Robert Michel 3 Arrow image 1968 Gouache, tempera,... Lot 21

Robert Michel 3 Arrow image 1968 Gouache, tempera, black and colored inks, photo overdrawn, partly sprayed with aluminum paint and collaged, mounted on blue cardboard "Elanta" and hemp board. 45.8 x 40 cm. In frame made by the artist, glued on the front and back with black cloth tape. Marked with the artist's signature 'RM' in white on the lower left margin, titled and dated 'Foco-oz : 68 "3 Arrow Image"'. Signed, dated, titled and inscribed in black and red ink on the reverse 'R. Michel 1968 GERMANY WEST 3 arrow image Nevertheless i collage made in foco-OZ technique and ALU spray and mounted on "Elanta" + hemp plate', with the dimensions and stamped "Heimatmuseum of Modern Art SCHMELZ near 6239 GERMANY". Provenance Estate of the artist; Deposit in the Sprengel Museum, Inv. No. D1528 (label on the reverse), Hanover, from 1988 to 2021; Private property France. Exhibitions Hannover/Karlsruhe/Frankfurt a.M. 1989 (Sprengel-Museum/Badischer Kunstverein/Kunstverein), Robert Michel 1897-1983, cat. P. 104, no ill. The resale right does not apply to this work. With scientific precision, the materials used are usually noted on the reverse - which reads as complicatedly as the protocol of an experimental arrangement or as a construction manual. Thus, front and back together with the self-made frame form a total work of art, as in our case. Like cogs of a clockwork, individual parts run into each other and set the machinery in motion. Robert Michel developed this motif while processing his experiences in World War I, which he survived injured as an airman. "Michel is obsessed with the phenomenon of dynamics inherent in 'real' machines or engines, which he seeks to translate into abstract rhythms. Into them he also incorporates already concrete materials that give the images an unreal reality content." (Herta Wescher, in: Ausst. Kat. Galerie Bargera, Cologne 1974, o. p.). The artist retained this type of picture in the following decades.