(Munich 1908–2009)
526/68, 1968, signed, titled on the stretcher Geiger,
acrylic on canvas, 120 x 110 cm, in Plexiglass box

Provenance:
From the estate of Fritz Becker, Düsseldorf

Literature:
Helmut Friedel, Pia Dornacher, Julia Geiger, Rupprecht Geiger
Werkverzeichnis 1942-2002, Gemälde und Objekte, Architekturbezogene Kunst, Munich/ Berlin 2003, no. 501

“One must help the colour to make it visible”
Rupprecht Geiger

“Right at the beginning of his career in painting, Rupprecht Geiger elevated colour to be a central theme of his artistic work. For almost seven decades he investigated with extraordinary consistency its representational possibilities. Over the course of time he reduced more and more his vocabulary of forms to the simplest geometric figures, in order not to compromise the perception of the colour. He experimented not only with the various forms of applying colour, but also used different colour pigments and binding agents. In colour spaces, Geiger attempts to isolate the colour from external currents. In doing so, he is always concerned with colour and its perceptibility.” (Julia Geiger, Head of the Willi and Rupprecht Geiger Archive.)

Daylight luminous paints particularly fascinate Rupprecht Geiger. He used these, which were originally deployed by the American military as signal colours, from the mid-1960s onwards. In order to increase their colour intensity even more, he applies the colour with a spray gun. Geiger identifies the geometric forms in his works, the pressed circle and the hanging rectangle, as exponents. The underlying idea of the exponents consists in activating colour in a particular way and eventually in its taking on a life of its own. Colour transforms the object and leads to the work seeming to be weightless.