Page 29 - Studio International - January 1965

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important of the young Americans. Discarding the
literary elements, Bruning absorbed a principle of
composition and of serial space. In place of variations
on a Form, itself continuous, in recent work his ele­
ments are separate. They are no longer integrated with
the picture-plane through the Negative Forms. Instead
they are pushed forward from the surfaces. The increase
in the power and concentration is quite unmistakable.
The third of the former Dusseldorf group, Gerhard Wind.
was shown at the Kunstverein for the Rhineland and
Westphalia. Wind is an unrepentant geometric painter.
But his work does not come. like Pasmore's say, from
a provincial misunderstanding of the Constructivists.
It is based on great sensitivity to the specific weight of
colour. With this goes a linear principle. the slipped
diagonal. By means of these two, Wind juggles the
static world of plane geometry into a three-dimensional
movement. The work is puritanically abstract. but
what comes out is certainly tl<le best interpretation of
the modern technological-industrial world that I have
seen. Unfortunately I must add that the last year has
brought a question mark. In recent work the colour
loses weight and then at once the painting becomes
decoration. One hopes the lapse is momentary.
While these younger painters were having their retro­
spectives, one of the leaders of the generation in its
fifties has been showing his new wo1·k at the Galerie
der Spiegel in Cologne. Hann Trier is an informe/ with
a big difference. He has never accepted the total
diffusion. the large reliance on chance and the structure
of material, from which a Hoehme lives. With his quiet,
vivid colour sense and figuration skirting along in
between abstraction and the object he is a real
Abstract Impressionist. in the sense in which the term
is used in the United States. Trier is known for working
with two brushes and both hands and with his usual
irony he sometimes refers to his 'knitting.· Surprisingly,
in his new work this 'knitting' stroke is gone. The
rhythms too have strengthened. A wind blows through
the compositions. Instead of thinking of Monet one
suddenly had associations with Tiepolo.
Artists in Germany as elsewhere are feeling their way
towards a new Figuration which. as Eduard Jaguier has
remarked. will be the first for forty years. One of the
most patient and most perceptive on this trail is
Johannes Gecelli. Another of the Dusseldorf harvest of
the later fifties, though not a member of the Gruppe 53.
Geccelli lives in Mulheim on the Ruhr. He was showing
this autumn at the Kunstverein in Oldenburg. Geccelli's
first influence as a student was Cezanne·s water­
colours, his last Giacometti. His preoccupation is
with the space round his chairs. still-lifes and nudes.
In realizing this. the solid forms will almost melt away.
Swallowed in space. dissolved in modulation, the
object returns as a vision of itself. with a compulsive.
almost a mesmeric quality. In a period of 'ugly' painting,
Geccelli's works both in colour and paint quality are
very beautiful. Older but less well known is Hans Helfer.
also a product of the Dusseldorf Academy, who had an
autumn showing at the Kuppers Gallery in Cologne.
Helfer works only from the model, usually the head.
What interests him is the rhythm of proportions and
relationships. When he has finished. the head itself has
virtually disappeared. After a long period of black-and­
white, it seems from this show that he has worked out
the colours and the combinations that will 'travel'; if
for the moment only in watercolour. The special interest
of both these painters seems to me that they see Man
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