art book cologne GmbH & Co. KG
Deutzer Freiheit 107
50679 Köln
Germany
Opening hours (office and showroom):
Monday to Friday 8 – 17
info@artbookcologne.de
Phone: +49 221 800 80 80
Fax: +49 221 800 80 82
art book cologne, founded by Bernd Detsch in 1997, is a wholesale company and specializes in buying and selling high quality publications in art, art theory, architecture, design, photography, illustrated cultural history and all related subjects internationally. Our team includes specialists in art, culture, music, book trade and media but in spite of our diversity we have one common ground: the enthusiasm for unique art books.
We purchase remaining stocks from museums, publishers and art institutions. We sell these remainders to bookstores, museum shops, and art dealers all over the world.
Editor | Stephan Kunz, Dagmar Streckel |
Publisher | Scheidegger & Spiess |
Year | 2012 |
Cover | Paperback with flaps |
Language | German, English |
ISBN | 978-3-85881-364-0 |
Pages | 160 |
Weight | 514 g |
More | |
Contributors | Daniel Spoerri, Carlheinz Caspari |
Article ID | art-60392 |
André Thomkins (1930–85) was a renowned draughtsman, painter, and word artist, who combined a classic mastery of artistic media with a sense of whimsy and experimentation influenced by both surrealism and Dadaism.
In the 1950s, Thomkins created what he called “Lackskins” by applying gloss paint to water. In a method similar to marbling paper, Thomkins would then use paper to pick up the abstract pattern of the paint on the surface of the water. He discovered this new approach to painting after he observed that glossy paint left a film of color on the surface of the water as he washed his paintbrushes. With great care and genuine curiosity Thomkins manipulated the color on the top of the water, and created what he described as “something planetary, very light, and fluctuating.” Each piece combines the calculation of a watchful artist with the spontaneity of water in motion, resulting in works that are intoxicating but distant, colorful but unknowable. These pieces foreshadowed the later chromatic abstract paintings of younger generations.