Color monotype (oil) on tracing paper, mounted on hardboard, 27,5 x 23,5 cm (image), 45 x 40,7 cm (frame). Provenance: Ex collection Giorgio Silzer. Reference: Niemann 197, Leistner 102. Exhibitions: Galerie Niemann, Berlin, „Novembergruppe“, 1993/1994, cat. no. 197. Kunstforum Ostdeutsche Galerie Regensburg, „Moriz Melzer. Werke von 1907 bis 1927“, 2007, cat.-no. 102.
Moriz Melzer, co-founder of the artists' association "Novembergruppe" devoted his oeuvre extensively to the technique of monotype, which he himself described as an "indirect painting process". Melzer used linoleum plates as a ground for the paint and then printed them onto Japanese paper, which in turn was laminated onto wooden panels or canvas. This did not stop at a first printed layer of color, but in a second work step contours were traced and entire areas were painted. The monotype is thus developed into a work with the character of a painting. The transparent paper basically allows two fully valid views, namely both the recto and the verso side (a possibility that Gauguin already included in the printing of his woodcuts). Further reworking sometimes results in several variants of an initial motif. While the majority of Melzer's monotypes are figurative in character, 1919/1920 is the period in which the artist intensively explores abstraction. At this time, in addition to a series of abstract, mostly monochrome linocuts, he also produced a small series of only eight entirely abstract color monotypes, including the present one.
