Ohne Titel (Nest/ Frau gewesen). 1980-1983.
Oil, oil chalk, graphite and mechanical pen over black and white photograph.
With several monograms in lower margin as well as inscribed "Nest" and "Frau gewesen". On board. 59,6 x 50,3 cm (23,4 x 19,8 in), the full sheet. [KP].

We are grateful to Prof. Arnulf Rainer for his kind support in cataloging this lot.

PROVENANCE: Galerie Maeght Lelong, Zurich.
Christie's, New York, 22 February 1993, lot 230.
Art shop Lambert Tegenbosch, Heusden aan de Maas.
Private collection.

For the making of Arnulf Rainer's famous "Übermalungen", to which this work also belongs, " [..] the specific impulse that the work to be overpainted emanates is decisive; the blank spots that ask for corrections, the urge to make a good spot even better; the complex pleasure of committing a lustful murder of the picture. On the other hand the satisfaction of a creative desire through a new organic whole. The original is usually not visible any more, but it lives on as an important (and definitely not arbitrary) part of the final image, largely because it decisively controlled the process of overpainting" (transl. quote after Hermann Kern, Übersicht über die künstlerische Entwicklung Arnulf Rainers, in: Arnulf Rainer, ex. cat. Kunstverein in Hamburg, 1971, p. 3).