Lot 263 D

In 1951 the Nordwestdeutsche Rundfunk (now known as WDR) organised a competition for the artistic decoration of the exterior windows in the main staircase of the new Funkhaus building in Cologne. Georg Meistermann emerged as the winner of this competition and, in 1952, he realised a spectacular stained-glass window (comp. illus. online) - extending across four storeys, it would lead to Meistermann's international breakthrough as an artist working in stained glass.
The sample window offered here represents his only original competition design in glass. In a formal idiom typical of that period's abstraction and based on Art Informel, Meistermann deals with the central functions of the new Funkhaus - transmission and reception - and visualises its sound waves with the help of a dynamic network of lines featuring superimposed areas of colour whose biomorphic forms and luminous tonalities display an affinity to Joan Miró.
Meistermann's stained-glass window can be understood as a vivid distillation of his artistic efforts at that time. “In an age that has recognised the universe as a cosmos hurled from its centre, in which space is defined as a thing in motion - to which time is bound, as is time to space - the artistic metaphor is: movement.” (cited in: exhib. cat. Solingen/Bayreuth/Linnich 2011/2012, op. cit., p. 29).
Meistermann would already present the stained-glass window offered here in 1952 at the annual exhibition of the Deutscher Künstlerbund. As an extraordinary example for the possibilities of modern glass art, this window has since been shown at numerous other German and international exhibitions.