Raimund Girke has been at the forefront of Analytical Painting. He participated at the 1977 Documenta VI in Kassel, Germany, and is known for his investigations of the color white.
In the late 1950’s Girke belonged to the generation of young European artists that overcome the Subjectivism of the Abstract Expressionism, and searched for new objective reductive expressions. Girke since then left out the traditional composition, and concentrated on putting the color in order according a line schedule. Indeed, he has taken the color and has written it onto the canvas. Many titles show these characteristics of his paintings. At the same time Girke reduced the colors from his paintings to a white accompanied with blue and brown tones. These formative qualities have always characterized his paintings.
In Raimund Girke’s paintings white is not a static thing, it is constantly moving and changing. White is as elusive as it is beautiful. White is emptiness, non-material, quietness, stillness. It is subject and spirit of Raimund Girke’s paintings. Rather than being restricted by his monochromatic palette, he demonstrates it is an entire world in itself, which can be explored and expanded. In this infinite universe of complexity and subtlety, he searches for classical order. Girke explores white as a color and not as a concept. He continues the tradition of ‘Tafelmalerei’, a historical term for the Classical and Renaissance painters who were concerned with order, color and light.
Born in 1930 in Heinzendorf/Niederschlesien, Germany
Dies in 2002 in Cologne, Germany
1951-1952
Studies at the Werkkunstschule in Hanover, Germany
1952-1956
Studies at the Staatlichen Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf, Germany
1959
Preis der Stadt Wolfsburg für Malerei
1962
Kunstpreis der Jugend, Stuttgart
1966-1971
Teaches at the Werkunstschule Hanover, Germany
1971-1996
Is professor of Free Painting at the Hochschule der Künste in Berlin, Germany
1995
Lovis-Corinth-Preis
2002
Niedersächsischer Kunstpreis