Sale: 361 / Post War/ Contemporary Art, Dec. 12. 2009 in Munich Lot 304

 
Rupprecht Geiger - 402/64


304
Rupprecht Geiger
402/64, 1964.
Oil on canvas
Estimate:
€ 30,000 / $ 32,400
Sold:
€ 61,000 / $ 65,880

(incl. surcharge)

Oil on canvas
Dornacher/Geiger 373. Signed and dated on verso. With title on stretcher. 90 x 95 cm (35,4 x 37,4 in)

PROVENANCE: Galerie Wilbrand, Cologne (with stamp on stretcher).
Private collection South Germany.

Rupprecht Geiger was born in Munich in 1908 as the only child of the painter and graphic artist Willi Geiger. He spent his childhood and his youth in Munich and in the foot-hills of the Bavarian Alps. In 1924 his family moved to Spain for one year where Geiger attended the "Colegio aleman" in Madrid and accompanied his father on his trips to the Canary Islands and to Morocco. Geiger made his first drawings and water-colors during this period. One year after having returned from Spain, in 1926, Geiger attended Eduard Pfeiffer's architectural class at the School of Applied Arts in Munich. He graduated as an architect in 1935 and spent half a year in Rome together with his father. Geiger then worked in a Munich architect's bureau until he was sent to the Russian front in 1940. Typical of this period are his dark-colored landscapes in watercolor. Geiger returned to Germany for a short period in 1942 before his father helped him to get a job as a war painter in the Ukraine. Geiger returned to Munich after the end of the war. His first abstract work was exhibited at the "Salon des Réalités Nouvelles" in Paris in 1948. One year later Geiger joined up with Baumeister, Matschinsky-Denninghoff and Winter to found the group "ZEN 49". Geiger discovered his true style during the 1950s. He repeatedly showed works at the documenta in Kassel between 1959 and 1977. He gave up working as an architect in 1962 in order to concentrate solely on painting.
Rupprecht Geiger's abstract color compositions make him one of the most important artists of "Farbfeldmalerei" (color field painting) in Germany. As of the early 196ß0s he begins to abandon working with complementary contrasts and turns to compositions with akin tones – most of them in the color groups orange, red, pink or blue and black. These works achieve their exceptional effects by means of the clashing sharp-edged color fields and the soft modulations within the color fields. Our work with its warm red and lucent orange shows these compositional elements in a fascinating manner. The color surfaces seem to expand to a three-dimensional color space right in front of the beholder’s eyes. The color appears to be glowing and in an ongoing process of transformation.
In 1965 Geiger was appointed professor at the Akademie in Düsseldorf, a post that he held until 1976. The artist lives and works in Munich. [NB].




304
Rupprecht Geiger
402/64, 1964.
Oil on canvas
Estimate:
€ 30,000 / $ 32,400
Sold:
€ 61,000 / $ 65,880

(incl. surcharge)