Joseph Beuys

Van der Grinten Collection, Kranenburg
Galerie Seebacher, Nüziders
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner in 1971

Colour: The colours in the catalogue are fairly accurate, although the overall tonality is slightly deeper and richer in the original. Condition: This work is in very good condition. The sheet is attached to the window mount at the top two corners on the reverse. There is a light rub mark towards the top right hand corner, and another smaller rub to the left of the artist's signature of the backing mount. All other surface irregularities, creases, nicks and tears are original, and inherent to the artist's choice of medium and working process.
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Joseph Beuys works in a huge range of diverse media, from sculpture, installations, actions and lectures, but it is his drawings which generate the most excitement as they are often the very first manifestation of his radical ideas.  This extraordinary group of seven works on paper from a distinguished German collection represents Beuys' unique working practice on paper, from the late 1940s through to the mid 1970s. His drawings are instantly recognisable, despite the wide range of media he employs and the diverse subjects he explores. His technique can encompass such assorted materials as oil paint, grease, chemicals and blood, as well as his invented 'Braunkreuz' – industrial brown floor paint –along with pressed flowers, felt and collage. Uniting each work is the sensitive, fine pencil line which is drawn across every type of paper – from sheets that are torn or cut or discoloured, to cardboard, notebooks, newspaper or kitchen lining paper.  His line is unique, looping and scribbling in the creation of imaginary space, transmitting ideas and formulating expressions that range from the political to the scientific, and from the social to the fantastical, in his inimitable spidery script. 

In the present seven works, Beuys's inner world is strikingly laid bare. Untitled, from 1957, exhibits a composition which is at once machine-like and organic, the pools of iron chloride forming myriad shapes in a substance most commonly associated with industrial processes.   An Zwei Grabmonumenten, from 1953, and Doppelblatt "Befraung" from 1963 each display Beuys' characteristic use of 'Braunkreuz', the former filled with the intense workings of an extreme intellect, the latter composed of two collaged sheets filled with abstract strokes of pigment.  Beuys' use of collage is combined with mathematical workings in the early drawing Pythagoras from 1948, while the oil paint laden sheet of Brief evokes the thick, churning markings of action painting.  Beuys wrote of his distinctive approach to drawing, "...certain questions – about art, about science – interest me, and I feel I can go farthest toward answering them by trying to develop a language on paper, a language to stimulate more searching discussion – more than just what our present civilisation represents in terms of scientific method, artistic method, or thought in general. I try to go beyond these things – I ask questions, I put forms of language on paper; I also put forms of sensibility, intention and idea on paper all in order to stimulate thought. And I not only want to stimulate people, I want to provoke them. Even if this provocative character especially in the drawings isn't particularly blatant, it goes all the deeper. My drawings make a kind of reservoir that I can get important impulses from.  In other words, they're a kind of basic source material that I can draw from again and again." (Joseph Beuys in an interview with Heiner Bastian and Jeannot Simmen, in: Exhibition Catalogue, Berlin, National Galerie, Drawings, 1970-80, pp. 93-94). With the following seven works, we are presented with an extraordinary window into the inner workings of an artist genius.