Ev Grüger (1928–2017), ), Interior with Chair and Geometric Figures, c. 1958

Ev Grüger(1928 Altenburg - 2017 Hofheim), Interior with Chair and Geometric Figures , circa 1958. Oil on canvas, 70 cm x 67 cm, unframed, signed “Grü[ger]” lower right.

- In good condition

- The musicality of forms -

After World War II brought progressive artistic creation to a standstill, the early 1950s were a period of new beginnings. As a master student of Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Ev Grüger revitalized the ideas of Die Brücke and carried them into the post-war period.

Next to a chair stands a column-like pedestal on which a cuboid, a cylinder, and a sphere are placed. Displayed on the column-like pedestal, which itself appears as a form, they emerge as autonomous forms and form an internal still life within the overall ensemble. The geometric shapes merge with the colored areas of the background, which represent the pictorial elements. The geometric shapes are complemented by the backrest of the chair, reminiscent of the sides of a string instrument, which lends the shapes a musicality, while the isolated bright colors initiate a pictorial rhythm.

About the artist

Ev Grüger attended the Master School for the Textile Industry in Plauen from 1942 to 1944, which closed in 1944. Until the end of World War II, she worked in an armaments factory. She then studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Weimar under Otto Herbig and Hans van Breek until 1949. In 1951, she left the GDR and continued her studies until 1957 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin, where her teachers included Hans Uhlmann, Kurt-Hermann Kühn, and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, whose master student she became. In 1958, Grüger moved to Hofheim, where she worked as a freelance artist. Since then, her works have been shown in numerous solo exhibitions in Germany and abroad.