Lot 529 | Peter Brüning | Untitled

BRÜNING, PETER
1929 Düsseldorf - 1970 Ratingen

Title: Untitled.
Date: Ca. 1961.
Technique: Oil on canvas.
Measurement: 158 x 195cm.
Frame/Pedestal: Framed.

Provenance:
- Galerie Neher, Essen
- Corporate collection Germany (acquired from the previous in 1988)

Exhibition:
- Galerie Neher, Essen 1988

Literature:
- Otten, Marie-Luise: Peter Brüning - Studien zu Entwicklung und Werk, Werkverzeichnis, Cologne 1988, cat. rais. no. 422, ill.
- Exhib. cat. Deutsche Kunst in den 50er und 60er Jahren, Galerie Neher,
Essen 1988, cat. pp. 36/37, ill. (mistakenly denoted as cat. rais. no. 442)

- Peter Brüning is one of the great representatives of Art Informel in Germany-
Large-format work with a strong spatial presence
- A mature painting from the work phase of open pictorial spaces
- The work impresses with its exquisite colouring and airy elegance

His sudden death at the age of just over 40 abruptly ended his short artistic career, but despite this, Peter Brüning is now one of the leading figures in post-war art in Germany. Having already come into contact with artists such as Alfred Kubin, Wilhelm Morgner and Willi Jaeckel at home, his teacher Willi Baumeister at the Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart familiarised him with Paul Cézanne, Fernand Legér and Cubism from 1950 onwards. The young painter's turn towards an independent informal pictorial language took place just a few years later and reached a climax with the open painting process of his works from the late 1950s and early 1960s.

The large-format oil painting from 1961 presents itself in a cheerful elegance with an open, gestural style. Paintings in which the canvas was filled with fixed structures are a thing of the past. Now the pictorial space opens up, the painting gains in lightness and unfolds naturally into the surrounding white of the canvas. Rhythmic, long brushstrokes conquer the surface, lying loosely side by side, touching, penetrating or overlapping each other - fraying into the pictorial space in the lower half, dynamised by generous sweeps in the upper half. The exquisite colour tone - subtle and warm - has an almost watercolour-like delicacy. A painting like this is one of the great legacies of the early accomplished painter. 'Peter Brüning's work has gone down in art history,' states his artist colleague Karl Otto Götz, 'He was not the only one in this period, but his work makes him one of the most important artists of his generation.' (K.O. Götz, 'Die eigentlichen Knüller', in: exhib. cat. Peter Brüning. Retrospective, MKM Museum Küppersmühle für Moderne Kunst, Duisburg, Cologne 2007, p. 12).