Joseph Beuys

Online caption

Beuys was an accomplished watercolourist who had painted since childhood. Made in watercolour and tempera, the torn piece of paper used for this work suggests it was made on any material which came to hand, as impulse struck the artist. Although the subject of this work is unclear, it would have been made to capture a particular idea, which may have reappeared in the artist's later work. For Beuys, the look of the drawing was not important and does not indicate the significance of the work to the artist.

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