Gunther Forg
Painted on lead and copper, photographed modernist buildings, and left the grid deliberately unfinished.
Gunther Forg was born in Bavaria in 1952, studied in Munich, and worked across painting, photography, sculpture and architecture with a consistent scepticism about all four. He painted directly onto sheets of lead and copper mounted on wood, so the ground shows through and oxidises; he photographed the architecture of Italian rationalism and Bauhaus modernism in large, deliberately imperfect prints; and from the 1990s he made the grid and lattice paintings, and finally the loose Spot paintings of his last years, in which the mark is left frankly casual. He taught in Munich and Karlsruhe and died in 2013.
Forg's market grew sharply after his death and has attracted a corresponding forgery problem, particularly around the late Spot paintings, several of which have been the subject of public disputes. Provenance to a documented gallery source is essential rather than desirable. The lead and copper works have their own conservation issues, since the metal ground continues to react and the surface is not stable in the ordinary sense. Photographs exist in small editions and should be identified by edition and print date. The Estate of Gunther Forg is the authority.
If you own a work by Gunther Forg
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