Sale: 369 / Post War/ Contemporary Art, June 12. 2010 in Munich Lot 202

 
Rupprecht Geiger - 484/67


202
Rupprecht Geiger
484/67, 1967.
Acrylic on canvas
Estimate:
€ 25,000 / $ 27,000
Sold:
€ 29,280 / $ 31,622

(incl. surcharge)

Acrylic on canvas
Dornacher/Geiger 459. Signed and inscribed "105/Geiger" on stretcher, as well as with the work number "484/67". The catalog raisonné erroneously registeres the work as signed ("o.re. Lwd. >Geiger>). 105 x 95 cm (41,3 x 37,4 in)

We are grateful to Ms Julia Geiger, Munich, for her expert advice.

PROVENANCE: Private collection Baden Württemberg.

EXHIBITION: Rupprecht Geiger. Galerie Heseler, Munich 1968.

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, 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 1940 when he was sent to the Russian Front. 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 in 1948 at the "Salon des Réalités Nouvelles" in Paris. One year later Geiger joined up with Baumeister, Matschinsky-Denninghoff and Winter and founded the group "ZEN 49". Geiger, one of the most important artists of "Farbfeldmalerei" (color field painting) in Germany, discovered his characteristic style during the 1950s.

While Geiger’s works from the 50s and 60s are composed of differentiated shades of blue and red, dominated by circles and squares, the reduction and concentration of color and form reached its peak in the late 60s. From that time on the circle, as a symbol for concentration, was in the center of Geiger‘s artistic creation. As he increasingly used fluorescent colors, which do not posses any reference to nature and the objective world, he elevates the circle to a meditative color space. This work, which originated in a very early phase of this central stage in Geiger’s oeuvre, receives its unique suspense solely from the circle surrounded by neon yellow and the soft horizontal run of the paint in the lower part of the composition. The center remains blank, the eye cannot find a point of rest, the perception of the white negative form is overlaid by the intensive yellow it is surrounded by, and yet, the white form, which seems to hover weightlessly above the canvas, is an allegory for tranquility.

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 on his painting. In 1965 Geiger was appointed professor at the academy in Düsseldorf, a post that he held until 1976. Geiger has been a member of the Akademie der Schönen Künste in Munich since 1982. In 1987 he was commissioned with the sculpture "Gerundetes Blau" for the cultural center Gasteig in Munich. In 2009 the artist died in Munich. Rupprecht Geiger's abstract color compositions make him one of the most important artists of "Farbfeldmalerei" (color field painting) in Germany. [JS]




202
Rupprecht Geiger
484/67, 1967.
Acrylic on canvas
Estimate:
€ 25,000 / $ 27,000
Sold:
€ 29,280 / $ 31,622

(incl. surcharge)