Lithograph on paper
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/willi-baumeister-705" aria-label="More by Willi Baumeister" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Willi Baumeister</a>
Suspended Lines I
Transferred from the Library 1987
abstraction
chance
emotions, concepts and ideas
formal qualities
gestural
non-representational
paper print lithograph
4 October 2008 – 11 January 2009
2009-01-11
4 October 2008 – 11 January 2009
2009-01-11
2008-10-04
Tate St Ives (St Ives, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/stives/
2008-10-04
Heimo Zobernig and the Tate Collection
Exhibition
Untitled (Suspended Lines I)
image: 260 × 208 mm
Transferred from the Library 1987
<p><a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/baumeister-untitled-suspended-lines-i-p08214" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P08214</span></a> <b>Untitled (Suspended Lines I)</b> 1953
<br/>
<br/>Ohne Titel (Linien schwebend I)
<br/>Lithograph 260 × 208 (10 1/4 × 8 1/8) on wove paper, same size; printed by Erich Mönch; inset in Edouard Jaguer (ed.), <i>Phases</i>, vol.1, published by Paul Facchetti, Paris, 1954; not separately editioned
<br/>Printed inscription ‘Baumeister 53’ b.r.
<br/>Transferred from the Library 1987
<br/><i>Lit:</i> Heinz Spielmann, <i>Willi Baumeister: Das graphische Werk</i>, Hamburg 1972, p.152, no.180, repr.</p>
<p><span>P08214</span> is an <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/a/abstract-art" title="Glossary definition for 'Abstract art'"><span>abstract</span></a> image composed of mainly horizontal, but also vertical and diagonal lines of varying thickness, density and length, printed in black on white <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/paper" title="Glossary definition for 'Paper'"><span>paper</span></a>. It belongs to a group of four <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/l/lithography" title="Glossary definition for 'Lithography'"><span>lithographs</span></a> and nine <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/painting" title="Glossary definition for 'Painting'"><span>paintings</span></a> made between 1951 and 1953. All consist of loose clusters of freely-drawn, non-descriptive lines. The four lithographs are illustrated in Spielmann 1972, pp.152–3, nos.179–81. The related paintings are reproduced in Will Grohmann's catalogue raisonné, <i>Willi Baumeister: Life and Work</i>, 1966, pp.328–9, nos.1369–77. P 08214 is closest in <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/composition" title="Glossary definition for 'Composition'"><span>composition</span></a> to the painting ‘Suspended Lines II’, 1953 (repr. ibid., p.328, no.1370). Grohmann grouped the nine paintings under the heading ‘Line Worlds 1950–1955’, <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/d/drawing" title="Glossary definition for 'Drawing'"><span>drawing</span></a> attention to the relationship between these line paintings of the early 1950s and a group of line paintings Baumeister made between 1940 and 1942 (repr. Grohmann 1966, p.291, nos.607–26).</p>
<p>The emphasis on abstract line in <span>P08214</span> and in the related paintings and <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/print" title="Glossary definition for 'Print'"><span>prints</span></a> is untypical of Baumeister's work, which after the early 1930s consisted primarily of <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/b/biomorphic" title="Glossary definition for 'Biomorphic'"><span>biomorphic</span></a> forms and figures with free-floating, shaded or coloured, areas. Grohmann (ibid., p.122) interpreted Baumeister's ‘Line World’ works in the following manner;</p>
<p>They are printlike paintings in black and white or colours, which with the utmost economy but unbelievable sensibility render the imponderable quality of a philosphical attitude or the echo of an intellectual adventure. The painters of the Sung period used to meditate on the tao before starting to work; Baumeister meditated on the mystery of a profound experience before taking a brush in hand. Even his friends could not understand his pictures when he was painting them; today we see them as pointers to life's last chapter.</p>
<p>Baumeister made prints from about 1919 until his death. In the last five years of his life, his lithographic production was outnumbered by serigraphs, a technique he first used in 1950. Between 1950 and 1955 he made a total of fifty-eight serigraphs, compared to twenty-nine lithographs and four <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/e/etching" title="Glossary definition for 'Etching'"><span>etchings</span></a>. Baumeister collaborated with the printmaker Erich Mönch, a lecturer in lithographic techniques at the <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/a/academy" title="Glossary definition for 'Academy'"><span>Academy</span></a> of Fine Arts in Stuttgart, on the lithographs he made after 1951, including <span>P08214</span> (see Spielmann 1972, p.114). With the exception of three lithographs printed in Paris, all of Baumeister's post-1952 lithographs were made in his home town of Stuttgart. Most, including <span>P08214</span>, were made using transfer lithographic paper. <span>P08214</span> was originally inserted in the first issue of the periodical <i>Phases</i>, published in 1954, along with a lithograph by Karl Otto Götz (see entry on <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/gotz-untitled-p08216" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P08216</span></a>). <i>Phases</i> was a journal dedicated to new art and literature and frequently included coverage of the postwar generation of German <i>informel</i> artists, such as Buchheister, Greis, Schultze and Götz, as well as older artists such as Baumeister. Karl Otto Götz, who had known Baumeister since the late 1940s, was the journal's German correspondant and it is probable that Baumeister's contribution to the first issue of <i>Phases</i> was suggested by him. The compiler has been unable to confirm why this particular print was selected for inclusion in <i>Phases</i> and, as far as the compiler could ascertain, <span>P08214</span> was the only print by Baumeister to be inserted in the journal.</p>
<p><b>Published in:</b>
<br/><i>Tate Gallery: Illustrated Catalogue of Acquisitions</i> <i>1986-88</i>, London 1996
<br/></p>

Catalogue entry
2004-10-13T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
abstraction chance emotions, concepts and ideas formal qualities gestural non-representational