Output details

Lapislazuli & Purpur. How Color Came to Us

The two paintings included in this exhibition are the first that extend Lalić’s ‘History Painting’ group, which is based on a Winsor and Newton colour chart, but the new paintings use pigments made from authentic materials by Kremer in Germany, instead of Winsor and Newton paints. These pigments are made into paint by Lalić – by mulling them together with an oil medium, in much the same way as she makes her paints for the Landscape series. In this new group of ‘History Paintings’, each work is made only with the various kinds of purple, brown, red, etc that relate to a particular size format in the original group. This new group represents a second summary subgroup of the History Painting project.

For 35 years Dr George Kremer, a chemist by training, has been making authentic pigments for restorers and artists, according to historical recipes (in documents/material relating to old masters) which he researches himself (http://kremer-pigmente.de). The group exhibition includes works by Alfonso Fratteggiani Bianchi, Bim Koehler, Matt Mc Lune and Jerry Zenuik (all using Kremer pigment). The exhibition is featured in one of a series of six programmes on “paint and colour” by Bavaria TV BR Alpha, a channel focussing on art and education.

Michael Fehr: “ it is not Maria Lalić’s aim to reflect on the act of painting but to take an unobstructed view of the peculiar colours of materials of which the world consists. It may seem paradoxical that what it takes to visualize the colour of reality is a comprehensive knowledge of painterly means and their utilization in the history of painting, but it is this that forms the foundation for the special position that Maria Lalić’s work has taken on not only in the framework of Concrete Art, but in the history of painting.’