Winfred Gaul

Around 90 paintings and works on paper from the collection of Willi Kemp, donated in 2011, are on view. It offers a broad overview of Gaul's work 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 view of non-objective painting as a liberating medium of new beginnings. Between openness and rigour, expression and sign, home and distance: every brushstroke opened up insights into colour, line, surface and their interplay. A two-time Documenta participant, he developed his work between the free gesture of Informel and the strict order of geometric forms. The paintings in the exhibition, spanning more than 40 years, range from spontaneous wiped images to signal-like traffic signs and variations of colour field painting. The unifying element, colour, Gaul rediscovered again and again until his death.