Max H. Mahlmann (1912-2000) - Minimalist composition

Max H. Mahlmann: Composition, from the portfolio La Lune en Rodage III

Original silkscreen print on cardboard, published by Edition Panderma, Carl Laszlo, Basel, in the third volume of La Lune en Rodage (1977). Hand-signed and dated 1966 by the artist. From the edition of 230; in addition, 65 hors commerce copies were issued unnumbered. [Numbered XX/230 or unnumbered — prüfen]

Dimensions: 28 × 28 cm.

In mint archival condition. Please note: the framed photograph shows a framing suggestion only. No frame is included.

The work dates from a decisive phase in Mahlmann’s practice. During the 1960s he developed a methodical basis for his geometric compositions: superimposed structures built on underlying grids, which led in 1968 to what he called “programmed designs”. He understood these as a further development of Constructivism, a way of making pictures according to rules he set in advance. From 1970, networks of coordinates governed his grid structures, and colour was assigned according to theoretical principles rather than by eye.

La Lune en Rodage is the three-volume portfolio assembled by the Basel publisher, psychoanalyst and collector Carl Laszlo (Pécs 1923 – Basel 2013). It was published by Edition Panderma in 1960, 1965 and 1977 and contains approximately 180 original works, an account of the European avant-garde between the 1950s and the 1970s. Its contributors include Lucio Fontana, Piero Manzoni, Enrico Castellani, Heinz Mack, Otto Piene, Meret Oppenheim, Bruno Munari, Hans Arp and Victor Vasarely. Several contributions mark turning points in the artists’ careers. Castellani’s sheet is considered his first documented graphic work, and Manzoni’s Achrome is the only multiple he produced.

Max Hermann Mahlmann (Hamburg 1912 – Wedel 2000) was a German Constructivist painter. He studied from 1934 to 1938 under Richard Müller at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts and first worked as a stage painter and commercial artist. After 1945 he turned to non-objective painting, shaped by the example of Wassily Kandinsky and Josef Albers. In 1949 he committed himself to Constructivism, and about ten years later he made his first white reliefs. From 1958 to 1977 he taught at the Fachhochschule für Gestaltung in Hamburg, where he gathered a circle of students around him. He was a member of the Deutscher Künstlerbund. With his wife, the painter Gudrun Piper, he received the Edwin Scharff Prize of the City of Hamburg (1986), the Federal Cross of Merit (1995) and the Biermann-Ratjen Medal (1997). His works are held in the Museum für Konkrete Kunst, Ingolstadt; the Museum gegenstandsfreier Kunst, Otterndorf; and the Collection of Contemporary Art of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Provenance: Edition Panderma, Carl Laszlo, Basel; private collection, Basel.