5.8.53 / I. 1953.
Mixed media on canvas.
Lower left signed. Signed, dated "Dez. 65" and inscribed "Karin zugeeignet Dez 65". With the stamp "Sammlung K. O. Götz" on the stretcher. 70 x 60 cm (27.5 x 23.6 in).
Inscribed "BRACHE RUE DE L'ODÉON" on the stretcher, probably by a hand other than his own. Pierre Brache was a well-known Parisian collector and patron who had bought several works by K. O. Götz. However, it cannot be said with certainty whether this painting was actually in the Brach collection. [CH].

• Karl Otto Götz was one of the protagonists of German Informalism.
• Together with Heinz Kreutz, Bernard Schultze and Otto Greis, he founded the artist group "Quadriga" in December 1952 - just a few months before our work was created.
• In 1952, Götz also developed his very own new painting technique using paste, gouache paint, squeegee and brush, which led him to his characteristic informal style of painting and would be decisive for the rest of his oeuvre.
• With its powerful brushstrokes and gestural expressiveness, the work makes the artist's rhythmic movements of the creative process tangible.
• Götz showed his works at the XXIX Venice Biennale in 1958 and in the II documenta in Kassel in 1959.
• Comparable works can be found in important museums and institutions like the Nationalgalerie Berlin, the Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt am Main, the Stiftung Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf, and the Office of the Federal President in Berlin.

The work is registered in the online catalogue raisonné of canvas pictures at K. O. Götz and Rissa Foundation with the number WVL-1953-28.
We are grateful to Mr Joachim Lissmann for his kind expert advice.

PROVENANCE: Galerie Raymand Creuze, Paris (1954, with an inscribed and crossed out label on the stretcher).
Private collection Paris.
Collection of Prof. Karin Götz (from 1965, inscribed on the reverse).
Galerie Schlichtenmaier, Stuttgart.
Galerie Maulberger, Munich.
Private collection Baden-Württemberg (acquired from the above).

LITERATURE: Ina Ströher, K. O. Götz. Catalogue raisonné, vol. I (1937-1979), Cologne 2014, p. 114, no. 1953-28 (color illu.).

Manfred de la Motte (ed.), K. O. Götz, Bonn 1978 (fig between pp. 232 and 233).
K. O. Götz, Erinnerungen und Werk, vol. I a, Düsseldorf 1983, cat. no. 1 (fig., p. 2 and frontispiece).
"When I was mixing paste paint for my little son in the summer of 1952, I found my [..] painting technique almost by chance: first put paste on the paper, then gouache into it, and the picture was finished [..]. The step from cardboard (gouache) to canvas came about naturally. Thus, in the winter of 1952/53, I found the technique and concept that would determine the structure of my paintings from then on [..]."
K. O. Götz, quoted from: H. Zimmermann, in: ex. cat. K. O. Götz. Malerei 1935-1993, Albertinum, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Dresden 1994, p. 12.