KOLLER VIEW 4/24

pre view. 02 3 The Swiss artist Franz Gertsch, who died in 2022 aged 92, explored boundaries with his artistic work. His hyper-real- istic paintings and woodcuts which he created from 1969 go beyond the scope of the familiar, not only because of their extreme formats, but also due to a painting and printing technique that has been refined down to the last detail. During his creative years from 1986 to 1994, Gertsch con- centrated on large-format woodcuts, but also experiment- ed with various glazing techniques, as can be seen in this work from our November auction. Gertsch used kumoha- damashi paper, made by the Japanese studio Heizaburo Iwano using traditional techniques involving hemp fibres, which he first discovered on a trip to Japan in 1987. The botanical motif employed here – the characteristic foliage of the butterbur plant – comes from the immediate vicinity of Gertsch’s studio in Rüschegg, where he worked from 1976 until his death. When he began to explore the nearby Schwarzwasser river in the early 1990s, he also encountered this plant, native to the area. Gertsch was fascinated by the graphic quality of its characteristic retic- ular leaf veins. Many of his subjects, such as the present one, are based on photographs and slides that Gertsch took near his studio and residence in Rüschegg. Once he had transformed one of the butterbur photo motifs into a woodcut, he switched to a glazed painting technique, while continuing to use the Japanese paper. After years of perfecting the woodcut, he needed a new challenge. Very similar in tone to the monochrome woodcuts of earlier years, this work differs fundamentally in the way it was created. Instead of cutting out the elements from the wooden block which were not to be printed, Gertsch applied white pigment in a pointillist manner to the dark, powder-like background to delineate the form and struc- ture of the leaves. The reference to Georges Seurat's study of optical colour mixing from the 1880s is unmis- takable. The artist thus reversed his approach, and what emerges is not a serial print, but a unique piece. The pres- ent work, which covers an impressive five-square-metre surface, marks Gertsch's return from the limited-edition colour woodcut to painting. The motif of the butterbur will appear again and again in Gertsch's work until the end of his life. Since 2002, works from the artist's entire car- rer have been presented in the Franz Gertsch Museum in Burgdorf. 1 Franz Gertsch (1930–2022). Butterbur. 1993. Tempera, casein, pastel on Japan paper. 276 × 217 cm. Estimate: CHF 150 000/250 000 Franz Gertsch: Nature in large format Preview of the PostWar & Contemporary auction on 28 November 2024 For further information PostWar & Contemporary Clarisse Doge & Jara Koller doge@kollerauctions.com Online Catalogues www.kollerauctions.com