About the work
“...there seem to be a thousand bars and back behind those thousand bars no world”, Rainer Maria Rilke once wrote in the Jardin des Plantes in Paris about the black panther in his cage. How different in contrast, Heinz Mack in his painting: a multifaceted, colourful world in delicate, vernal hues opens up in an unusual, bold yellow. Its spectrum extends from lucid bright yellow through fresh green, pastel orange and bright violet to intense blue.
It is this passion for the colours, their variety and opulence, that inspires the painter again and again and also still pervades his late work with youthful freshness. “Now, after I painted my last picture on canvas in 1963”, according to the artist in 1991, “I once again paint pictures on canvas without having a reason for this. That is unless I am inspired by joy in the process. This joy is expressed in the following words, when they are read correctly: Naples yellow, cadmium yellow, Indian yellow, cadmium orange, cinnabar red, cadmium red, crimson and ruby, ultramarine, Prussian blue, cobalt blue, azure blue, Helios blue, Chrome Oxide Green Fiery and ivory black.”
Text authored and provided by Dr. Doris Hansmann, Art historian
Studies of art history, theater, film and television, English and Romance Languages at the University of Cologne, doctorated in 1994. Research assistant at the Art Museum Düsseldorf. Lecturer and project manager at Wienand Verlag, Cologne. Freelance work as an author, editor and book producer for publishers and museums in Germany and abroad. From 2011 chief editor at Wienand Verlag, from 2019 to 2021 senior editor at DCV, Dr. Cantz’sche Verlagsgesellschaft, Berlin. Numerous publications on the art of the 20th and 21st centuries.
