“Boxer” (“Boxer”)

Details

Provenance: Galerie Delta, Rotterdam, with label on the reverse on the stretcher; private collection, Hessen, acquired from the aforementioned at Art Cologne in 1986; Ketterer, Munich 4.12.2012, lot 198; private ownership, Bavaria. Exhibitions: HP Zimmer, Galerie Delta, Rotterdam 1964, with full-page col. Illus. p. 65; HP Zimmer. Bilder, Objekte, Räume, anlässlich der Exhibitions Narrenbäume – Neue Bilder 1984-86, Kunstverein Wolfsburg 1986, cat. no. 65, with full-page col. illus.

Description

In the late 1950s, HP Zimmer founded the legendary group “SPUR” in Munich with his academy colleagues Lothar Fischer, Heimrad Prem and Helmut Sturm. With their anarchic love of freedom and subtle humour, they were often referred to as a group of weird neo-Dadaists from southern Germany. Their style can be described as an abrasive form of folk art that draws on the spirit of the Bavarian Baroque, the art of the so-called “art brut”, Expressionism, the art of CoBrA and the echoes of Art Informel. Nevertheless, within the group, which only existed in this form until 1965, each of the artists sought and found their own way to a new, experimental form of expression in painting and sculpture. “Boxer” is typical of the SPUR period in every respect, both in terms of its expressive power and use of colour as well as its motif.