Finger and Head
- Top provenance - From the estate of the artist
- Fingers and the French national colours – a surreal head on a painted nail
- German pioneer of Pop Art - co-founder of Großgörschen 35 in Berlin
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€4,500.00
Features and Remarks
We see a female head that is strangely distorted, as if modelled by the hand of a Cubist or Surrealist. The woman has her black hair tied back and her eyes sensually closed, framed by long eyelashes.
Wintersberger has painted over almost the entire surface of the reddish-brown terracotta in blue, white and red – the French national colours. The vivid red, in particular, evokes associations with the world of cosmetics and the colour of blood.
The lower white section of the sculpture appears to depict a severed fingertip with a red-painted nail.
Painter ceramics
In the early 1990s, Wintersberger increasingly turned his attention to sculpture. He modeled in clay and subsequently had the pieces fired. The artist experienced the manual working process as a source of calm and a moment of centering. Wintersberger drew upon figures and symbols from his paintings, with a particular emphasis on creating hybrid beings imbued with mythological significance.
„The sculptures show human figures, mask-like abstracted faces and bodies in half and full view. They are reminiscent of the archaic force of Aztec god figures, while others, more softly modelled, reach into the space with surreal twists and overstretched limbs.“
Brigitte Reinhardt, 1995
Bleu-Blanc-Rouge
“Wintersberger is an eye, even before he is a painter, and his visual perception possesses the marvellous power of both a mental and a visual organ. His gaze is not limited to mere observation; he ceaselessly organises worlds and societies with the passions and dramas that drive them.”
Claude Rossignol in 1992 on “Bleu-Blanc-Rouge”
In 1985, Wintersberger settled in an old railway station in Walbourg, Alsace. Not far from his previous base, Stuttgart, but already thoroughly imbued with French culture.
On a trip through the capital, Paris, in mid-1990, the painter saw the whole city decked out for the national holiday, bathed from top to bottom in the three symbolic colours. It was, therefore, initially this visual impulse that fuelled the artist’s inspiration; later, it was certainly also a tribute to the esteemed role models and icons of French cultural history.
Above all, however, the depths of Wintersberger’s subconscious came into play: from this he developed the figure of ‘Petit Napoleon’, this broken figure who embodies both greatness and defeat and who, as an alter ego and a little man, as a mask and a fool, haunts this series time and again.
Finger
Wintersberger’s earliest leitmotif, the stylised ‘Finger’, appeared during his initial phase of success as a German Pop Art artist in the form of a perfectly shaped piece of foam painted red. As an object of art, it became a piece of furniture. The motif was subsequently reworked in various ways: cut up, dismembered, damaged, blown up...
From the 1970s onwards, however, the painter’s forms began to lose their rigidity. His art became more psychological and expressive.
The authenticity of the work is verified by expert judgement.
At the request and expense of the purchaser, we will be happy to obtain a written appraisal.
The painting comes directly from the artist's estate.
Informations about the artwork
| Category | Plastic |
|---|---|
| Farbwelt | Kräftig & farbstark |
| artist | Wintersberger, Lambert Maria |
| year | 1994 |
| Title | Finger and Head |
| size 1 | Total size 41,5 x 18,0 x 18,0 cm |
| material | Clay, fired and unglazed, painted |
| edition | Unique |
| signature | Below the base estate stamp |
| publication | vgl. manus presse (1992). Bleu-Blanc-Rouge. Bilder. Malerei auf Papier. [Katalog]. Stuttgart: manus presse |
| Provenance | Estate of the artist |
Information about the condition
|
The Plastic is in a very good state of preservation Minimal surface marks and contamination. Loosely mounted on a base. |
Information about the artist
|
The painter Lambert Maria Wintersberger is considered one of the pioneers of German Pop Art. Together with Markus Lüpertz, Karl Horst Hödicke, Bernd Koberling and others, he founded the group Großgörschen 35 in Berlin. It is considered one of the first so-called 'producer galleries' and serverd as model for other to follow. Originally Lambert Maria Wintersberger came from southern Germany. He was born in Munich in 1941. His artistic career began in 1958 as a decorator, church and glass painter and mosaicist. In 1961, he attended the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence and completed his studies in Italy in 1964. Subsequently, Wintersberger moved to Berlin as a freelance artist, where he along with his colleagues founded the self-help gallery of Berlin artists, named after the Address Großgörschenstraße 35 in a former factory floor in Berlin-Schöneberg. The group Großgörschen 35 existed from 1964 to 1968. Wintersberger was honored in 1968 with the Burda Prize of Munich. In the same year he left Berlin and moved to Stuttgart. He received the prize for painting at the 6th Biennale of Youth in Paris the following year and moved to Cologne. But not much later, he moved on: 1971 to 1972 he continued his work in the USA. From 1974 to 1977 he returned to Germany and accepted a teaching assignment at the Art Academy in Düsseldorf. From 1980 to 1985 he went back to Stuttgart and ultimately to Walbourg in Alsace, where he settled down in the long term. In 1992 he was the winner of the Center Européen d ‘Actions Artistique Contemporaines in Strasbourg. Lambert Maria Wintersberger lived and worked until his death in 2013 in Walbourg (France) in an old train station, which he rebuilt as a residence and studio since 1985. |
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