Comb, Pastel and Buttermilk. Willi Baumeister, Adolf Hölzel and Fritz Seitz

The artist Willi Baumeister (1889–1955) also regarded himself as a craftsman. He experimented with diverse materials and techniques. Using a steel comb, he ploughed the background or the surface of the so-called comb pictures. He covered black areas, which already appeared in his early works, temporarily with buttermilk, thus creating a matt colour effect. Entire work series are characterised by sand and putty.

Baumeisters rarely presented pastel drawings entered into a dialogue with works by his teacher Adolf Hölzel (1853–1934) and by his student Fritz Seitz (1926–2017). The Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Stuttgart, where Baumeister studied and worked as a Professor, participated in the exhibition with research and studies of painting and material techniques.