Heimrad Prem
Untitled
Artist
Heimrad Prem
1934 Roding/Oberpfalz - München 1978
Further information
Nicht bei Dornacher.
Exhibition
Gruppe Spur: Jetzt!, Karl&Faber, München 2018, farb. Abb. 28.
Provenance
Private collection, Milan; Private collection, North Rhine-Westphalia.
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Description
• Rare work from the SPUR period with particularly beautiful colours
• Prem was a pioneer of committed art that found its themes in social processes
• Co-founder of the SPUR group, which is now considered one of the most important German artist groups of the post-war period
In 1964, the year this work was created, Heimrad Prem was represented at documenta III with three works and surprised the audience in Kassel with his painting. At the time, he and his fellow artists from the SPUR group succeeded in creating something ground-breaking beyond Art Informel: committed art that was reconnected to figuration and found its themes in social processes. This is also the case here: a street scene with cars, passers-by and zebra crossings is depicted in all its liveliness in a horizontal, two-dimensional layering without perspective. The motif is of secondary importance, as the main focus is on a dense, impasto painting that spreads sensitively across the canvas. Four years earlier, Prem had founded the legendary SPUR group in Munich with his academy colleagues Lothar Fischer, HP Zimmer and Helmut Sturm, who, with their anarchic penchant for freedom and subtle humour, were often inscribed as "weird neo-Dadaists from southern Germany". Their points of reference were a non-charming folk art that drew on the spirit of the Bavarian Baroque, the art of so-called "Art Brut", the art of CoBrA, the "Blaue Reiter" and the echoes of Art Informel.
• Prem was a pioneer of committed art that found its themes in social processes
• Co-founder of the SPUR group, which is now considered one of the most important German artist groups of the post-war period
In 1964, the year this work was created, Heimrad Prem was represented at documenta III with three works and surprised the audience in Kassel with his painting. At the time, he and his fellow artists from the SPUR group succeeded in creating something ground-breaking beyond Art Informel: committed art that was reconnected to figuration and found its themes in social processes. This is also the case here: a street scene with cars, passers-by and zebra crossings is depicted in all its liveliness in a horizontal, two-dimensional layering without perspective. The motif is of secondary importance, as the main focus is on a dense, impasto painting that spreads sensitively across the canvas. Four years earlier, Prem had founded the legendary SPUR group in Munich with his academy colleagues Lothar Fischer, HP Zimmer and Helmut Sturm, who, with their anarchic penchant for freedom and subtle humour, were often inscribed as "weird neo-Dadaists from southern Germany". Their points of reference were a non-charming folk art that drew on the spirit of the Bavarian Baroque, the art of so-called "Art Brut", the art of CoBrA, the "Blaue Reiter" and the echoes of Art Informel.