Willi Baumeister
"modern art does not form according to nature, but like nature, parallel to nature". (W.B. 1949)
With his paintings, works on paper, stage sets, teaching and publications, Willi Baumeister is regarded as one of the most important representatives of German modernism. His goal was to make abstract art popular again after 1945, for which he earned much recognition, but also criticism. Even though he was primarily active in southern Germany, the exhibition "Willi Baumeister International" at the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart in 2013 showed that he cultivated a very lively exchange with fellow artists and theoreticians in Europe and the USA. His figurative early works, inspired by Impressionism, soon gave way to abstract, geometric works whose forms became increasingly softer and more organic from the end of the 1920s onwards. He was inspired by Paul Cezanne and archaic cave paintings.