Ackermann, Max

Description:

Berlin, 1887 - Unterlengenhardt, 1975
120 x 100 cm, R.
Composition (Blue counterpoint painting), 1963. Oil on canvas. Signed and dated in oil lower right; additionally signed and dated "30. I. 1963" in Oil on the reverse of the stretcher.
Galerie Döbele, Stuttgart.
Collection Monika and Horst Bülow, Leonberg, acquired there in 1986.
This intense, musically inflected composition of 1963 ranks among the significant works of Max Ackermann, a leading representative of concrete and abstract art in Germany. On this large canvas Ackermann realizes colour and form as visual harmony comparable to contrapuntal music. A central field of saturated blue is traversed by dynamic lines and accents in red, yellow, white, and black - rhythmic impulses meeting in a finely calibrated tension.
Though at first glance the structure seems freely improvised, a deep formal order underlies it. The composition is shaped by an inner balance between rest and movement, plane and line, light and density. The luminous blue at center functions as a zone of gathering around which gestural and constructive elements constellate. Ackermann’s lifelong kinship with music and dance is evident; the term "counterpoint" in the title points to the dialogic relations of chromatic tones across the surface.
Precise brushstrokes, subtle transitions, and the pigments’ vibrant intensity make this an exemplary expression of Ackermann’s 1960s maturity. At a time when German art navigated between informal gesture and constructed rigor, Ackermann pursued an independent path toward a universal order of forms - a spiritual dimension beyond the representational world.
Beyond its painterly quality, the work is notably rare on the market; pieces of this scale and with such lucid harmonic colour are counted among the artist’s most sought-after major works.