Lot 614 D

The present work served as a printer's proof for "Graue Scheibe, blaues Dreieck" and "4 Prototypen" resp., cf. Jahn 5 and 7.

At the beginning of the print-graphic work Fred Jahn explains: ''In the summer of 1970 I had a long discussion with Palermo about print-graphic, in which I tried to dispel two fundamental misgivings: firstly, Palermo had problems with the blue triangle from 1966 that the printer, which had hitherto never managed, had made from a gouache. The attempt to reproduce the structure of the gouache brought about a result which Palermo could not have had in mind. He was disappointed and had decided once and for all that printing was not for him.
Secondly, in 1970 the entire graphic market broke under a glut of pop and op-art of all varieties. It was generally said that one couldn't make any more graphics. At that time I had intended to work against this trend with an edition programme and I tried to pursuade the artists to go back to work in the printers again themselves and to produce designs that did justice to the medium, or ideally actually originated from the medium.
Weeks later, Palermo had developed a prototype portfolio which addressed the perennial, virtually standardised figures of his oeuvre. The screen print seemed to us both to be the only, most suitable, graphic technique which could achieve an absolutely homogeneous, closed surface. The result fascainated us so much that we decided, despite commercial failure, to continue working.'' (Fred Jahn (ed.), Palermo, Die gesamte Grafik und Auflagenobjekte 1966 bis 1975, p.8).

It was only his encounter with the printer Helmut Laube in 1970 that led to a recommencement of the work with print-graphic processes. This cooperation resulted in the test print (lot 611) as well as the double page variations (lots 612 and 613). The original drafts of these colour serigraphs are also available with lots 614, 615 and 616.
All works are from the direct provenance of the printer Helmut Laube. Brought together, they document a key moment in the artist's work which had a decisive influence on his further print-graphic oeuvre.

''As Fred Jahn has related, he distrusted the technique and hesitated to give the responsibility up to a printer. However, Jahn became acquainted with the serigraphic studio Laube and the graphic printers Dunkes, which quickly resulted in a very fruitful collaboration. Alongside the lithograph and foil relief print, it was screen printing in particular which complied with Palermo's artistic expectations as it could create homogeneous planes with the help of rich, opaque colours. In 1970 and 1971 alone, the Gallery Heiner Friedrich published six abstract screen prints as single sheets and three screen print portfolio with two to four sheets in manageable editions, clearly showing how much the gallery, and in this case Fred Jahn, supported and encouraged the work of the artist. Even when these editions in Palermo's oeuvre are closely connected in motif to the one-off prints, the print-graphic process became for him, formally and conceptually, an important artistic medium with independant expressive qualities.'' (Hubertus Butin, Anmerkungen zur Kunst und Karriere Blinky Palermos, in: Zentralarchiv des internationalen Kunsthandels Zadik (ed.), Sediment, Blinky Palermo, Cologne 2008, p.23).