Lot: 329

Franz Grabmayr* (1927 - 2015)
Untitled

Mixed media. Oil paint and traces of fire on paper. Image as large as a sheet, approx. 97 x 67 cm. Pastose blue, black and yellow-brown traces of paint form dynamic structures. These are thrown off in relief by the effect of the fire and broken up in places. The viewer is thus vividly and physically aware of the force and mass of the paint application. Framed under glass. Even during his time as a student at the Vienna Academy, Grabmayr, famous for his powerful material paintings, concentrated on the moving figure and painted his first "dance paintings" in the late 1960s. Dance remained a main motif in the artist's work until 2012. In the heavy oil paintings, the movement, dynamics, rhythm and vitality of dance are expressed primarily through the act of painting or the action of painting. Passionately, impulsively and in a trance-like state similar to dancing, the painter applies the paint and hurls it forcefully onto the picture carrier. For his "fire pictures" the painter usually lit campfires in sand pits and quarries - often at night. While people danced in archaic ecstasy in front of the fireplace, Grabmayr drove around in circles on the trailer of a tractor - his "mobile workshop" - and captured the dance and flame movements. As in the present picture, these merge into a visual unity in the course of the painting process.

Reserve price: 7,200 €