About the work

Although the work of the Mülheim native is linked with constructivism, the lyrical moment of informal painting is also typical of him. Just as Siepmann’s paintings are equally at home in design and abstraction, his art has also already been referred to as "informal constructivism”.
This field of tension is particularly evident in the present work entitled “C 18/2000”. Here, the rectangular forms appear with an intense painterly air, with in some cases very imprecise edges. Some pencil lines seem like design aid lines, and the overlapping might also be random. However, it is particularly these abstract-lyrical aspects that reveal this work as a complex composition, which encounters the viewer extremely harmoniously and yet with a sense of excitement.
This connection between concrete design and abstract painting is also clear in the development of his work. Following his war service and imprisonment, Heinrich Siepmann, along with Emil Schumacher, Gustav Deppe, Thomas Grochowiak and others, co-founded the “Junger Westen” (Young West) artist group in 1948. Here, following his primarily representational works, he found his way more intensively to abstract painting. The spectrum of works of the 1950s encompasses, for example, compositions in which Siepmann alludes to the work of the Russian Wassily Kandinsky in terms of line and contouring. At times, Siepmann also turned his attention to currents of Tachism.
Up to his death in 2002, the collage, which he titled with the systematising letter "C" and the respective year of origin, remained a preferred medium for his compositions of form and colour. The layering and confrontation of different materials, textile textures or corrugated cardboard allow for the most varied superimpositions of forms and colours in constructive and abstract form, which make Siepmann’s work so unique and fascinating.
(Andrea Fink)