About the work

With the exception of his early work influenced by Surrealism, Karl Otto Götz stood throughout his life for a rapid and dynamic style of painting based on spontaneity. With the dissolution of classical principles of form and a flowing, eruptive work method in powerful gestures, he assured his place in art history as one of the most important representatives of international Informal art.

This gouache from 2012 bears witness to the unabated creative energy of the artist, even at an advanced age of nearly 100. It presents an impressive triad of colours and forms: two arches in brilliant blue and radiant yellow – applied zestfully onto the paper – rest as it were on another black, emphatically arranged arch, which appears to stabilise it toward the bottom of the work. At its apex at the centre axis of the painting, circular, energetic vortices seem to liberate themselves from the arches, which set the basic composition in motion and lend it its dynamism. The extraordinary quality of this gouache lies in its successful combination of a simple, bearing composition with an impulsive and vital painterly gesture.