Emil Schumacher

Emil Schumacher Melan 1961 Oil on canvas 117 x 89 cm. Framed in studio frame. Signed and dated 'Schumacher 61'. Titled 'Melan' verso on stretcher and with direction arrow and direction information. Provenance Galleria La Medusa, Rome (label verso); Sotheby's, London, 26.10.2000, lot 205; private collection, North Rhine-Westphalia Exhibitions Lignano 1970 (Biennale Internazionale D'Arte 2), Artisti Austriaci Svizzeri Tedeschi, Operanti in Italia dal 1945 al 1970 (label verso) Sao Paulo 1963 (Exposiçã Alemã), VII. Bienal de Sao Paulo Brasil, Emil Schumacher, exhib.cat.no.7 (label verso) Rome 1962 (Galleria La Medusa), Emil Schumacher, no.189 (label verso) 'After the first splodges have soiled the canvas and erased its character of cool untouchability, there is already something there, an interplay between approach and knowledge, sensation and deliberation. If a third or fourth splodge is added, the innocence is lost. At that point, I am in a process to which I have to subordinate myself, so to speak, my will becomes less important. The necessity to create something is stronger than any intentions!' The work process that has now taken hold of him is not exclusively subject to his own will, or borne solely by intellectual decisions, but takes place according to its own laws. 'The colours take over the shapes, the symbols demand colour - by letting myself get carried away, I achieve my painting.' In this way Schumacher experiences the process of composition, in which, as an artist, he allows the process of creation to happen almost passively. 'This is how I paint a shape, adding a line, opposing a movement with a counter-movement, scratching it out, letting the canvas shine through in places, adding an impasto area here, according to how I feel and think, without actually being able to explain why.' The composition arises from the interaction of lines and colours, of symbols and shapes.' (Ernst-Gerhard Güse (ed.), Emil Schumacher, Das Erlebnis des Unbekannten, Ostfildern 2012, p.75).