Arnulf Rainer *
(Baden near Vienna 1929–2025 Enzenkirchen, Upper Austria)
Vertikalgestaltung (Vertical Composition), signed and dated TRR 52, oil crayon on canvas,
86 x 52 cm, framed
Provenance:
Private Collection, Vienna (acquired directly from the artist, in the 1970s)
Literature:
Dieter Honisch, Arnulf Rainer, Exhibition Catalogue National Gallery
Berlin (ed.), similar works on page 26 – 27.
In the approximately forty Vertical Compositions and fifty Central Compositions, line is
imbued with a sense of speed akin to that of action painting.
Here, the line assumes an aggressiveness comparable to that of Fontana’s cuts. It wounds,
ruptures and cleaves the pictorial plane, or asserts itself through a concentrated inscription at its centre. The vehement act of drawing or painting supplants the traditional pictorial
subject; the force of the painterly gesture stands for the vitality of the motif. The attack is palpably so swift that it scarcely admits visual control.
This produces outcomes of widely varying
quality and leads, with an almost inexorable logic, to the blind drawings.
For where the eye can no longer fulfil its
supervisory role, intuitive reflex must take over.
Within a field associated with Pollock, Mathieu and Hartung, Rainer seeks to articulate an
approach distinctly his own. These works
are more modest in their claims and more
uncompromising in their means.
Their quality resides in their intensity.
Excerpt from:
TRR, exhibition catalogue, Galerie Franck, Frankfurt am Main, and Art Club Galerie, Vienna, 1952
Specialist: Mag. Barbara Freisitzer
(Baden near Vienna 1929–2025 Enzenkirchen, Upper Austria)
Vertikalgestaltung (Vertical Composition), signed and dated TRR 52, oil crayon on canvas,
86 x 52 cm, framed
Provenance:
Private Collection, Vienna (acquired directly from the artist, in the 1970s)
Literature:
Dieter Honisch, Arnulf Rainer, Exhibition Catalogue National Gallery
Berlin (ed.), similar works on page 26 – 27.
In the approximately forty Vertical Compositions and fifty Central Compositions, line is
imbued with a sense of speed akin to that of action painting.
Here, the line assumes an aggressiveness comparable to that of Fontana’s cuts. It wounds,
ruptures and cleaves the pictorial plane, or asserts itself through a concentrated inscription at its centre. The vehement act of drawing or painting supplants the traditional pictorial
subject; the force of the painterly gesture stands for the vitality of the motif. The attack is palpably so swift that it scarcely admits visual control.
This produces outcomes of widely varying
quality and leads, with an almost inexorable logic, to the blind drawings.
For where the eye can no longer fulfil its
supervisory role, intuitive reflex must take over.
Within a field associated with Pollock, Mathieu and Hartung, Rainer seeks to articulate an
approach distinctly his own. These works
are more modest in their claims and more
uncompromising in their means.
Their quality resides in their intensity.
Excerpt from:
TRR, exhibition catalogue, Galerie Franck, Frankfurt am Main, and Art Club Galerie, Vienna, 1952
Specialist: Mag. Barbara Freisitzer
