Acrylic on canvas;
Monogrammed lower right, signed, titled, and dated on verso;
9.4 x 12 in inch
Robert Hammerstiel, born in 1933 as the son of German emigrants in Werschitz, was rated among just a few contemporary artists in the early 1960s, who almost exclusively dealt with the artistic technique of woodcut whereby Hammerstiel’s choice of colouring was rather dark and sombre, referring to his traumatic childhood-experiences. In 1988 his work underwent a clear artistic caesura. His first travel to New York accounted for a new direction in Robert Hammerstiel’s artistic work. He was impressed by the flashy and dazzling atmosphere of Manhattan, what lead to radical change in composition and colouring of his paintings. The extreme loudness of his colouring put him near US-Pop-Art artistically, whereby Hammerstiel - in contrast to US-Pop-Art – chose the magical atmosphere to be the focal point of his work. The characteristics of his paintings refer to Hammerstiel’s almost mysterious, faceless and edgy figures that are minimized to posture and motion as well as to their contours, whereat their bodies overlap. The human beings displayed by Hammerstiel are part of different settings: grouped around a table inside a house or on the weekly market for example. The figures are always related to each other in a special way: in a conversation or a seemingly ordinary behaviour. The artwork Interieur with two messages” (2016) displayed here superbly reflects Hammerstiel’s mastery with regard to his composition, colouring and confrontation with autobiographical issues.
Provenance: acquired directly from the artist.
