W. S3. 57 (steigend schwarz-weiß-blau)

The simple title black-white-blue—which is the immediate visual impression one gets of Fred Thieler’s oil painting—ultimately also provides an apposite description of the picture’s theme: color, and the application of paint as a creative process. On viewing the work, one can almost see the traces of Thieler’s broad brush, which he used to apply generous layers of paint to the canvas in expansive gestures, subsequently spreading it, structuring it, and organizing it into channels with a palette knife. As our eyes scan the picture surface, the discernible traces of the brushwork and the jerky movements of the palette knife provide us with an impression of the artist at work.

The process of painting is visible and the act of artistic creation is tangible. In comparison to later, considerably more expressive works which burst through the pictorial space, this painting appears structured. Nevertheless, it is an early example of Art Informel in which the spontaneous gesture of the artist determines the picture’s appearance. This new individual quality prompted Thieler to describe such paintings as “positional signs”—meaning isolated, individual “tracks on the paths of humanity.”