When Palis was created, Emil Schumacher was counted among the most established international artists. Born in Hagen in 1912, he had already abandoned representational motifs in his work in the early 1950s, turning to abstract painting and elevating color to the central element of his images. Schumacher's works are characterized by his lifelong exploration of the materiality and expressive power of color and testify to a veritable mental and physical struggle that the artist wages in his direct encounter with the canvas. He once said: “I hate smoothness. I hate elegance. I hate all these things that are only skin deep. I want to delve into the depths.” (Emil Schumacher, quoted from: ZDF documentary by Werner Raeune, Emil Schumacher - Ein Maler setzt Zeichen, 1999) This development took place against the backdrop of a period influenced by the French École de Paris, Tachism, and American Action Painting. From the mid-1950s onwards, he gained increasing recognition as one of the most important representatives of European Informalism. His participation in the Venice Biennale in 1961 and the documenta in Kassel in 1958 and 1964 were indications of his growing public success. He was awarded numerous prizes, including the Guggenheim Award in New York.

In the present work “Palis” from 1992, the core elements that have defined his artistic career over more than five decades are evident. As so often, he has reduced his compositional means to two main components: color and line. A radiant yellow glows from the depths of the picture, broken up by Schumacher's characteristic black lines. The zigzag shapes are reminiscent of landscapes with mountain peaks or trees, appearing as a symbolic up-and-down movement without referring to a specific object or providing narrative content. Here and there, the dominant black-and-yellow contrast is interspersed with an equally vibrant blue and a luminous white. This dramatic interplay of pure, radiant colors starkly contrasts the rough, tactile surface, which still reveals the intense physical effort that went into its creation. A few years before the artist's death, “Palis” was exhibited in a major retrospective in Paris, Hamburg, and Munich. A wonderful tribute to this significant piece that has been part of an extensive private Schumacher collection for over 25 years and is now available on the international auction market for the first time. [AR]