Picture "Mallows and Clouds" (2005) (Unique piece)
Picture "Mallows and Clouds" (2005) (Unique piece)
Quick info
unique piece | signed | dated | egg tempera on hard fibre | framed | size 83 x 68 cm
Detailed description
Picture "Mallows and Clouds" (2005) (Unique piece)
Egg tempera on hard fibre, 2005, signed and dated. Size 80 x 65 cm. Size in frame 83 x 68 cm as shown.
Producer: ars mundi Edition Max Büchner GmbH, Bödekerstraße 13, 30161 Hanover, Germany, [email protected]
About Theodor Gerkens
1924-2013
The dazzling colour palette of egg tempera with which Theodor Gerkens, born in Hamburg, Germany, in 1924, captures nature’s richness has a lasting impression on the viewer. It seems as if there is no colour that the artist has not already used. The infinite tonal colours and colour harmonies, give his paintings a liveliness and are reminiscent of points of light that seem to dance.
Gerkens was committed to abstract painting and studied painting and graphic arts at the Landeskunstschule Hamburg from 1947 to 1951. He liked to work in the open air, especially in his self-designed painter's garden. There he found all the inspiration for his egg tempera paintings: "It is not enough to look intensely at the portrait, nature, flowers, trees or landscape. We rather have to acquaint ourselves with them. Make their essence our own, try to understand them, to understand which characteristics control their appearance and force them to change."
By the end of 2009, Gerkens’ poor health limited him to only work in his studio, before he died in 2013.
A one-of-a-kind or unique piece is a work of art personally created by the artist. It exists only once due to the type of production (oil painting, watercolour, drawing, lost-wax sculpture etc.).
In addition to the classic unique pieces, there are also the so-called "serial unique pieces". They present a series of works with the same colour, motif and technique, manually prepared by the same artist. The serial unique pieces are rooted in "serial art", a genre of modern art that aims to create an aesthetic effect through series, repetitions, and variations of the same objects or themes or a system of constant and variable elements or principles.
The historical starting point is considered to be Claude Monet's "Les Meules" (1890/1891), where, for the first time, a series was created that went beyond a mere group of works. The other artists, who addressed to the serial art, include Claude Monet, Piet Mondrian and above all Gerhard Richter.