Lot 749 D

His first dot picture was created in 1954 whilst at the College of Art in Ulm, where the Brazilian Almir Mavignier studied from 1953 to 1958. These coloured dots sculptured on the picture surface would become the dominant theme in his art, the various possibilities of which he would continually draw on.
"Dots initially feature in my pictures in order to achieve gradients of colour in painting - through the sheer optical mixing of colors and no longer as a result of mixing the pigments. By concentrating progressively on the dot, the problem of color gradient was resolved. At the same time however, a new relationship between colour and light arose from the resulting dot structure, through the relief-art of this structure. […] the innate three-dimensionality of each dot gives the whole structure a light and a shadow side. This play of light generates an optical blending of colour and light and shadow, the impact of each one altering when the direction or intensity of light is changed." (Almir Mavignier, in: Almir Mavignier, exhib.cat. Galerie Denise René/Hans Mayer, Düsseldorf 1973, n.pag.)
Whilst in his later period he worked a lot with colour, Mavignier's early works from the 1950s and 1960s mostly feature a black background which particularly emphasized the luminosity and plasticity of the pure colour dots causing them to vibrate.