Gefaltete Streifen in Rot und Weiß auf Schwarz, 1933

Dimensions: 35.1 x 25.5 x max. 0.3 cm

Physical Description: Tissue paper strips on varnish and cardboard

Inventory Number: 2276

Acquisition: Acquired in 2009 with funds from the Städelkomitee 21. Jahrhundert, property of Städelscher Museums-Verein e.V.

Status: On display, lower level, Contemporary Art, room 6

Texts

About the Work

Sometimes painting is child's play. Hermann Glöckner, the important German Constructivist, perverts the fundamentals of painting with a simple gesture: he "paints" with folded Japan paper on a still-wet painted surface. The ease of the artistic gesture is the very opposite of Glöckner's biography. Defamed by the Nazis, the artist lost his studio in the conflagration of Dresden. He was also ostracised in the "anti-fascist workers' and peasants' state" of East Germany. His work, which nonetheless developed continually over many years, only came into its own after a delay of several decades.