Stark, Gustl (1917-2009), Small Nude, 1946

Gustl Stark(1917 Mainz - 2009 ibid.), Small Nude , 1946. Oil on canvas, marouflaged, 54 x 25 cm (picture), 30 x 60 cm (frame), signed "Stark" top left, verso twice signed "Gustav Stark", inscribed by hand as "Small Nude" and dated by hand "1946". With label of the exhibition of the Bundeshaus Bonn from 1956.

- Rubbed area in the lower third of the body, at the same level a retouch in the ochre background. I provisional frame.

Exposé as PDF

- Abstract Figurativity-

During the war, Gustl Stark suffered a particularly severe blow for an artist: he lost his right arm. Nevertheless, he continued to devote himself to art, and the painting, created in 1946, immediately after the end of the Nazi reign of terror, testifies to the dawn of a new era. At the same time, the work is a rare example of the artist's early figurative work, as Stark turned entirely to abstract painting as early as 1950. And even this painting is by no means purely figurative; rather, it already illustrates Stark's turn toward abstraction.

We see a female nude, but one that remains faceless. This can be read symbolically and in relation to the immediate past epoch, which, in the face of horrors, silences and blinds - literally renders faceless. In this sense, the figure is positioned to 'look back'. But she does not look. While this meaning may resonate and make the painting an important work of the immediate postwar period, Gustl Stark is primarily concerned with something else here, namely art itself. The absence of the face leads to the body becoming something flat. Due to the de-individualization, we do not see a concrete person with his individual features, but a body surface. And indeed, the body is constructed through an extremely planar design. Even the contour lines that form the corporeality have a planar rather than a linear character, especially where they merge into shadow zones of almost the same color. And the surfaces themselves are not modeled. The incarnate parts do not show any plastic gradations; the corporeality is completely withdrawn into the plane, which is also true for the hair. In addition, there is no uniform background against which the figure could appear; rather, the area next to the hair is kept bluish, creating a succession of earth-toned colored areas, which again binds the figure to the surface.

Last but not least, the flatness is also forced by the painting technique. Gustl Stark paints directly, a la prima, onto the coarse canvas, whereby the structure of the painting support remains visible in the picture, and in places - around the hair, for example - the canvas itself can be seen. This structural all-over lends the picture a certain flatness.

Gustl Stark thus uses the very motif that stands for the corporeality of art par excellence - the female nude - to transform the spatiality of the traditional picture into a flatness characteristic of modern art. And yet, a strong impression of corporeality is created, without being produced by a painterly modeling of the body. The oscillation between flatness and corporeality creates the intense tension of this groundbreaking painting.

In Gustl Stark's oeuvre, as a consequence of the abstraction we see here, the figurative is completely stripped away in a further step, which is also a loss when looking at this early key work.

About the artist

Gustl Stark was the son of a woodcarver and, after an apprenticeship as a decorative painter, attended the State School of Arts and Crafts in Mainz from 1936 to 1937. Although he was severely wounded in the war and lost his right arm, he studied at the Würzburg School of Painting and Drawing from 1943-1944 and then at the Academy of Fine Arts in Nuremberg from 1944-1948.

He won a state scholarship at the state art competition in Bad Ischl. Numerous study trips to Sylt, Paris, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Holland and Belgium followed.

Gustl Stark worked in Mainz and was the first artist there to focus on abstract painting. His work quickly gained international recognition, including the Salon Réaliés Nouvelles in Paris.

From 1963-1970 he taught at the State University Institute for Art and Work Education in Mainz and from 1970-1975 at the Johannes Gutenberg University. Gustl Stark became particularly famous for his color embossed prints, for which he invented his own technique.

Gustl Stark received numerous awards for his work. He received the Art Prize for Painting of the City of Mainz in 1962, the State Prize of Rhineland-Palatinate in 1984, and the Gutenberg Bust of the City of Mainz in 1987.

Selected Bibliography

Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler des XX. Jahrhunderts, Vierter Band, Leipzig 1958, S. 344.

Hans H. Hofstätter: Das malerische Werk Gustl Starks (= Kleine Schriften der Gesellschaft für bildende Kunst Mainz), Mainz 1962.

Wolfgang Venzmer: Zu Gustl Starks Prägetiefdrucken, Mainz 1982.

Gustl Stark: Prägetiefdrucke. Werkverzeichnis 1966-1990, Mainz 2003.