7190 - Laabs, Hans

Laabs, Hans "Encounter" Oil on canvas. 1973. 70 x 100 cm. Signed "Laabs" in brown with a brush in the lower right corner of the painting and dated; on the reverse, signed again "HANS LAABS" in black with a brush, dated, inscribed "Berlin" and "Ibiza," and titled in white. “Magical Space”—this was Laabs’ original title, painted over in black on the reverse—and indeed, the encounter between the two nude figures is enveloped in a mysterious pink cloud of color. Laabs spent a great deal of time in Ibiza, where our luminous, large-format painting was created, beginning in 1953. The radiance of the intense shades of pink, blue, and green evokes the warmth and vibrant palette of the Mediterranean, and the interplay between interior and exterior lends this abstract composition from the 1970s a special tension. Hans Laabs, a native of East Pomerania, studied in Stettin and Berlin and took drawing lessons from Oskar Moll. In 1949, he was a co-founder and active participant in the surrealist artists’ cabaret “Die Badewanne” in Berlin, and in 1951, he became a member of the “Neue Gruppe Berlin.” Through his close ties to the Berlin galleries Bremer and Brusberg, Laabs exhibited alongside many West German artists of his time, including Emil Schumacher, Jeanne Mammen, Hans Uhlmann, Werner Heldt, Alexander Camaro, Heinz Trökes, Bernhard Heiliger, and Walter Stöhrer. Provenance: Private collection, Berlin - Please ask for condition reports for individual lots, as the condition is usually not mentioned in the catalog. - Please ask for condition reports for individual lots, as the condition is usually not mentioned in the catalog.