Lot 138 D

„Marcia Hafif seems always to have been 'in search of the neutral'. This does not mean an emphasis on neutrality in the finished painting. Instead, she tries to keep everything neutral and avoid the spectacular in the source, the sizes, the standard measurements of the stretchers, the paint and the color. In her paintings as in her drawings she deals with differentiations and gradiations of colors. In contrast to the ‚search for the neutral' colors become her material. She collects colors everywhere with great enthusiasm, colors whose names tell stories, such as ‚mandarin yellow', 'peach parfait', ‚ivory black'. They also lend titles to her works. In her studies she documents meticulously her search from the beginning to the final appearance of the layererd color on its surface. In this process color is actually searched out and discovered so as to be presented in an individual texture, developed out of the dimension of time in painting and the gesture of the brush“. (Ulrike Schuck, Malerei und Farbe, in: Marcia Hafif, Erik Saxon, exhib.cat. Museum Moderner Kunst Landkreis Cuxhaven, Bremerhaven 1994, p.6)