Oil and sand on canvas
Signed and dated lower right. Signed, dated, titled and with arrow indicating the direction on stretcher. 40 x 60 cm (15,7 x 23,6 in)

We are grateful to Dr. Ulrich Schumacher, Hagen, for his expert advice.

PROVENANCE: Die Schanze, Münster.
Private collection North Rhine-Westphalia.

At first Emil Schumacher confined himself to wrenching the highest degree of materiality possible from paint in a pastose application, until he reached technical limits. From this point onwards the artist began experimenting with other materials added to the paint, leading him to his tactile objects. It is Schumacher’s intention to work out the haptic element of painting. The material becomes the motif of his picture language. In this work he has added sand to the paint, in order to create a relief-like composition. In this case the material does not only determine the work‘s structure, but also its coloring. The mellow ochre tone is interrupted by graphic gestures in black and accentuated by sea-green color fields. [SM].