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1929 - Vienna - 2008
- Title
- „Bild mit Rosa“ („Picture with Pink“)
- Time
- 1971-81
- signed
- lower right: "M 71-81" and titled
- Technique
- oil on canvas
- Measurements
- 43¼×31½ in
Josef Mikl is considered one of the most important pioneers of abstract painting in Austria. However, the artist himself always saw himself as a painter of representational motifs, as he worked with abstract but nevertheless concrete subjects, preferably the human body.
The tube – straight, curved or bent – was already one of his most important motifs in his early work. With the help of these cylindrical forms, Mikl reduced the human body to its basic shapes and analyzed the essence of the figurative.
The present painting from the early creative phase of the 1970s and 1980s also features such tubular elements. With gestural brushstrokes in bold colors, Mikl created a work of great dynamism as well as compositional balance. Mikl worked on this work repeatedly over the course of an entire decade (from 1971 to 1981). The painting features the artist’s typical colors of the 1970s and 1980s: a rich yellow and a delicate pink, which combines with the shades of grey painted on top to create a smoky violet. The central tubular motif is surrounded by a fine aura of white background, which emphasizes it and makes it shine like indirect lighting.