Sale: 541 / Contemporary Art Day Sale, June 09. 2023 in Munich Lot 160

 

160
Rupprecht Geiger
343/61, 1961.
Oil on canvas
Estimate:
€ 50,000 / $ 54,000
Sold:
€ 63,500 / $ 68,580

(incl. surcharge)
343/61. 1961.
Oil on canvas.
Dornacher/Geiger WV 307. Signed and dated, as well as inscribed with the work number and a dedication on the stretcher. 62 x 70 cm (24.4 x 27.5 in).
[AR].

• Geiger increases the color and its vibrancy to a pictorial architecture of color forms and color temperatures.
• For the first time offered on the international auction market (source: artprice.com).
• Two years before the present work was made, the artist participated in the documenta for the first time and received the Solomon-Guggenheim-Prize in New York.
• Rupprecht Geiger's paintings are in many important collections like the Nationalgalerie Berlin, the Museum Folkwang, Essen, and the Lenbachhaus Munich
.

We are grateful to Mrs Julia Geiger, Geiger Archive, Munich, for her kind expert advice.

PROVENANCE: Private collection Southern Germany (directly from the artist).

"Color deserves to be treated like an element – fire, water, air, color and earth."
Rupprecht Geiger, quoted from: Jürgen Morschel, Künstler. Kritisches Lexikon der Gegenwartskunst, Munich 1988/92, p. 2.

For Rupprecht Geiger, color is not just color, it develops its own sphere of influence, opens up a special spiritual level and casts a spell over the viewer. This work is a particularly fine example thereof. The delicate gradient of the intensely glowing blue in connection with the powerful black-and-white contrast captivates the eye. An even depth effect opens the work and different possibilities of association develop in the spirit of the artist. In context of the year of origin 1961, space research and the enthusiasm for space travel found in both political systems of the Cold War, were all too present. The blue modulations of the 1960s as well as Geiger's notes on his 1961 painting "361/61 (Gagarin)" (Dornacher/Geiger 334) bear witness to this. "On April 12, 1961, Yuri Alexeetisch Gagarin flies with his spaceship 'Vostok' as the first person into cosmic space, he orbits the earth in 89 minutes. A memorable event. Gagarin sees our earth as a shining, blue planet / he describes this in poetic language 'magnificent blue radiations in the edges of the planet merge with the deep black cosmic night sky'." (quoted from: Dornacher/Geiger p. 14, fig. 12).
In the 1960s, the colors blue and red had become independent protagonists in Geiger's work, while he attained his both abstract and colorful compositions in the 1950s. These principles were to shape the further work of the painter and architect, who was born in Munich in 1908 and died at the age of 101. After the end of the war, his career took off. In 1948, Geiger exhibited at the "Salon des Réalistes Nouvelles" in Paris and in 1949 he was a co-founder of the group "ZEN 49" alongside Willi Baumeister and Fritz Winter. Two years before our painting was created, Geiger exhibited at the documenta (II) in Kassel for the first time and received the renowned Solomon Guggenheim Prize in New York. The vividness of the color effect produces the psychological effect on the viewer anticipated by Geiger in a particularly beautiful way. The combination of the strong colors, the high-contrast juxtaposition with the abstract and at the same time linear style, as well as the different structural qualities give our blue planet an impressively present charisma in a black-and-white cosmos. [AW]



160
Rupprecht Geiger
343/61, 1961.
Oil on canvas
Estimate:
€ 50,000 / $ 54,000
Sold:
€ 63,500 / $ 68,580

(incl. surcharge)