page_title: Karl Otto Götz
section_title: Early career
hierarchical_section_title: Karl Otto Götz / Career / Early career
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: K. O. Götz, Bagatelle II, 1962, Mischtechnik auf Leinen, 100 x 380 cm
context_page_description: Karl Otto Götz often simply called K.O. Götz, was a German artist, filmmaker, draughtsman, printmaker, writer and professor of art at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. He was one of the oldest living and active artists older than 100 years of age and is known for his explosive and complex abstract forms. His powerful, surrealist-inspired works earned him international recognition in exhibitions like documenta II in 1959. Götz never confined himself to one specific style or artistic field. He also explored generated abstract forms through television art. Götz is one of the most important members of the German Art Informel movement. His works and teachings influenced future artists such as Sigmar Polke, Nam June Paik and Gerhard Richter. He lived in Wolfenacker from 1975 until his death.
context_section_description: Götz's early post-War work included extensive experimentation with techniques and imagery in prints and drawings that included drawings made using an airpump. He produced woodcuts and watercolours that featured fantastical plant forms and creatures, among them a series of monotype prints of bird-humans. During the late 1940s he continued to producing abstract-figurative monotypes and surrealistic experimental photo works, but his painting became predominantly abstract.
  In 1946 he began experimenting with solarization, a process similar to photograms. Gӧtz had his first one-man show in 1947. Two years later in 1949, Gӧtz completely moved away from figurative art altogether. That same year he became the first German to join the European avant-garde movement COBRA. COBRA was an avant-garde movement based in Europe and was active from 1948-51. This group, though together very briefly, put together a series of publications and exhibitions. The work of the COBRA group contributed to the emergence of Art Informel in the period after 1950 as a “universal language” for European artists involved in the development of European abstract expressionism and Tachisme.
  In 1952, Gӧtz co-founded the Frankfurt QUADRIGA along with Otto Gries, Heinz Kreutz, and Bernard Schultze. The members in QUADRIGA were pioneers of Art Informel in Germany. These were a group of artists painting in a Tachist style influenced by Wols and Automatism.  During the group's brief existence, before the divergence of its loosely associated members' artistic development led to its dissolution in 1954, Quadriga played an important pioneer role in introducing Art informel to Germany  From then on, he became a leading figure in the German Art Informal and was showcased in major shows such as the Venice Biennale of 1958 and Documenta II exhibition in Kassel in 1959. That year, he was appointed professor of art at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf.
  As Götz moved away from clearly defined forms, his approach to painting became more dynamic. In a technique Götz has continued to use throughout his later painting career, the image is developed through a lengthy, intense process, often involving a large number of preliminary sketches and gouaches.  Once the preparation is complete, the artist applies dark paint onto a light background with a paintbrush, working in a fast and focused way.  The paint is then “raked” - partially removed using a type of spatula known as a “rake” - before the contrast between the light and dark areas of the still-moist surface is softened using a dry paintbrush.
caption: K. O. Götz, Bagatelle II, 1962
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