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Lot Essay
"Palermo left behind a surprisingly prolific oeuvre in his short career. That oeuvre is evidence of an artist with both sensitivity and restraint; someone who had a simple talent for bringing out the inherent beauty of materials, and for taking the best ideas of his time and making them his own." (Phillip Barcio)
Blinky Palermo (1943-1977) was born Peter Schwarze in Leipzig, Germany. He adopted his eccentric name during his studies with Joseph Beuys at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf between 1962 and 1967, where he was friends with Gerhard Richter, Imi Knoebel and Sigmar Polke.. The name refers to Frank "Blinky" Palermo, an American Mafioso and boxing promoter who managed Sonny Liston. Palermo is known for his minimalist paintings and installations. His work was deeply influenced by the minimalist and geometric art movements of the 1960s, and he sought to explore the relationships between color, form, and space in his art.
Palermo is one of the most important artists to have emerged in Germany in the 1960s. He was particularly fascinated by New York abstraction and spent time in the city in the mid-1970s before returning to Düsseldorf to paint his magnus opus, To the People of New York City, 1976 (Dia Art Foundation, New York). His work has gained more and more attention since his death in 1977 and retrospectives in Düsseldorf and in Los Angeles have cemented his reputation as one of the key figures in art of the post-war period.
Palermo's work often consists of simple geometric shapes, such as rectangles or squares, arranged in a grid-like pattern. He used a limited color palette and carefully controlled the application of his materials to create precise and uniform surfaces. Palermo worked with a variety of materials, including canvas, paper, and metal, and he frequently experimented with unconventional materials like neon and Plexiglas.
His work in the graphic medium is small in number, totaling 37 works, and is focused on the planographic techniques, including foil embossing, lithography, color offset, and silkscreen. In contrast to his unique works they are relatively small in scale too. Like his contemporaries, Palermo devoted a lot of attention and care to these editions. Many were published by his galleries, such as René Block and Heiner Friedrich, and others were made on the occasion of exhibitions at venues across Germany, such as the Stadtisches Museum Mönchengladbach, and the Kabinett fur aktuelle Kunst in Bremerhaven, or for the friends of museums including the Düsseldorfer Kunstverein.
The present collection comprises one of the largest groups to have come on the market for many years.
Blinky Palermo (1943-1977) was born Peter Schwarze in Leipzig, Germany. He adopted his eccentric name during his studies with Joseph Beuys at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf between 1962 and 1967, where he was friends with Gerhard Richter, Imi Knoebel and Sigmar Polke.. The name refers to Frank "Blinky" Palermo, an American Mafioso and boxing promoter who managed Sonny Liston. Palermo is known for his minimalist paintings and installations. His work was deeply influenced by the minimalist and geometric art movements of the 1960s, and he sought to explore the relationships between color, form, and space in his art.
Palermo is one of the most important artists to have emerged in Germany in the 1960s. He was particularly fascinated by New York abstraction and spent time in the city in the mid-1970s before returning to Düsseldorf to paint his magnus opus, To the People of New York City, 1976 (Dia Art Foundation, New York). His work has gained more and more attention since his death in 1977 and retrospectives in Düsseldorf and in Los Angeles have cemented his reputation as one of the key figures in art of the post-war period.
Palermo's work often consists of simple geometric shapes, such as rectangles or squares, arranged in a grid-like pattern. He used a limited color palette and carefully controlled the application of his materials to create precise and uniform surfaces. Palermo worked with a variety of materials, including canvas, paper, and metal, and he frequently experimented with unconventional materials like neon and Plexiglas.
His work in the graphic medium is small in number, totaling 37 works, and is focused on the planographic techniques, including foil embossing, lithography, color offset, and silkscreen. In contrast to his unique works they are relatively small in scale too. Like his contemporaries, Palermo devoted a lot of attention and care to these editions. Many were published by his galleries, such as René Block and Heiner Friedrich, and others were made on the occasion of exhibitions at venues across Germany, such as the Stadtisches Museum Mönchengladbach, and the Kabinett fur aktuelle Kunst in Bremerhaven, or for the friends of museums including the Düsseldorfer Kunstverein.
The present collection comprises one of the largest groups to have come on the market for many years.