Mixed media on hardfibre board
Forstbauer/Merkert/Kunisch/Behrens 62.27. Barely legible signed upper right. Signed, titled, inscribed "oben" and with an arrow indicating the direction on verso. 150 x 130 cm (59 x 51,1 in)

PROVENANCE: Studio Walter Stöhrer.
Private collection Fried, Ulm.
Galerie Sander, Darmstadt. (with label on verso).
Collection Deyhle, Stuttgart.
Private collection Berlin.

EXHIBITION: Die Sammlung Rolf Deyhle II: Figur und Abstraktion in der deutschen Kunst des 20. Jahrhunderts, Schleswig-Holsteinisches Landesmuseum, Schloss Gottdorf/Landesmuseum Mainz/Staatliche Galerie Moritzburg Halle a.d.Saale/Schloss Cappenberg Unna/Galerie der Stadt Stuttgart, 1993-1995, cat. no. 185.
Walter Stöhrer, Galerie der Stadt Stuttgart, 1995-1996, cat. no. 2.

The aspect of the process in Stöhrere’s painting became a direct and essential part of the pictures‘ development in the early 1960s. "Once I have found a topic, I will stick to it." (Translation of quote from Christiane Vielhaber, Walter Stöhrer, Kritisches Lexikon der Gegenwartskunst, p. 6). This means that Stöhrer preferred working on several pictures at the same time, creating thematic cycles. The spontaneous aspect plays a major role in Stöhrer‘s creative process. Painting becomes an event. There is nothing ornamental in his works, everything is the artist’s expression and gesture. In doing so his dream- and nightmare worlds elude any kind of interpretation, and an attempted approach can only be successful with the help of metaphoric comparisons. In the end it is the picture’s title that hints at the realities of an artistic existence and a creation that is guided by sense and sensibility in equal measure. [SM].