A former pupil of Joseph Beuys (1921-1986) at the Düsseldorf Kunstakademie, Imi Knoebel was very early on inspired by the abstract paintings of the early 20th century. He had a particular interest in Kazimir Malevich (1879-1935) and his works based on the “supremacy of pure feeling in figurative art”, as he put it. Knoebel then started to question the materiality of paintings as flat surfaces made up of colours and elementary forms. He often works in series, as in our gallery of Luxembourg portraits.

These icon-like creations are a commissioned series of ten portraits of women who have distinguished themselves in Luxembourg history or who are present in the collective memory of our country: the siren Melusine, the Virgin Mary, princess Amalia, Countess Yolanda of Vianden, Grand Duchess Regent Marie Anne, Countess Beatrice d’Avesnes, Mrs Aline Mayrisch de Saint-Hubert, Grand Duchess Charlotte, Countess Ermesinde and Empress Cunigunde.

Knoebel abolishes the boundary between painting and sculpture with works that through their volume and thickness stand out from the wall. Held together by large bolts, each portrait is an assemblage of five veneered wood boards that organize the space through the colours they project outside the painting. The technique accentuates this effect, playing with the transparency of the glazes or with impasto and brush marks.