Form Experiments

Within Informal printed graphics, series have a particularly important place. Forms and colours were changed from sheet to sheet to test their effects. For the first time, the most important Informal printed graphics series are the theme of an exhibition in the Museum Folkwang.

In the 1950s in Germany, Bernard Schultze, Fritz Winter, Hann Trier and Ernst Wilhelm Nay experimented with printed graphics series, and in France and Belgium Alfred Manessier, Pierre Soulages and Gustave Singier did so as well. Especially vivid are the form experiments in two woodcuttings by Hans Trier and Bernard Schultz, based on a defined number of blocks combined differently from sheet to sheet. Apart from woodcutting in the various series, the techniques of lithography and colour etching were also employed. In Pierre Soulages’ case, his colour etchings achieve a haptic quality because of the vividness of the often re-worked print plates.

The exhibition includes 9 series with around 60 printed graphics works, in some cases combined with paintings from the Museum Folkwang collection. With the exhibition, a catalogue is being published by Edition Folkwang / Steidl (28 Euros at Museum Folkwang).