demonstration of Otto Piene’s mastery of subtle colorism and calculated chance. Using oil paint, smoke, and fire, he created a floral, cosmically inspired composition centered on the color harmony of black, gray, and yellow. The balanced interplay of these colors contrasts with the raw blackness at the center of this hazy, swirling explosion.
Otto Piene was born in Westphalia in 1928. After military service and captivity, he began his studies in painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich at the age of 20, later transferring to the Academy of Art in Düsseldorf. After Piene increasingly engaged with the element of light in the 1950s and held his first solo exhibitions, he founded the artist group “ZERO” together with Heinz Mack in 1957. Shortly thereafter, Günther Uecker also joined the group. Until 1961, the three of them jointly published the magazine of the same name and organized numerous exhibitions until 1966. This era is considered one of the most significant in postwar German art. In particular, the use of a wide variety of materials was one of the most distinctive elements.
As early as the late 1950s, Otto Piene began exploring fire and its effects, deliberately employing fire and smoke as artistic tools in his “fire paintings.” Through small interventions, he guides the flames across the canvas, allowing the painting's composition to evolve. For a few seconds, the fire burns through oil paint, pigments, and fixative, thereby becoming a formative element in its own right. This process creates various structures, such as crusts, bubbles, rings, or flowing transitions, depending on the direction Piene moves the burning canvas, how steeply he tilts it, and when he extinguishes the flames. In this way, aesthetically striking compositions emerge that evoke associations with suns, galaxies, eyes, shells, flowers, or other forms found in nature—particularly evident in our “Fire Flower” from 1963. [AW]