
Comb, Pastel and Buttermilk. Willi Baumeister, Adolf Hölzel and Fritz Seitz
The artist Willi Baumeister (1889–1955) also regarded himself as a craftsman. He experimented with diverse materials and techniques. Using a steel comb, he ploughed the background or the surface of the so-called comb pictures. He covered black areas, which already appeared in his early works, temporarily with buttermilk, thus creating a matt colour effect. Entire work series are characterised by sand and putty.
Baumeisters rarely presented pastel drawings entered into a dialogue with works by his teacher Adolf Hölzel (1853–1934) and by his student Fritz Seitz (1926–2017). The Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Stuttgart, where Baumeister studied and worked as a Professor, participated in the exhibition with research and studies of painting and material techniques.
Curator Hadwig Goez (Baumeister Archive at the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart )
Kuratorische Assistenz Carla Link-Walesch (Baumeister Archive at the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart)
In Kooperation mit Graduate program »Rahmenwechsel«, Stuttgart and Konstanz; Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste, Stuttgart; the Willi Baumeister Foundation, Stuttgart; Prof. Esther Hagenlocher, University of Oregon, Eugene, USA