4 works on printed paper, oil paint
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
ARTIST ROOMS
National Heritage Memorial Fund
Art Fund
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/joseph-beuys-747" aria-label="More by Joseph Beuys" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Joseph Beuys</a>
ARTIST ROOMS
Acquired jointly with the National Galleries of Scotland through The d'Offay Donation with assistance from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the Art Fund 2008
abstract concepts
cross
defacement
emotions, concepts and ideas
energy
energy - positive and negative symbols
formal qualities
inscriptions
newspaper - non-specific
objects
reading, writing, printed matter
symbols and personifications
universal concepts
<p><span>Untitled</span> 1963–4 is a multi-part work by the German artist Joseph Beuys composed of four individual newspaper sections arranged in three picture frames. From left to right as installed, the first frame contains two newspapers folded in half one above the other; the middle frame contains one newspaper folded into a quarter page; while the third frame on the right displays a final newspaper in a flat, unfolded state. The disparate parts are united by the brown oil paint that has been applied on top of every surface, outlining various shapes and motifs and masking off portions of the newspaper text and images. This brown substance is Beuys’s Braunkreuz – a type of common, household oil paint first used by the artist in 1958, and which he named ‘Brown cross’ after the form on which he first experimented with the paint (Seymour 1983, p.21.). Its reddish-brown hue is reminiscent of rust, dried blood, and dirt, while the name evokes symbols associated with such far-ranging ideologies as Christianity, Nazism, and occultism. It features in many of Beuys’s drawings of the 1960s, from small interventions such as the triangle in <span>Play 17 </span>1963 (Tate AR00115) to grand painterly sweeps, for example the main element in the drawing <span>Felt Action </span>1963 (Tate AR00700). As the writer and curator Anne Seymour explains of Braunkreuz:</p>
paper unique 4 works printed oil paint
4 July 2009 – 27 September 2009
2009-09-27
4 July 2009 – 27 September 2009
2009-09-27
2009-07-04
De La Warr Pavilion (Bexhill on Sea, UK)
http://www.dlwp.com/
2009-07-04
ARTIST ROOMS 2009: Joseph Beuys
Loan-out
1 April 2010 – 27 September 2010
2010-09-27
1 April 2010 – 27 September 2010
2010-09-27
2010-04-01
Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery (Glasgow, UK)
http://www.hunterian.gla.ac.uk
2010-04-01
ARTIST ROOMS 2010: Joseph Beuys
Loan-out
Untitled
support (upper left): 292 × 407 mm
support (lower left): 296 × 408 mm
support (centre): 304 × 225 mm
support (right): 575 × 402 mm
frame (left): 764 × 565 × 35 mm
frame (centre): 767 × 562 × 36 mm
frame (right): 765 × 565 × 35 mm
<a href="/search?gid=999999788" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">ARTIST ROOMS</a>
Acquired jointly with the National Galleries of Scotland through The d'Offay Donation with assistance from the <a href="/search?gid=999999967" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">National Heritage Memorial Fund</a> and the <a href="/search?gid=999999968" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">Art Fund</a> 2008
<div class="text">
<p>
<i>Untitled</i> 1963–4 is a multi-part work by the German artist Joseph Beuys composed of four individual newspaper sections arranged in three picture frames. From left to right as installed, the first frame contains two newspapers folded in half one above the other; the middle frame contains one newspaper folded into a quarter page; while the third frame on the right displays a final newspaper in a flat, unfolded state. The disparate parts are united by the brown oil paint that has been applied on top of every surface, outlining various shapes and motifs and masking off portions of the newspaper text and images. This brown substance is Beuys’s Braunkreuz – a type of common, household oil paint first used by the artist in 1958, and which he named ‘Brown cross’ after the form on which he first experimented with the paint (Seymour 1983, p.21.). Its reddish-brown hue is reminiscent of rust, dried blood, and dirt, while the name evokes symbols associated with such far-ranging ideologies as Christianity, Nazism, and occultism. It features in many of Beuys’s drawings of the 1960s, from small interventions such as the triangle in <i>Play 17 </i>1963 (Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/beuys-play-17-ar00115" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>AR00115</span></a>) to grand painterly sweeps, for example the main element in the drawing <i>Felt Action </i>1963 (Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/beuys-felt-action-ar00700" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>AR00700</span></a>). As the writer and curator Anne Seymour explains of Braunkreuz: </p>
<p class="cttext">
</p><blockquote>Sometimes a colour may be chosen deliberately so as not to have any other connotations, especially with art … It has been used in drawings … mostly sculptural in large solid areas, more as substance than colour … The inference that this is very much a sculptor’s approach to working on paper is emphasised by the grounds Beuys uses for drawings and the way he incorporates collage or mounts several sheets together into a single image.<br/>(Seymour 1983, p.21.) </blockquote>
<p>Seymour’s description of a sculptural mode of drawing is especially appropriate for <i>Untitled</i>, where two-dimensional paper surfaces are enhanced by the folded weight and mass of the many unseen pages of newspaper behind the painted sheets that are presented to the viewer. Beuys’s interest in science, energy and politics is reflected in his careful selection of newspaper sections with resonant headlines, articles and photographs. In the left-hand frame, the top paper’s article refers to Brussels and the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom), while its Braunkreuz<i> </i>overpainted image resembles a primitive generator or battery, the brown form thereby linking thematically to the written content it partially obscures. The newspaper below it carries the headline ‘Conversation with Adenauer and Erhard’, which refers to Konrad Adenauer, the first Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, and Ludwig Erhard, who succeeded him in 1963, the year that this work was made. The painted form on this sheet appears to be an electrical transmitter or conductor with rods. </p>
<p>The central newspaper, folded to a quarter-page, is covered with a cross of Braunkreuz that quarters the page again and cancels out a portion of text and part of a black and white photograph. This obscured image is not readily discernible but could perhaps be an atom cloud, linking back to the first sheet’s Euratom content. The final, right-hand frame with its unfolded, full-page newspaper is covered almost entirely with Braunkreuz paint, leaving only the top visible to confirm its identity as the ‘Nature and Science’ section of the <i>Frankfurter Allegmeine Zeitung</i> and dated Tuesday 16 June 1964. In this section of the newspaper the headlines refer to metals and their transformation or conversion and deep-sea submersibles. There is also a cropped picture of machinery which could be one of these underwater probes.  </p>
<p>The curator Ann Temkin sees a clear historical precedent for the Braunkreuz newspaper works such as this one, claiming that:</p>
<p class="cttext">
</p><blockquote>Beuys was extending the Cubist collage tradition, which had been explored by Germans such as Kurt Schwitters and John Heartfield, whereby the ‘found’ photograph or text functions as a key component of the image in content as well as form. In Beuys’s case the photographs or texts often refer to scientific or ecological concerns, using clippings taken from sections of the <i>Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung</i>.<br/>(Temkin and Rose 1993, p.41.)</blockquote>
<p>Collage is central to many of Beuys’s drawings (see for example <i>Brightly-Lit Stag Chair</i> 1957–71, Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/beuys-brightly-lit-stag-chair-ar00697" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>AR00697</span></a>), while his sculpture of the early 1960s such as the large-scale, multi-part <i>Staghunt </i>1961 featured newspaper bundles tied with Braunkreuz-painted string crosses. The artist referred to these components as ‘batteries’, echoing the painted forms and newspaper headlines of <i>Untitled</i> 1963–4. Another Braunkreuz collage in ARTIST ROOMS is <i>Battery </i>1959 (Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/beuys-battery-ar00110" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>AR00110</span></a>). </p>
<p>
<b>Further reading</b>
<br/>Caroline Tisdall, <i>Joseph Beuys</i>, exhibition catalogue, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York 1979.<br/>Anne Seymour, ‘The Drawings of Joseph Beuys’, in <i>Joseph Beuys Drawings</i>, exhibition catalogue, City Art Galleries, Leeds 1983, pp.7–26.<br/>Ann Temkin and Bernice Rose (eds.), <i>Thinking is Form: The Drawings of Joseph Beuys</i>, exhibition catalogue, Philadelphia Museum of Art and The Museum of Modern Art, New York 1993, pp.38–41.</p>
<p>Stephanie Straine<br/>February 2011</p>
</div>

Summary
2012-06-22T00:00:00
summary
SHORT_TEXT
<p>Beuys used newspapers in several of his works of the 1960s, and they are often seen folded up or bundled together. He regarded newspapers as a reservoir of information, commenting; "If all that remained of our century was a pile of newspapers, you would still have an incredibly rich cross section of human activities and specialisations on record, a battery of ideas". In this work, the artist has made additions to newspaper using Braunkreuz paint, in one instance nearly covering the whole page. The brown cross seen in many of his drawings appears at the centre of the piece.</p>

Online caption
2009-04-16T00:00:00
online-caption
ONLINE_CAPTION
abstract concepts cross defacement emotions, concepts and ideas energy energy - positive and negative symbols formal qualities inscriptions newspaper - non-specific objects reading, writing, printed matter symbols and personifications universal concepts