Oil on fibreboard
Signed and dated lower centre. Titled on the reverse. 84 x 60 cm (33 x 23,6 in)

PROVENANCE: Private collection Germany.

His years of studying in the 1980s were for Neo Rauch a time of learning and seeking. The artist engaged intensely with the work of his teachers and Leipzig contemporaries. Trying things out and testing himself, he drew inspiration from Werner Libuda, Bernhard Heisig as well as Francis Bacon and the early Georg Baselitz. “God knows, I certainly wasn’t afraid of color and I felt armed against it, felt I was up to it, I staged it big” (quoted in: http://www.eigen+art.com/NR\-GespraechPrag.pdf, state: 24 April 2008). Our work has this free handling of color in a vehement painterly gesture but also already reveals the enigmatic, mysterious quality that distinguishes Neo Rauch’s later work. [NB].