Herbert Zangs valuation
Painted everything white — brooms, telephones, newspapers, whole objects — years before it was fashionable.
Herbert Zangs was born in Krefeld in 1924, served in the German army and was a prisoner of war, and returned to study under Otto Pankok in Dusseldorf alongside Beuys.
What a work by Herbert Zangs is worth
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Bio
Herbert Zangs was born in Krefeld in 1924, served in the German army and was a prisoner of war, and returned to study under Otto Pankok in Dusseldorf alongside Beuys. From the early 1950s he made the Verweissungen — whitenings — in which objects, newspapers, brooms, window frames and lengths of fabric are coated in white paint applied with a squeegee or a broom, work that anticipates much of what ZERO and the monochrome painters would do later in the decade. He was erratic, difficult and repeatedly out of favour, travelled restlessly, and died in Krefeld in 2003.
A German market that has strengthened considerably as the pre-history of ZERO has been reassessed, with the early 1950s Verweissungen at the top and clearly ahead of the large later output, which is uneven. Dating is the central difficulty, since Zangs worked erratically, reworked older pieces and did not keep systematic records; expert opinion and the artist's estate are the reference. The works incorporate found objects, newspaper and household paint on unstable supports, so condition and past restoration are material.
Pankok, North Africa and the Krefeld prize
After the war Zangs studied under Otto Pankok at the Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf, then travelled widely in Italy, France, Algeria, Egypt and Morocco. He turned from figurative painting to abstraction in the early 1950s, and from 1952 made the Verweissungen; that year he received the art prize of the city of Krefeld.
Expelled from France in 1978, he returned to Germany for good, and in the 1980s made overpainted newspapers and posters and computer-generated drawings. His estate is managed by the Herbert Zangs Estate Archive Maulberger, the central source for research and authentication of his work.
Whitebank Fine Art is an art advisory and gallery, not an auction house, and is not affiliated with any auction house or with the artist, their estate or their representatives. This page describes the range we advise on. Nothing here is investment advice.
