Winfred Gaul

Around 120 paintings and works on paper from the Willi Kemp collection, donated in 2011, are on display. It offers a broad overview of Gaul's oeuvre from 1955 to 1997 and at the same time documents the close exchange between artist and collector.

Winfred Gaul (1928–2003) shaped postwar German art with his conception of non-objective painting as a liberating medium of new beginnings. Between openness and rigour, expression and sign, homeland and distance: every brushstroke opened up insights into colour, line, surface and their interplay. The two-time Documenta participant developed his work between the free gesture of Informel and the strict order of geometric forms. The paintings presented in the show, spanning more than 40 years, range from spontaneous wiped images through signal-like traffic signs to variations of colour field painting – the unifying element, colour, Gaul rediscovered again and again until his death.