Arnulf Rainer
Schwarz auf Blau auf Weiß
1957.
Oil on canvas.
Twice signed and dated as well as titled verso on the stretcher. Signed in a faint hand on the reverse of the canvas. 58 x 42 cm (22.8 x 16.5 in). [AW].
• “
Schwarz auf Blau auf Weiß
” (Black on Blue on White) is one of the artist"s early and most typical overpaintings from the 1950s. In it, monochrome black covers almost the picture"s entire surface.
• Arnulf Rainer creates a mysterious internal structure through the materiality of the paint he applies on the canvas layer by layer with gestural brushstrokes.
• Covering the canvas with color is to be understood as a time-based process.
• Arnulf Rainer left the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna after only a few days and became an autodidact.
• In 1959, he participated in the documenta II in Kassel and the Venice Biennale in 1978 and 1980
.
We are grateful to the Studio Rainer for the kind support in cataloging this lot.