The online collection and picture sale

Dated one year later, the painting The Architect's Tool is a good example of Lüpertz's complex language, able to create a fictitious reality with a personal abstract flavour. Here, objects, fragments or mutilated elements, concrete but without an equivalent in real world, float in a greenish space following an internal rhythm, vaguely mechanical. The consistency of the forms, underlined by the use of black colour, composes an enigmatic fossilized landscape displaying the architectonic remains of wooden columns and measuring instruments to which the title of the work refers.

After settling in the former Federal Republic of Germany with his family in 1948, Lüpertz began to work in the field of painting in the late 1960s. Taking Abstract Expressionism as his starting point he soon evolved towards more figurative principles, finding inspiration in different periods in the history of art. In this sense he has reinterpreted Mycenaean sculpture and the work of Poussin, Corot, Courbet, Picasso, Matisse, Ernst and Giacometti, among other artists. In line with other German artists of his generation, Lüpertz's oeuvre also reflects on the dramatic recent history of his home country. Since 1981 he has been combining work in the fields of painting and sculpture. [Marta García Maruri]

Selected bibliography

• Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao : guía. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2011. pp. 202-203, n° cat. 145b.
• Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa : gida. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2012. pp. 202-203, n° cat. 145b.
• Barañano, Kosme María de; Andrada Páez, Carolina. "La obra de Markus Lüpertz en la colección del Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao = The works of Markus Lüpertz in the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum collection = Markus Lüpertz lana Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoko bilduman", Buletina = Boletín = Bulletin, n° 7. 2013. pp. 214, 216-222, 304-308.
• Bilbao Fine Arts Museum : guide. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2014. pp. 202-203.
• Musée des Beaux Arts de Bilbao : guide. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2014. pp. 202-203.
• Barañano, Kosme María de. Markus Lüpertz 1963-2013 [Cat. exp.]. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2014. p. 108, n° cat. 34.