Franz Grabmayr Sheaf 1989

Franz Grabmayr, born in 1927 in Pfaffenberg, Carinthia, started painting relatively late and began his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna in 1954 with Robin Christian Andersen and Herbert Boeckl. In the mid-1960s, he created his well-known sand pit paintings, later followed by the “Tanzblätter” (Dance Sheets). The area of the Waldviertel, where he spent the summer months working, served as a backdrop for his artworks. It was there that he found his motifs for his nature-inspired paintings, which included sand pits, sheaves, tree stumps, rock formations along the Kamp river, and last but not least, fire.
Characteristic of his oeuvre are the strongly pastose and very dynamic painting style of the artist. You wouldn’t find paint tubes or pre-mixed colors in his studio, as he bought pigments in 25-kilogram bags and mixed the colors himself in construction buckets. By adding linseed oil, he achieved a thick, almost honey-like consistency. His primary tools were a palette knife and only occasionally large brushes.
Grabmayr’s artworks could be both figurative and abstract. In this small-sized piece, the central motif of a sheaf is clearly recognizable, with the cheerful summer sky above. The surrounding nature is blended by Grabmayr into an almost poetic blur. The painting, in friendly yet powerful summer colors, epitomizes gestural color painting.