Egon Karl Nicolaus

While the early pictures by Egon Karl Nicolaus (1928 – 1988) still refer to Bauhaus, with his stay in Paris from 1958 onward, Tachism becomes the inspiration-giving style. With the beginning 1960s, the number becomes his all-encompassing pictorial theme, which he painted in various ways and stylistically interpreted until his death and which has become an unmistakable identifying feature of his artistic output. While, initially, isolated figures or number fragments appear at the visual heart of his pictures, in his late oeuvre Nicolaus absolutely also developed a monumentality that bursts pictorial boundaries in gleaming colors.

Comprising numerous color illustrations, the publication documents the comprehensive oeuvre of Egon Karl Nicolaus from three decades and explains the artist’s astounding diversity and consistency in dealing with his central motif.