Sale: 530 / Evening Sale / The Hermann Gerlinger Collection, June 10. 2022 in Munich Lot 84

 

84
Rupprecht Geiger
377/62, 1962.
Oil on canvas
Estimate:
€ 50,000 / $ 54,000
Sold:
€ 200,000 / $ 216,000

(incl. surcharge)
377/62. 1962.
Oil on canvas.
Geiger 347. Signed in upper center on verso of the canvas. Verso of the stretcher titled, inscribed "36" (in red) and the note "Jerry 1978" (in pencil) and with the signed stamp "Bis zur vollständigen Bezahlung Eigentumsvorbehalt". 120 x 100 cm (47.2 x 39.3 in).

• Red is the number one color in Geiger‘s.
• One of the important early works still executed in the classic technique.
• Shown in the first Geiger retrospective exhibition at the Lenbachaus in 1978.
• Subtle early color field, particularly captivating for the gently oscillating red values
.

PROVENANCE:
Galerie Edith Wahlandt, Stuttgart (with the stamp on the reverse).
Private collection Southern Germany (acquired from the above in 2003).

EXHIBITION:
Rupprecht Geiger, Kunst und Museumsverein Wuppertal October 17 - November 21, 1965, cat. no. 43
Rupprecht Geiger, Haus am Waldsee, Berlin May 20 - June 26, 1966, cat. no. 22, black-and-white illu. 5
Rupprecht Geiger, Galerie Heseler, Munich July 23 - August 31, 1968
Rupprecht Geiger, Bilder von 1948 bis 1975, Galerie Denise René Hans Mayer, Düsseldorf, opening on May 23, 1975, cat. no. 17
Rupprecht Geiger. Gemälde und Zeichnungen, Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, München February 22 - March 26, 1978, cat. no. 41
Rupprecht Geiger, Rot-Form-Bilder, Kunstverein Braunschweig 1989
Rupprecht Geiger. State Russian Museum St.Petersburg September 30 - November 20, 1994.

Through the intensity and consistency of his work, Rupprecht Geiger has made sure that the color red, especially through the inclusion of the fluorescent color pink, has become synonymous with his painting. It is precisely this inclusion of a new, unusual painting material that testifies to his will to find new ways of expression in painting. In the context of the Zen 49 exhibition, he describes the impression a young woman's bright red sweater in the gray, devastated town of Munich made on him and which prompted him to put lipstick on his picture. The red color, to which Geiger has devoted himself in various applications and forms since the 1940s, illuminates the varied landscape of his work like a bright torch, which lasted until around 2005. The beginning of his painting coincides with the zero hour and the new beginning after the end of the war. As a "war painter" in Russia and Greece, Rupprecht Geiger painted landscape watercolors with wide horizons and high skies, which allow for an extensive color gradient. Geiger drew his color theory from these color gradients: “The spirit of color is a phenomenon of light, flowing, limitless. Afterglow – dawn.” (quoted from: Rupprecht Geiger in: Helmut Friedel (ed.) Rupprecht Geiger im Lenbachhaus, 1998, p. 58) And admits elsewhere (1963): “I believe that the color has something irrational about it. Something of an effect cannot be intellectually grasped.” (ibid. p. 10)

Based on our picture, which was painted in 1962, we experience Geiger's relationship to nature: sunset - dawn. Red is a symbolic color, the meaning of which everyone knows as a primary experience. Between the extremes of day and night, light and dark; the red glows with the burning fire and the dying ashes. For us, this color stands for extreme feelings fed by the opposing forces of dying out and flaring up. Red in its extremes represents love as well as anger; embodies strong emotions in any case.

Rupprecht Geiger changed his style of painting around 1960, moving from more opaque tempera painting to more shiny, flowing oil paint. By applying the paint line by line in dabbed areas, he creates an atmospheric celestial phenomenon that continues to rise above a “horizon line of lighter and darker red” in the middle of the picture. In the upper margin of the picture, a narrow bar in a pink luminous red interrupts the harmonious ambiance. Like an outcry or like a yardstick against which beauty must be measured.

Prof. Helmut Friedel



84
Rupprecht Geiger
377/62, 1962.
Oil on canvas
Estimate:
€ 50,000 / $ 54,000
Sold:
€ 200,000 / $ 216,000

(incl. surcharge)