Zweifigurig II. 1964.
Egg and oil tempera on cardboard, mounted into the original artist frame.
Bottom center signed and dated. Signed, titled and inscribed with the dimensions and the technique on the reverse. 60 x 50 cm (23.6 x 19.6 in). Frame size: 64,5 x 54,5 cm (25,4 x 21,5 in).
[CH].
• With the invention of the "Kopffüßler" (cephalopod) in the early 1960s, Antes moved from abstraction to figuration in his paintings and sculptures and also attained more intense and luminous colors.
• During these years, Antes also developed completely new pictorial elements that would be seminal for his later work, such as the double superimposed eyes.
• Through the gestures of the hands and arms, the two figures show us pointing gestures and speeches - characteristic of the works from this period.
• In 1966, Horst Antes exhibited in the German pavilion at the XXX. Venice Biennale.
• Comparable works from this year can be found in important museum collections like the Busch-Reisinger-Museum of the Harvard Art Museum in Cambridge (Mass.), the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich, the Sprengel Museum in Hanover and the Osthaus Museum in Hagen.

PROVENANCE: Galerie Thomas, Munich (with two gallery labels on the reverse).
Corporate Collection Ahlers AG, Herford (acquired from the above in 1983).

EXHIBITION: Antes - Loth, Galerie Altes Theater, Ravensburg, February 20 - March 13, 1966.
Antes bei Stangl, Galerie Stangl, Munich, February 20 - April 19, 1975 (black-and-white illu., with the exhibition label on the reverse).
Große Kunstausstellung, Haus der Kunst, Munich, June 12 - September 26, 1976, no. 806.
Von Monet bis Poliakoff, Galerie Thomas, Munich, Oct./Nov. 1982 (colro illu.).

LITERATURE: Katja Szymczak, Horst Antes. Catalogue raisonné of paintings, vol. 1: 1957-1964, Künzelsau 2020, p. 210, no. 1964-22 (color illu.).

"I charge and discharge my figures symbolically, sentimentally, organically, historically, I fill and empty them with allusions, gestures, thoughts, speculations, desires and anxiety. I make myself an image, I make myself someone as a parable, a partner, a mirror."
Horst Antes, 1970, quoted from: Katja Szymczak, Horst Antes. Catalogue raisonné of paintings, vol. 1, Künzelsau 2020, p. 8.

"A figure can have many arms if necessary. If I let an arm roll out of the body, a body that is all face, an arm grow so that it can bite, or that it blossoms, then I am the arm."
Horst Antes, 1960, quoted from: Katja Szymczak, Horst Antes. Catalogue raisonné of paintings, vol. 1, Künzelsau 2020, p. 8.