About the Work
Sometimes painting is mere child’s play. With a simple gesture, Hermann Glöckner reversed the fundamentals of painting, using folded washi to paint on paperboard soaked with colour. The ease of his artistic gesture formed a stark contrast to his life. He was ostracised by the National Socialists and lost his studio in the firebombing of Dresden. He also found himself sidelined in the self-declared ‘workers’ and farmers’ state’ of the GDR. Nonetheless, his work continued to develop through the decades. His ‘plate work’ in particular, which includes ‘Folded White Strips on Black with Red’, ranks as one of the most important contributions to abstraction in Germany.
About the Acquisition
In 2010 the Städel Museum in Frankfurt acquired four main works of contemporary German art through a donation by Dorette Hildebrand-Staab. Despite the prevailing opinion at that time, the donor had recognised the significance of Georg Baselitz early on and encouraged and supported the artist for many years. The four paintings donated to the Städel collection had already been purchased by the patron in the 1960s - in part directly from the artist's own private collection.
