Lot 609 D

"I seldom know what I want to paint, but that's irrelevant; if and how I complete what I started, that is decisive. I believe that no excess is good, neither tending towards the rational nor towards the emotional side. I consciously avoid being inhibited by a fixed idea. There are three states of my picture; the deceptive state of the seemingly finished picture, that of a destroyed picture, and the state that reaches the limits of my capacity; the last state can be the finished picture. Afterwards, it often confirms the accuracy of my starting point. It is the picture that lay waiting inside me, the landscape within myself, the figure. And the quality of the picture is the strength of the form, of the figure. Painting means realising." (Emil Schumacher 1962, in: Jürgen Schilling (ed.), Emil Schumacher, Gemälde und Werke auf Papier 1946 - 1990, exhib. cat., Kunstverein Wolfsburg, Wolfsburg 1990, p.32)